Coming up, the new JW collab. I get a new one from LT
Wright Knives and great fixed blades for trail
and camp. I'm Bob DiMarco. This is the Knife Junkie Podcast.
Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast, your weekly dose of knife
news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your
host, Bob the knife junkie DeMarco.
Welcome back to the show. One of my favorite comments this past week was from
Lone Wolf 597 about LT Wright Knives interview. He
says, Love LT Wright Knives. Some of the sharpest
useful Scandi blades I own. Bob, check out the forest
trail that might be right with a W up your alley.
Thanks for a great interview and thank you Lone Wolf for the dad joke. I
love a good pun. Next was from Trent
Costello. And he just said simply cool guy. And I
couldn't agree with you more, Trent. Not only do we agree on big
knives, but yeah, man, LT Wright is a, is a
very cool guy. Great story to tell. If you haven't heard the interview
yet, definitely check it out. I am suddenly hooked on his
knives. I've got one and we're going to be giving away one
and hopefully I have more in my future. All right, that said,
let's get to a pocket. What's in his pocket?
Let's find out. Here's the knife junkie with
his pocket. Check of knives. First up, in my front right pocket,
I had the beautiful and once coveted
Emerson tack. Now, I say once coveted because
this was the Emerson Persian. It was out for
a while, a long time ago and then it went away and everyone
wanted one and they were very expensive and hard to find on the
secondary market. Well, thankfully Emerson,
Ernie Emerson and Emerson knives came back out with the
Persian, now called the Ptac. You can see that right there,
PTAC on the blade. They're one of the
only blade companies, knife companies whose
billboarding I like. It's this and Microtech and maybe
one or two others. But this knife is great. When it first came out,
I was so excited to see that finally there was an
Emerson Persian or Ptac, now called
Within Reach. Super comfortable and ergonomic,
like most Emerson knives, puts that point, which
is a, an upswept trailing point, something that's kind of
trendy these days, kind of in direct contradiction
to the trendiness of the sheep's foot in the wharncliffe over the
past 10 years. And what I, what I was getting
at is that ergonomic sort of pistol grip handle puts that point
in a reasonable place, especially for thrust
this the usual recipe. 154 cm blade
steel with G10 and titanium liners. Yes,
a little bit of lock stick when you first get it. All Emersons go
through an adolescent phase, but all the great people you know and
love today go through an adolescent phase. So
don't, don't look down your nose at an Emerson because it's not
immediately perfect on the action. All right,
so that's what I had in my front right pocket. Love that thing. One of
only two non waved Emersons in my collection.
Next up I had the Gateway Barlow
from Jack Wolf knives. This is from the,
this is from their within reach. Let me
wipe this off from there. Within reach lying
here, the gateway line. This is The Gateway Barlow.
154cm blade steel on that beautiful clip point
blade. Nice plunging straight on
that edge. Gives you a lot of life in the knife. And
then that, that cutting trajectory bellies
out which is great. And then puts that point nice and low
for all sorts of utility cuts. This one of course has that
beautiful rosewood handle there. I love that
with the shield and the triple fluted steel bolsters.
These are only 75 bucks. And
if you know Jack Wolf knives, if you done your research or bought
any, you know that the premium line is very, very expensive
by comparison, like $300 more.
But this is a great way to get into a Jack Wolf knife. If you
love their designs. Love the fit
of the Jack Wolf knives but don't want to pay for the finish and the
materials of a premium line. I feel a sneeze coming on. So if
I suddenly sneeze out of the blue, excuse me
in advance. I love this thing. This is the
one Jack Wolf knife that I don't feel obligated to drop
in a leather pocket slip. Though I often do
just to keep it oriented north to south in my
pocket. Because I don't like it when, when knives are loose in your
pocket and they just kind of fall sideways against your leg. That kind of drives
me nuts. All right, next up, one I've been carrying non stop since
I got it. This is one of the new production runs. This is
a production sample of the new
Tkal Knives Agent 001, which is on the way.
My design collaboration with Tim of TKL Knives
started the whole agent series based
on the Bob Loveless sub hilt fighter. It's a slender
double edged clip point. You're probably saying it's a drop point,
but take it from me, the designer, it is a clip point. Love
this thing dearly. I love the fact that it's now
machined by Nick Chuprin of In the CC
knives. Look at the shouldering and the, what do you
call it, chamfering on this beauty. And then of course you've got
the mill lines on the bevels.
Just a gorgeous knife. This is coming out for everyone to buy
far and wide on November 1st. Now just a
note. I have been saying October 1st for quite a while because
that's what Tim told me. And then he sent me a picture of his production
calendar saying how did I screw that up? I think he thought
10 was actually the 11th month of the year.
So these will be out November 1st, just in time for
Christmas. This one here is wearing that
gorgeous battle lock handle
scale set here. Really super grippy.
Made by the same people who make SIG
and FN USA
pistol and rifle grips. Super grippy, super
durable FRN. I ordinarily go in for
G10 and Micarta but I am really loving
these Battle lock grips. They will
be coming. They're available in like a thousand different colors.
They can turn that fancy high end super
ballistic plastic basically into any color. But
I've noticed on the green and the desert tan that I have
a super saturation even on a dullish color
like desert tan. It the the coloring is amazing. So
I'm really excited about the battle grips. Last
up for emotional support today. One I haven't carried or
put in my bag, I should say, in quite some time. I had my
Randall made number two six seven.
