Garuda is a mythological king of birds in several Eastern cultures. It is believed that the eagle-like figure is a protector and watchful creature. It’s an apt name for a knife designed to be a used in the outdoors in all types of environments and situations.
The Condor Tool & Knife Garuda series has a few knives, but the one we’re highlighting has a 5-inch black traction powder-coated blade made from 1075 high carbon steel, an alloy that’s tough and takes an edge easily. Its drop-point profile is simple and effective.
Here’s a nice video review from Everyday Tactical Vids
Unlike many of the fixed blades from Condor, the Garuda features handsome Micarta scales with a pinned construction.
Although NASA retired the Space Shuttle program a few years back, there are still grand plans for sending people back to the moon and eventually to Mars.
In honor of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, when Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon (with Buzz Aldrin a close second), we thought it’d be interesting to take a look back at the knives that have gone into space.
Camillus Mil-K
Close-up view of pocket knife, part of the Friendship 7 Survival Kit (A19670176001), August 8, 2013. Smithsonian
Since the first people were sent into space, they have almost always had a knife within reach. I’m not sure whether the first man in space — cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin — carried a knife (though I’m sure he did). However, we do know what the first American man carried into space.
According to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Alan Shepherd carried the Camillus Mil-K Demo Knife in his kit during the United States’ first manned mission to space on May 5, 1961. This was the US-equivalent of the classic Swiss Army Knife made by Victorinox. The version Shepherd carried had a tang stamped with 1959.
Unfortunately, Camillus filed for bankruptcy in 2007 before being bought out by Acme United.
Randall Made Knives Model 17 Astro
This knife has one of the coolest stories. At the time, NASA had this philosophy that if something didn’t exist, it would simply make it. The team needed a survival knife for emergencies and couldn’t find one suitable for them. So astronaut Gordon Cooper and NASA doctor William Douglas reached out to Bo Randall of Randall Made Knives to create a special design.
SOG built its name on producing top-of-the-line knives that excel in extreme situations. The company focused on fixed blades in its early days before jumping into the folding knife genre. The Flash II is the poster child of the company’s goal.
The Flash I became an instant hit among knife nuts everywhere after being called an “outstanding reference EDC” knife. Well, SOG managed to improve upon the highly acclaimed original Flash with a few upgrades.
The WESN Microblade initially launched on Kickstarter back in late 2017, and the brand is back for more with its next Kickstarter release called the WESN Allman.
Check it out:
The Allman is a compact EDC knife (not as compact as the tiny Microblade but pretty darn small) with a 2.75-inch S35VN steel blade that opens with a flipper tab. You can get the knife in either titanium handles with a frame lock or G-10 handle scales with a liner lock.
Here are the specs:
Blade Length: 2.8” (7.2cm)
Closed Length: 3.8” (9.7cm)
Open Length: 6.65″ (16.9cm)
Handle Material: Grade 5 Titanium Scales or G10 Scales
Blade Steel: S35vn
Hardware: Stainless steel Frame-lock or Liner lock
Pocket Clip
Lanyard Hole
Lifetime Warranty
The design itself is a bit bland. The blade profile is a sort of drop point design but with a less piercing point and a swedge. The blade also seems a bit stubby and relies on the wider handle to fit the whole thing.
There is something about the sleekness and simplicity that makes this knife appealing though. It removes the bells and whistles and sticks with a stripped-down design. They removed the unnecessary thumb stud for just the flipper.
This post was originally published in September 2014 and updated in February 2019.
An old saying goes something like this: “Stars: they’re just like us.” Except for the whole money and fame thing, it’s largely true.
Celebrities, like us, have their own obsessions and collection habits. While some celebrities collect really strange and impractical items (such as Johnny Depp’s disturbing Barbie collection), some are reasonable people who, like many of you reading this, collect knives.
A surprising number of celebrities are really into knives, including Keith Richards, Steven Seagal, Ziggy Marley, Wayne LaPierre, Kid Rock, and Pamela Anderson, but the following are among the most notorious and well-known knife collectors.
Sylvester Stallone
We’re all familiar with John Rambo’s love for awesome knives, but the man who plays Rambo is equally enthusiastic about knives. Sylvester Stallone has been a big collector of knives for a long time and continues to be one to this day.
