Monday, March 28, 2011

The Three Most Useful Knives You Can Own: The Cheap


One of the points of emphasis of this blog is practicality (See? Right there in the title). In realistic terms, opracical often means cheap. This is especially true for knives: if you wanted, you could easily drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on wondrously engineered, precision honed uberblades from companies like Chris Reeve, Shun, or William-Henry. After doing so, you would probably proceed to leave your new investment in its display box for the rest of time, as actually using it would hurt the value.

First and foremost, knives are a tool, just like a hammer or a saw. They are meant to be used and abused. Spending a ton of money a single knife is a guaranteed way to forget that fact. This isn’t to say that expensive knives aren’t great knives (with a few notable exceptions), but you are likely to get a lot more use out of a cheaper knife.

That said, don’t rush out to the gas station, grab the $5 China special, and trust your life to it. Going cheap on a knife means you better be a lot more diligent about what you pick.

The best dirt-cheap fixed blade

Frost Mora
Ok, so it looks boring. And it’s kind of small. But Frost Moras offer a lot of value for practically nothing. First, the Mora uses an actual tool steel hardened to RC 59-60, for its edge, sandwiched between softer steels for flexibility and toughness. Second, the simple design is surprisingly tough: plenty of serious bushcraft type guys swear by it, and they use their knives for everything. In fact, from personal experience, my Mora has routinely outperformed the majority of pricier knives in edge retention and toughness (Cold Steel, looking at you.) Best part? It costs 12 bucks.

24 comments:

  1. I have a Chinese special myself. I wouldn't use it on a survivalist outing, but for urban use it's fine. Honestly, I like it mostly because I can open it with a flick of the wrist and it looks like something a martial arts villain would use. Right now I probably sound as bad as a woman who buys a car based on its color...

    ~H. Coct

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  2. Ooooh, for $12 you can't go wrong.

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  3. Man that looks like a really cool knife, I think I'm going to buy one!

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  4. got my trusty linear lock craftsman. dunno how good they are compared but i like it. its a very old one that has been kept in good condition. more of a sentimental thing though. im surprised those frost mora's are so well received but i have actually heard that name thrown around before. and only good things about them

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  5. This is great stuff. Have you ever heard of Randall knives?

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  6. I love how the cheapie is the knife you spend the least money on, yet usually does the most work.

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  7. I have a little bit of experience with Randalls. They're really great knives, beautiful pieces, but again I doubt I could ever bring myself to use it. Would love to own one though.

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  8. Damn 12 bucks? Thats a steal. Unfortunately i don't have much use for a fixed blade knife, since i'd much rather have something that folds up, and fits in my pocket for day to day use. I may still get it since it's a great knife, and dirt cheap. Thanks for the great post!

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  9. Wait for the next post sporktar!

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  10. Think you could post about balisongs? I'm looking to pick up one of them, only because the tricks look cool though. No idea how useful they are...

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  11. $12? Seems pretty reasonable to me!

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  12. Very informative post, thanks!

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  13. $12 bucks? Ordering one RIGHT NOW, no joke! Thanks for the tip!

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  14. Ordered one! All thanks to your info!

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  15. Thanks for the guide, need to arm myself! Following and supporting. alphabetalife.blogspot.com

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  16. Wow thanks for the heads up lol.
    followed!

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  17. good to know, could always use another

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  18. Man, how do you know so much about knives?!

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