This is the number two fighting stiletto. The dash seven
part refers to the blade length. It's a seven inch blade.
Beautiful double or quad hollow
ground bevels and a thick medial ridge all the way,
nearly all the way to the tip. This thing is one hell
of a fighting knife. One hell of a beautiful dagger.
This is with the stacked leather
commando style handle incidentally, or
just if you want to know, I bought this and my other Randall made
knife off of Knifecenter. They are one of the few
dealers that will get advanced copies if
you if you will, from Randall Made and they just sell them.
Ordinarily I would have to order that
knife from Randall and wait 7 years now to
get my preferred version. Luckily
knifecenter.com had my preferred version of this knife which
is the commando grip. That's the profile of that handle with the
stacked leather handle, the double brass quillian, et cetera,
et cetera. So I just happened to luck out and also
this was when I just so happened to have Randall
made. Money in my account, my knife
slush fund. So I got that, of course, comes with the beautiful
leather sheath here, Q7 on the back.
You got an Arkansas Whetstone in there. So this is what
I had on me. My Esk was the random A2.7.
I had the beautiful TK knives
agent 001 here in the new version, which will be dropping
November 1st. A refined production of this
amazing knife. This. This
version of it for me. I have this new
wire horizontal Ulti clip on it.
So awesome. Love that thing. I had the Jack Wolf knives
Gateway Barlow. A beauty at
a fraction of the price of a normal premium Jack Wolf
knives knife. And then of course, I had the P tap from
Emerson knives on. Let me know what you had on you. I'm
very curious. Always like to find out what. What people who
enjoy this show are carrying. All right, I
mentioned the agent 001. I have something else
on offer. Now, you can't buy an agent 001 through me.
You do have to go to TKL Knives to order one of those.
But I have something cool right here that I'm selling.
That's a nice junkie Zippo. That's right. I just got a. A bee in
my bonnet to get myself a
Zippo with my logo on it beautifully
emblazoned on there. Now this is. I put my own insert in
there with the double jets because I like to smoke cigars and that's how I
prefer to light them. But I. I bought
five extras. And of course, this is the insert that actually
comes with it. The windproof regular Zippo insert.
I bought six of these at once. One for me, and actually someone
else just bought the first one. So there are four of these left. If you're
interested. Let me know. 50 bucks for the knife Junkie
Zippo. That is a little more than what
I paid for it. That way I can pay for shipping and have a little
extra for my effort. Let me know if you want one. I'd be
happy to send you one and give you the details on how to do
so. The knife Junkie Zippo.
I don't know. Does anyone still smoke out there? I don't smoke cigarettes, but
I do like a cigar and I love the Zippo jet
inserts. Also. You should probably always have a way to light
your way to cut your way through something or to set stuff on fire.
So always have a flashlight on you, always have a knife, and always have a
lighter. And if you're gonna always have a lighter, why not make it a Zippo
I, I mean, are you American? Get yourself a Zippo.
And if you're not American, are you a man of adventure or a woman of
adventure? Do you not want a lighter that you can light and then throw in
a pool full of gasoline? If there's a villain in there, you're
gonna want that. So check it out. Just get in touch with me
and well, I got one for you. And if I don't, I'll
order more. It was really fun to do that. I love Zippo
lighters. I've always had a little collection going and I figured, why not have
one with my boat. Okay, next
up we're going to talk about the gentleman junkie
giveaway. This month we are going to be giving away this
beauty right here. This is the
Frontier Valley from LT Wright Knives.
So LT came on the show and he
said he wanted to send me a knife to give away to
someone who is helping support the show. You know, gentlemen, junkies help
support the show no matter how they do it. You can do it through
Patreon, you can do it through the join button here
and become a member on YouTube. But
for October, this is the giveaway knife. October 16th we'll be
giving away this beautiful LT Wright Frontier
Valley. Now, when it showed up, the handle was all nicely
oiled up and unicolored, but I have put it in the sheath.
The sheath has soaked up some of that oil. So a couple more times
in the hand or re oilings of it, you'll have a
universal color there on that gorgeous
micarta. This thing is beautiful. This is
AEBL steel, a full flat ground
everyday sort of trail knife or
you know, backpacking knife. You've got a full on 90
degree spine for throwing sparks. You can see how
LT put that 90 degree spine on there.
There you have the shed or
the shack I should say, and all the rest. I'm very proud to be giving
this beauty away to one lucky Gentleman Junkie on
October 16, 2025. Beautiful
leather sheath. Also that it comes with. There's a little marking on here.
I'm sure that'll buff out or what have you. But this is the
way it came to me and this is how I will be giving it to
you. Beautiful leather sheath, beautiful knife.