I’m not sure if it’s Stallone’s influence or just the movies he acts in, but Stallone always manages to get some amazing knives into his movies, such as a Spyderco in Cliffhanger, the unique Herman Schneider knife in Cobra, and, of course, the Lile Rambo knife.
A sage isn’t just someone who possesses wisdom but someone who transcends knowledge and strives for perfection. That’s what makes “sage” such a fitting name for our latest Badass Knife of the Week.
The Spyderco Sage represents a decades-long process of learning what makes the ideal everyday carry pocket knife. Because there is no such thing as a perfect knife (since each person has their own view of perfection), Spyderco set out to create a series of similar designs with different locking mechanisms.
The Sage 1 uses a Michael Walker liner lock, which has become one of the most ubiquitous locking mechanisms out there. The 3-inch blade opens with the patented Spyderco Round Hole and stays engaged with a steel liner you can disengage with your thumb.
Made from premium S30V steel, the leaf-shaped blade has a piercing point and curved belly for easy slicing.
Many of the iconic and classic knife companies have closed their doors. Imperial Schrade Company went under in 2004 (though it lives on in some form after its name has been bought and sold by a few other companies) and Queen Cutlery called it day in 2018 after nearly 100 years in operation.
While traditional knives have been seeing a resurgence, especially with places like Great Eastern Cutlery committed to keeping the past alive, Case has been around for a long, long time and have been making largely the same knives for more than a century.
2019 is still young, but Case has been active in announcing new projects and even recently released its 2019 catalog.
Interestingly, this year is full of a lot of reworked knives and classics that were brought back to please the audience. Case is still in full blown going electric mode and I love it.
Feel free to skip to the actual knives, but hear me out if you want more Dylan deep dives. 2019 Case is the live at “Royal Albert Hall” bootleg era — completely reworking classics, revisiting old stuff, and continuing with the new.
In case you didn’t catch that (and why would you if you aren’t a Dylan fanatic), that’s a line from this:
Similar to the way Dylan completely transformed that song from its acoustic folksiness, Case strips the old Shark Tooth to its bones and rebuilds it into something modern and sleek.
We’re continuing our trek through the best knives from each brand. This time we take on the formidable butterfly brand.
What’s interesting about Benchmade is that this list is populated by a lot of newer models, which is somewhat surprising from such a storied brand. That’s partly due to the fact that Benchmade has been going on quite a tear recently with some excellent new knives.
As always, these lists are highly subjective, so let us know which models you think are the best in the comments.
Benchmade Griptilian
We’ll start with a no-brainer: the Griptilian. Despite being around for such a long time, the Grip family remains one of Benchmade’s best offerings — both because it’s an excellent design and because it’s almost become a budget option from the brand.
At this point, the Griptilian has undergone a lot of changes and you can get the knife in different blade steels, blade profiles, handle colors, and handle materials. The standard is now S30V steel and nylon scales.
Because we want to keep this list somewhat clean, we’re including Mini Grips here too. I still carry my Mini Grip frequently.
If I had to pick the best Grip, it would be the 555-1.
Benchmade Freek
The Freek was talked about as a Griptilian killer when it was introduced a few years ago. While the Freek did not kick the Grip to the curb, it did prove itself to be one of Benchmade’s best. In 2019, Benchmade released a premium version of the Freek with M4 steel and G-10 handles.
Kit Carson was a fantastic knife designer and an all-around good guy. Until his untimely death in 2014, the Cutlery Hall of Fame Inductee mentored some of the top knifemakers around, including Ken Onion.
Even though Carson is gone, his legacy still lives on in knives offered by CRKT, including our latest Badass Knife of the Week.
The M21-14SFG Special Forces is a bigger and stronger version of the highly renowned M16 knife family. This version has a long 3.99-inch black titanium nitride-coated blade made of 8Cr14MoV stainless steel.
At this point, pretty much everything has been turned into a knife.
There are the obvious found objects that can be turned into knives, such as old files and railroad spikes. In fact, you can watch these items along with 10 others be turned into 12 different knives in an old post.
Then, Kiwami Japan came along and upped the ante by turning unimaginable items into knives, such as gelatin, stone, and even underwear!
Another of our favorite YouTubers is back with some interesting experiments. This time knifemaker Steve Calvert aka Green Beetle attempted to make a knife from nickel wound guitar strings.