I'm very proud and happy to be giving that away to one lucky
gentleman junkie. Speaking of gentleman junkies and
Patreon and other type things, I just want to mention
Maker Monday, this is one of the features that Jim has come up with
to give you value added on our patreon Page
Maker Mondays. Here this time is Bob
Kramer. Bob Kramer, a famed kitchen knife
maker. Now I would love to talk with this gentleman right here
on the show. You can check out all the information about him, his
most collectible knives, his influences and legacy
and all the rest. I've, I've had another
Kramer on this show and I'd love to have this Kramer on. He is
very well known amongst the professional chef set and
very well known for his knives. So we have a new feature
featuring him. So every Monday you can expect My Maker
Monday on Patreon as well as knife notes as well as
the Friday funniest and the interview exclusives and
everything else we offer you from becoming a
Patreon member. All right, that's
it. That does it for this. Check us out on Patreon. Quickest way to do
that is to go to the knife junkie.com Patreon scan the QR code on
your screen. If you get it an entire year at once,
you save 12%. So go check us out. Goodnightjunkie.com
Patreon then SL
Adventure delivered your monthly subscription for handpicked outdoor
survival, EDC and other cool gear from our expert
team of outdoor professionals, the knife junkie.com
battlebox. You're listening to the Knife Junkie podcast.
And now here's the Knife Junkie with the Knife Life news.
First one up in Knife Life News today fits perfectly into our
great fixed blades for trail and camp theme today.
This is a new one that'll be coming out in January 2026. January
5th. So keep your eyes peeled for this. But this is called the
Boker Brassa. The Boker Brassa, it's a compact
fixed blade for backpacking and camping
or anything else you need a compact fixed blade for. But this is
designed by Thomas Ward. It's, it's quite a little beauty, I gotta
say. 2.83 inches.
A double jimped drop point blade of 14C
28N bob. What do you mean by double jimped? Is that just two
jims? No sir. That is two runs of
jimping. So something for your thumb and something for your extended
forefinger as you use that tip.
This. Here it is right here. You'll see it on screen. Quite
a beauty. I, I think is this knife a nicely
curved yet neutral handle. You got that
straight back and that curved grip for the fingers
bolted on milled G10 scales. Comes with the
Kydex sheath. Only 1.9 ounces. So
feather light this one. The MSRP, a
manufacturer suggested retail price of this is
$43. So check this one out. I really like
the look of that. I just have to say, say to editorialize here, I love
the look of the sharpening notch and the finger grip and then the
overall profile of the whole knife. I think it's a pretty sweet looking knife
here. All right, next up, one you're going to see
live and in person and in color coming up here
shortly. The day the JW Collab
scuffle. Now, you've been around long enough to know that JW
Collab is the Jack Wolf knives collaboration
branch. So this is the third in that
series. We've seen the Tango and the
Collusion and now we have the Scuffle. And this is with
famed designer Nick Rogers of Niche Designs.
Look at that beauty. Absolutely beautiful. Inspired
by old Western Bowie style knives and
also of course old school jack knives.
This one though is much bigger, I gotta say, by
comparison to most other Jack Wolf knives or all others
actually at 3.54 inches in blade length,
clip point, full height hollow grind. Except for
that, that fuller there. So nearly full height. We'll say s
90v with a fuller and a the
first Jack Wolf knife with a traditional
slipper tab on there. And don't make a mistake. That choil is for
sharpening. That's a sharpening knot and not a finger choil.
I'm sure someone's going to jam their finger in there and get cut and say,
but really that's for sharpening. And you get years of life out of this. If
you look at that plunge grind versus that sharpening notch
versus the thinness of the hollow grind, you'll be able to sharpen this
until the cows come home or at least until your
mortal coil expires. Jack Wolf knives
first kind of traditional old school flipper,
but with that big, big size. Also a first with the pivot
column. This one has ceramic bearings and
super smooth action. A bolster lock, except for the full
tie version which is a frame lock
and comes in five different colorways.
Sculpted titanium clip. These are dropping October
3rd, 2025. So if you're watching
this as it drops in three days, save up your shekels.
You'll, you'll be able to get this only 3.5 ounces on
average. They, they vary due to materials, but not by
much. MSRP of this sucker is
350. So a beautiful, beautiful knife
and you'll be seeing it here shortly.
Okay, next up, the Civivi yonder. We all know that knife. It
won Best Buy at Blade Show
2024. This is a
Halloween version. Now this was designed by Zach Whitmore. You know
him maybe as the guy who used to be in all of
the Blade HQ videos when he was with their
marketing team there. And Zach in the wild since he's
left there. This Beauty is a
2.88-inch 14C 28N
spay style blade. A lot of people call that a reverse
Tanto, but let's call that a spade blade with a
continuous belly from Ricasso to tip. Really
nice looking knife. Thumb stud actuation. Or you can
use that ambidextrous bar lock should you prefer to
be fancy. But this one has that Halloween theme.
So you've got the orange G10 with the black inlays
looking a lot like a jack. Okay. Reversible
deep carry, bent pocket clip, 2.68
ounces. Nice small utility
oriented knife. Very much in keeping with
this other Civivis. And all of a sudden I'm forgetting which
one I'm trying to mention. You know it the one that they made
50 million versions of. So kind of in that same
size range and use case. This
will be out soon because we are nearly at the end
of September. Well, we're at the beginning of October as you
listen to this. So this will be out in the next couple of weeks.
$74 MSRP for the yonder
Halloween edition. Just looking at this thing, I
really like it. It'd be cool if they made it larger. I'm glad they
don't because I would have to buy it if they did. Last
up, we were just talking about Jack Wolf knives. This one I have to be
100% honest with you. Really made me think of Jack Wolf
knives as soon as it popped up. But this is a cool one. This is
from Kaiser, called the Trestle A. Their
first slip joint knife, I think. I
mean traditionally manufactured. Not manufactured, but
traditionally designed slip joint knife with a kick
that stops the blade and all of that. But this is an
Azo my design. He's the head designer at
Kaiser as. Oh my, look at that. Now that's one of the
limited editions you're seeing there. But this is a single bladed jack
with a 2.9-inch quick point blade. All
right, get ready for this. You can get this in M390
with a camo carbon fiber. You can get this in
S45VN with mother of
pearl. And I believe there's a wood version of that too. You can
get it with a Damascus with wood. You can get it in 14C
28N with Micarta Overall, eight different
colorways for this beauty. And
yeah, I I've seen a few of these out there, a few videos of
this so far and I think it's really cool. It's got an almost
half stop meaning it's the blade does not stop at 90
degrees. It stops at, I don't know, 110 degrees or something.
So it gives you even more clearance for your hands if
you're being a fancy pants and closing it with one finger, which I've done
many times and cut myself even on camera here, so maybe having
a not so half half stop is a good idea. But a pretty
long, nice beefy blade there. They range in
price from $80 to yes,
$300 depending on materials
and like I said, eight varieties. These are available now
with some limited edition versions with different
colorways and materials in the office. So check
this out. This is the Kaiser Trestle. Want to sell
your custom knives online? With Launch Cart, you can easily create your own
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knife junkie.com launch and turn your passion into a
business. It's time for some knife history with the first tool
here on the Knife Junkie podcast. If you've ever slipped an opinel
knife into your pocket, you've carried more than just a blade.
You've carried a piece of French culture. The story begins in
the late 19th century in the Savoie region of the French
island Alps. A young blacksmith named Joseph Opinel
wanted to design a knife that was simple, reliable and
affordable for everyday people. In 1890,
he forged the first prototype. Its beauty lay in its
simplicity. A wooden handle, a folding blade,
and nothing unnecessary. It was a tool made for
farmers, shepherds and workers, not aristocrats.
But word spread quickly. By the early 1900s, the
Opinel had become so popular in rural France that
it was sometimes called the knife of the peasant.
But the design struck a chord far beyond the
countryside. Intellectuals, artists, and even
royalty began to carry them. Pablo Picasso
famously used an opinel to carve his sculptures. Even
King Charles of England, he was a prince back then,
has been photographed with one tucked in his pocket.
One of the Opinel's clever features is its rotating safety ring,
the ViroBlock, patented in 1955.
With a quick twist, the blade Locks
open or shuts, turning a humble pocket knife into something
sturdy enough for serious work. Yet
despite this innovation, the overall design has barely changed in
more than 130 years. The silhouette is instantly
recognizable. A beechwood handle with a graceful curve and a
sharp clip point blade. Collectors often talk
about the numbering system. From 2 to 13, each side
was. Each size was made for different hands and different
tasks. The number eight, which you see right here, was just
the right balance of size and utility. It became the
most iconic, the most embodiment,
the highest embodiment of the Opinel spirit right here.
But what makes the Opinel truly special isn't just its
design. It's the philosophy behind it.
Joseph Opinel wanted a knife that was universal, something
anyone could own. It was priced to be affordable, and it
never lost that reputation. To this day, an Opinel
costs just a few dollars. Yet it has found its way into
museums of design and the pockets of explorers,
hunters, artists and royalty. The knife
born for shepherds, embraced by artists and carried across the world,
the Opinel is proof that sometimes the
simplest tools are the ones that last. Because when
you carry an Opinel, you don't just hold a knife, you
hold a tradition. And that's this week's look at knife history with
the first tool. And now back to the Knife Junkie podcast.
Okay, we just spoke about this knife and here it is in living
color. The absolutely beautiful JW Collab
scuffle. This a design
collaboration, as the name would imply. JW Collab with
Mitch Designs. Nick Rogers. I love his
work. He's done a number of really great knives like the Egress
and the Ingress. I have one of his prototypes
from. From early on. He's done a lot of beautiful
kitchen knives, but this one just takes the cake.
It's very much inspired by both traditional
slip joint knives, slip joint single bladed
jack knives, but also western bowie knives.
That's right, the good old fashioned fighting, hunting,
camping all around bowie knife. And we can see that
here. That three and a half, almost 3.6 inch blade of
S90V with A, with a nearly full height hollow grind
that opens so, so nicely. All right, so this one
is the linen green linen micarta with
stonewashed titanium bolster version.
This is a bolster lock. As I mentioned earlier, this
does come in a full titanium version and that is
the only frame lock among them. They are mostly
bolster locks. So if you look at the blade here, you'll
notice it's got this gorgeous speckled and
flecked stonewashed blade. It also
comes in a grinder, satin and also a DLC
black version. I love that swedge going down the full length of
the straight clip there and that super
thin S90V blade. I've had this for a
couple of days now and have been really digging it. This is
one that I'm proud and happy to carry in my front right
pocket. Not that I'm not proud and happy to carry every Jack Wolf
knife production I have, but this one really fills that
front right pocket niche for me. Niche
designs, but that's because of the size. I love the size
and the rough and tumble sort of attitude
for this. Now this one, as you can see has the bronzed
pivot collar and the bronze
sculpted titanium pocket clip. You can see some of my blue jeans
right there under the clip. That's just because they're.
I'm wearing a pair of old and busted blue jeans.
But the clip is not that stout that it's going to tear your jeans up.
You got a bronzed backspacer here. Two runs
of jimping. Just an awesome, awesome nut.
Really happy about this. As you're watching this, keep your eyes
peeled in the next two days for a an up close
video of this knife. Second up in the
state of the collection. I want to show you this beauty. This is
from LT Wright Knives. Right after I
interviewed lt, I went on his website and bought this.
And then he surprised me by throwing one right in the box
for giveaway. This is the beautiful small
northern hunter. So very much in the spirit of that
Canadian belt knife profile. Just
a gorgeous, gorgeous knife. I had
the large version of this on loan for
a while and really loved that. I think that was Kepler Nessart who loaned
that to me and I really, really dug that knife.
This one, I knew I had to have this profile in my collection
so I got the mini version. Same thing as I mentioned with the other one.
The titanium has sort of, or, I'm sorry, the
micarta has sort of lost some of the oil when I stuck it in the
sheath. But through carry, carry and use,
this will all become one universal color.
Really nice, really sharp and an excellent
spine for throwing sparks.
All right, one, one thing to note here is that this is a
Civivi fob. I will be putting my own leather fob on
here soon enough. But this rides
deeply enough in the sheath that it does require
a little something to help it tug out.
So we're gonna get two great fixed blade knives for trail and camp.
But before we do Let me show you some of this cool merch that Jim
has come up with over this past week. You can get this
rotten around the pumpkin patch kind of a creepy design.
Very, very seasonal and I'm loving it. You can get it on
T shirts, you can get it on all manner of apron,
hoodie, whatever you want. Just go to the knife junkie.com
shop. You'll see it there amongst the many, many other
designs that Jim has come up with for our all of our
cool merchandise and you'll be
a proud knife junkie merch owner. And it's a
conversation starter so just put that on, go to the
barbecue or the pumpkin patch or whatever you're doing to
enjoy the fall and meet like minded people.
Okay. So great fixed blade knives for trail and camp. Let me just,
I'll start out with this knife. This one is awesome. Why is it
good for trail and camp? Well because
it's got a super useful saber ground
blade, a really great shape and it's small
and light just like its cousin here or brother,
the LT Wright Frontier Valley. Now I'm showing both of
these at once because I've talked about both of them already but these
are the first two. I'm going to kick off this list of 11
great trail and and camp knives
this north so I have not really carried this one at all.
Now the the Frontier Valley. This is going to a lucky
gentleman junkie so I'm keeping this one pristine and just
showing it off on the show and on Thursday night knives. But
this one I've been carrying around obsessively since I got it
less than a week ago. And yeah, I am
going to get around putting a different fob on it but for now I
will leave that on there. These are perfectly sized to go
with larger knives but they're also really
nice and light and I am told that
backpackers and and avid thru hikers like
really light knives. So these will fit the bill. They're big enough
at 3 1/2 inches in blade length here and 3.25
inches in blade length here to get almost
all the work you need with a knife done, you
know, barring batoning and that kind of thing. But
for food prep and for carving stakes and all that kind of thing,
these are great whittling, what have you,
great knives for that purpose. So these will, these
will do you right because they're nice and light. I love
personally this one right here is just so up my alley.
I love that leaf shaped blade and I also love
that they both have 90 degree spines.
Lt Wright makes a special effort to, to give
them nice sharp spines for throwing sparks, for getting
that fire start. Because you don't want to be a sucker and use your
lighter unless it's a knife junkie zippo. You want
to throw sparks and impress the, impress the camp.
So definitely check out these LT Wright knives. Love this.
And I love the other one too, though the other one is, is not mine,
it's yours it you just don't have it yet.
Okay, next up, the knives by Nuge Primitive
Wicket. This one is great. It rides right
in the pocket ambidextrously. So if you want
to carry it normal
for Saber draw, which is actually how I normally carry it,
you have. Either way you drop it in, it's going to work. But that's
something I really like about that sheath, is that it's a drop in sheath,
much like a leather pouch sheath, like what we were just looking at with the
LT Wright knives. Ease of
resheathing. You don't have to worry about how it's going in so much.
You just can put it down. You don't want to put this on the ground
or whatever when you're, when you're doing work around the campsite, you want
to just put it somewhere and it's easy to find that opening
and easy to drop it in if you put it in reverse. You can
always go back and change it, but the point is easily drop
into the sheet. All right, now that, now that that's
out of the way, here's the knife. All the
knives by Nudes knives that have the primitive moniker
have a jute wrapped handle which is
nice and thin, nice and grippy. And due to the broadness
of the handle, north to south, you still get a great grip
despite the thinness and it's quite comfortable.
This also has a very sharp 90 degree spine on that
80cr V2 blade. And being
a primitive wicket, it has the
scandi ground load, scandi grinds, great for
carving, great for all sorts of outdoor
cutting tasks, but especially those kind of carving tasks
where you're removing large pieces of wood and
just want to get down to the, to the thick of it
or I guess down to the thin of it. This thing
is a beauty and it just seems to go with
the whole nature theme here. So nice and light, nice
and thin, easy to carry in the pocket, easy to in and out of the
sheath. No matter how you put it in, it's good to go. That is
the primitive wicket. And just as an aside, here is
the Primitive
Wicket neck knife. This is the small one
and somehow the sheath is caught strangely
on something on my desk and I can't show that to you. But this is
the small one and this is the large one and both of
them make great knives. And just so you know, this
jute is very, very comfortable against the naked skin.
I carry this neck knife often just against my
chest without it harshing me or, or bothering
me. You think jute might be itchy? It's not sackcloth,
it's jute. And the way it's done, impregnated with
epoxy and then singe. It's nice and smooth but
nice and grippy. So whether you choose the large one or
the, or the neck knife, you're good to go with the knives by needs
Wicket or Primitive Wicket xl.
All right, next up, you know that no list is going to be
complete without this, so I'll just get this out of the way. I love this
knife. This is the Mora knife companion. I have
a few other Moras. I've got that old number two with the red
wooden handle and I've got the, the car,
the carbon steel one. But none of them
really do it for me like the companion does. Yeah, it's true.
It has a three quarter tang and it does not have
a 90 degree spine which is strange to me. It really should
being a great camp knife but I think that would be easily
enough done with three and a half minutes and some
sandpaper. So I will do that
at some point. But really this is just a great, great
all around knife. Four and a half inches of
of blade here and a nice scandi
grind on it. Nice grippy rubberized handles with the
plastic bolsters here, if you can call them
bolsters, that's the stainless steel.
Most of them are stainless and these things are just
awesome. They speak for themselves. They're great outdoors knives but
also untold by the great and powerful Ed Calderon that
they make for great tactical knives too. If you ever, heaven
forbid, had to fight with a knife, this would be a great one. He says
to do it with Made in Sweden. An awesome sheath.
All of this whole package is like just barely over
20 bucks these days with inflation.
But I when these first came on my radar they were below 20 bucks.
Got a nice thumb push off and a sheath that you
can just clip on anything. I've had this around on
my gym shorts when I've been around doing chores
around the house and it works great. This is the Mora knife
and end next night, next one
Is going a little more premium, a little more high end.
This is the tops Knives Tex Creek. I just showed
this one off recently. Last week when I was showing
off my tops knives knife. This one has gotten a lot
of outdoor use here. A great pouch
style sheath. This is really what this is the knife and the
sheath that really got me to appreciate this kind of sheet.
I used to think, oh, it's not tactical enough. I need a strap. I need
something to make sure it stays in when I'm doing my ops. Well, I don't
do ops so I don't have to worry about jumping out of airplanes. I don't
have to worry about running from the enemy and my knife falling out. I'm just
putzing around the backyard. And this works great.
So you just kind of use it, drop it in. Gravity will take it all
the way down, but if not, it comes out nice and easily.
And you've got a beautiful full grain leather sheath
here. But that is 1095 blade. Steel
four. And let me measure that right here.
Yeah, about four and an eighth, four and a quarter depending on where you measure
it. Inch 1095 blade with that
acid rain finish. You can see the, the hardening line, the hamon
there kind of running down the center of that bevel.
Beautiful G10 handle scales with the red liners.
Really, really nice in the hand. Feels
so good in hand. When you look at it from the top down, you'll see
it's contoured with a palm swell. Got nice jimping
there that engages the naked thumb. Or if you use
this with gloves, which I have plenty of times. Feels great in
hand that way too. And you get a lot of grip as the leather
from your gloves sinks into those gyms there.
Made in the usa. I like this one with the
lanyard on it. I like to do it like this. Wrap it around
the back of the hand like that and
then use it like this. Or you can kind of choke back a little and
do light chopping with it. If that looked as
lame as it did to you, as it did me. There we go, right hand.
That works much better. I'm a right hander, what can I say?
But if you've got this smallish 4 inch fixed blade knife and
you do need to engage in a little bit of chopping, just use
that lanyard though. The handle to blade
ratio is about one to one. That's the one reason
I didn't daily carry this. I bought this to daily carry
under my shirt with a very nice Kydex sheath. I
Made for it but discovered that the handle's just too long for that.
And I love this knife so much I didn't want to cut it down
just to carry it sometimes under my shirt which upon
reflection seemed ridiculous. This is just a great outdoor
camping and trail sort of knife. Also
1095 blade steel, super tough but also easy to
resharpen. I chipped this one before hitting
chain link fence and other stuff while chopping.
This is the tops. Texpred next one. This
one is new to me. I've had this for a few months now as
we record this. But I've carried it around recently quite
a bit and I'm loving it. This is the three dog knife
Mac M A K which stands for multi
animal knife. This is the in house
brand from Northern Knives up in Alaska.
If you spend any time here on Thursday night knives, you know Northern
knives. And Mike comments quite a bit. He's a. He's a
regular here on the show. He sent me this and then he sent me another
one which we gave away to a gentleman junkie not that long
ago. Beautiful outdoor knife. Another
four and a quarter inch blade here. This one is M390 blade
steel. You've got nice G10 handles, nice and
thick so really hand filling. But you also have that
anzo pattern ground into the
or carved or whatever milled into the handles which give you great
grip. But you also get this nice thumb ramp
on the side for all your chest pulls and
the other different kind of specialized cuts you might do with this
M390 of course we know as the super steel holds an edge for
a long time and is a
great has high corrosion resistance.
This made in Alaska by three dog knife. Multi
animal knife is definitely meant for outdoors hunting,
camping and all sorts of
tasks. A great sheath here, all sorts of outdoor tasks.
Great shake. A sheath here made by D. Johnson, also an
Alaskan maker that just fits the blade beautifully.
It's a nice blend between pouch
sheath which is easy to return back
to place and Kydex which is form fitting. This is
a pretty form fitting leather sheath. So I mean this is not going to
fall out easily at all. I'm shaking it pretty hard and
it's not falling out at all. Whereas that Tex Creek would come
flying out. No judgments. I like them both. But this
is a real nice and secure knife and this is something to think about. If
you have a lanyard on and you're walking through the woods, you don't want it.
You don't want your knife to easily. If you Have a lanyard say for
instance, snag on a branch as you walk by a tree and
pull your knife out without you knowing. With this one that's more
of a possibility because of how loose the blade sheath the
blade is. Nishi. So just something to
note. Next one comes to us from
BTS Knives in Ukraine. This is a family business out of Ukraine.
I have two of their knives. My youngest daughter
has one of their knives. The one that's made just for
kids. This one is great. This is called the Fin Light.
It's a, it's a Puukko style small utility
knife. It came with the regular blonde colored
handles. I just sort of stained it. I like this red color
and other than that I've used this one quite a bit. As you can
tell from looking at the 1066 blade.
1066 is a high carbon steel one. That
one that I have chipped, I must be honest, not this one but
I have their, their MP5
knife and I have chipped that doing chopping and hitting,
hitting objects I shouldn't have
hit but I mean same thing has happened to me with that 1095
from tops on the Tex Creek. So no
judgments about the steel. It is 1095 or I mean
610 66. So you might be
tempted to do all sorts of stuff with these blades.
Just know that they are susceptible to damage that all, all
types of blade steel are susceptible to.
Very comfortable in hand with that rounded off contoured
handle. I get a full four finger grip on it though. It's a small knife
at three and a quarter inch. I'm guessing three and a quarter.
Let's see. Yep, three and a quarter inch blade,
Scandi grind. Just a really, really excellent
knife. The thing I like about this is that
this beautiful sumptuous leather sheath with the white stitching. I'm a sucker
for white stitching. Has these three
holes for putting on Ulti clips or DCC
clips or whatever kind of clip you want. But
I've never been inspired to do that. I just like to keep this
in the sheath and then just drop it in the pocket. It it comes
out easily. You can just, you can just grab the, this
little 10, this little 550
fob here, pull it out of the pocket and this
will snag on the side of the pocket and then you got your knife in
here. But a really handy, handy sheath.
Beautiful. Made out of that leather.
These BPs knives out of Ukraine family business as
I mentioned, very, very reasonably priced, I
dare say inexpensive. So check them out,
especially if you're someone who talks about supporting Ukraine, support them this way.
Also, it's, they're really, really good
knives. And I'm a sucker for a family knife business.
We know that. All right, next up. Now this one
is the only cold steel in this list. I've decided to keep this
list to one representative per brand.
And I know you're thinking, oh, it's an SRK or it's the trail
master. It's one of those knives that Bob talks about all the time. Well,
it's not. It is the roach
belly. This one of course has a sheath I made myself.
But the sheath that comes with is pretty darn good,
albeit cheap. And I've also wrapped it with jute
cord. This is just personal modifications, but
the reason I, I put this knife on here is that A,
it's super light, B, it's got that
1060, I'm sorry, 4166
Krupp steel from Germany. So it's a nice tough,
cheap stainless steel that sharpens really easily. It holds
a pretty decent edge, gets wickedly sharp. But the
reason I have this on here is because I knew someone
back in my former days of New York City who, he was a
cousin of a friend of mine who had spent some two, two and
a half, three years backpacking across the country, living on
his wits and his know how in the woods.
And this was his one and only knife. Not this one in particular, but the
cold steel roach belly. And he just loved it. And I've
had this, this is written in my, in my car for years now. And
I've used it for odds and ends here and there. But I
love knowing that this, I'll
say it, cheapo cold steel knife, which you can still get for
under 20 bucks, just goes the distance. I
know someone for whom it went the distance for more than three years
of everything, whether it's cutting food or cutting wood or making
stakes for the tent or whatever it was, you know, was doing with these,
with this thing. It's a really robust, cheap
little knife. Also, not for nothing, would
make a pretty decent self defense knife if heaven forbid, you needed a
knife for that purpose. But just a really
outstanding blade. I always wish they'd make a fancier version
of this. 4 and 4.6 blade inches
in blade length and a nice clean curved cutting edge.
Great point, nice jimping. It has
a smooth FRN handle with some sort of wood
grain texturing in it. But I did my own little
carving in there and then wrapped this jute and just
it's not coming out of the hand now. I mean it's so, so perfectly
tractionist. I just made that word up. It has really great
traction, especially now with the little modifications
I've done. But this is a great knife also. If you've just
got a hankering for a new knife but you don't have a lot of money
to spend, what a great knife to get. I highly,
highly recommend the Roach Belly. I do have its brother, the,
the Finn whatever Finn Wolf I think it is. And, and then
the Canadian belt knife and the other knives in this
cheapo line or high value line. But this one is
by far my favorite. I got it
originally to test out making Kydex sheaths, but it's
become one of my favorites.
Okay, next up. This one is from off grid knives. This is
the tracker and I've used this one quite a bit too.
You know I have a lot of knives in my collection. I don't use them
all but this in this
list. Most of these I've used quite a bit. Absolutely.
And this one, the Tracker, I have it used. This
one now comes in an XXL version. So a much
larger version of this. But I love this knife
first of all very hand filling and comfortable handle here
with the milled and textured sort of
lizard scale. G10 here
bunky pen G10 or Micarta. I just frankly I
can't tell and I don't know. But you got a full
flat grind here on that. Nice drop point blade. Kind of
reminiscent of like an SE or something like that. Really great
jimping. That's D2 Blade Steel Cryo D2
and a very comfortable knife in reverse grip. Not that I really
see you using this in reverse grip. You never know when you might have
to power down on something. This one I've used
for saplings, I've used this one on for vines. I've
also used this to make kindling and
what do you call them? Feather sticks. So just a really
great all around knife. Really excellent taco folded
over taco style sheath here with the
belt loop. You can of course remove the belt loop and put it on
your belt in another way or just drop it in your pack. One
thing I like about these drop loops is this velcro
snap situation here. So you don't have to take your belt off.
But it's nice and sturdy and will
under the pressure of your belt will definitely stay
locked down. Very nice fit into the
sheath itself and a great press off point for
the thumb. The so this is the tracker. If
this is too small for you at five and four and a half inches, you
can check out the XL or XXL version of this, which is
a pretty big beefy knife. But to me this one is
just hits that sweet spot. Off
grid knives, tracker and ultimate. Here
is the Apoc Survival Wallace
Fuko. Now I'm showing you this one. This is the
4 1/2 inch version, but the one I've used actually
is the very small version. This one is really
nice, they're both really great, but I guess you
want the larger one for the most all around useful.
But this one is nice and light and you could actually clip this
to your, the straps of your backpack. It has
a very useful ferro rod here and a
sharpener attached to the side so you're out in the
field. It gets dull, you can just run it over that and
give yourself a restored edge. Now the one thing about
these Apoc knives that is slightly
bewildering is that they don't have the 90
degree spine. You can still throw sparks with them though,
oddly enough I have with this one. But when you feel it,
it doesn't quite feel sharp. So maybe that's the best
of both worlds. It's more comfortable on the thumb, yet it can
still throw sparks. You've got a saber
grind on both of these, sort of emulating a
Scandi grind, which we all know is great for woodwork and
all sorts of outdoor tasks. But they do have a micro
bevel at the very tip and I mean at the very
edge. Keeping it maybe a little bit more
robust by making that edge a little more oblique than it would
be with a straight up scandi. Both of them
come with the same setup. Very nice Kydex sheath, the
sort of mini Tek Lok style belt
attachment and then the ferro rod.
So you, you choose your size, but I'm going to go with the Apocalypse
Survival Wallace Puukko. That's Mike Wallace and not
the guy from 60 Minutes. All right, last up, I have a
couple of Bark river knives that would fall nicely into this
category. For instance, this
beauty here, this, this sort of just outdoor
wharncliffe, great little side knife. But I'm
going with this. This is the Boon 2. I love this. This is the
largest one in this category.
The boon to just a super classic
outdoor knife. The kind of knife that the, that a lot of
young GIs were bringing at the beginning of World War II with them
overseas. This is the kind of hunting
outdoors clip point knife from the early 20th century
that eventually led to the K bar in a lot of
ways. And I just love it. I just love this nug. You've
got stack leather handles, so sort of traditional in that
way. Aluminum butt cap and aluminum double guard. This one
has 3V blade with the appleseed edge
or convex edge. Of course. It's a clip
point style blade with the fuller so that fuller lightens things up.
No, it's not for channeling blood out of whatever you
stab. It is not a blood groove. It is a fuller,
but just an overall super robust knife. It's got a
rat tail tang, but I have baton this
through wood. And I gotta say, to be 100% honest, these
little spacers have come loose and I've had to re glue them.
But I think that's an anomaly. I know bark river knives from my own
experience and what I've heard from other people who
handle their knives in a lot rougher way than I, that they are
extremely robust knives, especially with that
convex edge. So that is the boon 2
a knife anyone would be proud and happy to carry on their
belt at the campsite. All right, thanks for
joining me on this little jaunt down the
trail for great fixed blade knives for trail and
camp. I really appreciate it. Not just the knives, it's also the
sheets. They really have a lot to do with how great these knives
are. Let me know what you think the best outdoors knives are.
I'm open. I'm way open. A because I want to get more
and you know, I want to increase my collection with more
outdoors knives. But also you guys probably have more outdoors experience.
So I want to hear it. Let me know. All right. Don't forget
about the the Zippo lighter. The Knife Junkie
Zippo lighter. We'll see how these go. This one of course, has that
double insert. That is something that I have for myself. This does not
ship with that, but do check that out if you want
it. Let me know and we'll let range
postcast. All right. For Jim working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob
DiMarco saying until next time, don't take dull for an
answer. Thanks for listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. If you
enjoyed the show, please rate and review it. Review the podcast
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