When you’re in a fight for your life, you don’t need a tool that’s pretty or precious, you need something with cunning, grit, and austerity. That’s where the latest Badass Knife of the Week comes into the picture.
The CRKT Clever Girl is a tactical fixed blade designed to perform at its best when things are at their worst. From its piercing point to its exposed steel pommel, the Clever Girl is constructed with an eye toward functionality and ferocity.
Its long 4.6-inch blade boasts an upswept blade made from SK5 high carbon steel, an alloy known for balancing blade toughness with the ability to take an edge easily in the field. The black powder coating dampens the reflective property of the steel while giving the slender blade a more understated appearance until you need it in action.
If some catastrophe were to happen in my city and humans started excavating at the former location of my house thousands of years from now, they’d undoubtedly find a cache of folding knives and fixed blades like few others.
It seems like archaeologists may have found a blade addict’s house from the Bronze Age after discovering a hoard of metalwork, including an incredibly well-preserved sword from 3,000 years ago.
Archaeologists were digging at a construction site in Scotland and found a cache of weapons from the Late Bronze Age. A group called GUARD Archaeology was commissioned to evaluate a field in Scotland before starting construction on two soccer fields. That’s when the group made the once-in-a-lifetime discovery.
What the discovery looked like. Photo from GUARD Archaeology
Apparently, the artifacts were found in a pit close to a settlement from the Bronze Age. Scientists are stoked about the discovery.
“It is very unusual to recover such artefacts in a modern archaeological excavation, which can reveal so much about the context of its burial,” said GUARD Project Officer Alan Hunter Blair. “Owing to the fragile nature of these remains when we first discovered them, our team removed the entire pit, and the surrounding subsoil which it was cut into, as a single 80 kg block of soil.”
Here they are working on the block in the lab.
A few cool things were found, including a spearhead, bronze sword, a pin, and the remains of a sheath.
Back when SOG Specialty Knives introduced the Tomcat in the late ’80s, it was not only the first folder from the company but it also won the award for Overall Knife of the Year. Nearly 20 years later, the third generation of the Tomcat continues to prove it is no one-hit wonder.
The SOG Tomcat 3.0 boasts a timeless look with a design that balances finesse with sheer strength. This gorgeous knife is a force to be reckoned with and features advances that any knife enthusiast can appreciate.
Here is a good overview of the knife from Tactical on YouTube:
It starts with the large 3.75-inch blade made from VG-10 stainless steel, which is a true workers’ steel, thanks to its excellent corrosion resistance and ability to easily take and hold an edge. The satin clip-point blade also features jimping for better control and dual thumb studs for quick one-handed opening.
In the pantheon of insane weapons, it’s easy to look at more modern offerings like the PHASR or vomit gun. But one of the fiercest and most difficult weapons to use is the ancient whip sword known as the urumi.
The urumi may very well be one of the most dangerous melee weapons ever — not only for foes but also for the person using the weapon. While the weapon hasn’t been used as such for generations, it is still wielded in demonstrations and Indian martial arts.
This unusual blade is essentially a bendy piece of sharp metal that the user wields like a whip. Here is a look at a fighting demonstration with the urumi sword.
The urumi, which translates to curling blade and is sometimes known as the aara or chuttuval, comes from southern India where it was used as a weapon back in the day. Eventually, it fell out of favor but became incorporated into Kalaripayattu martial arts, one of the oldest fighting styles in the world.
I know your dad always told you, “Never ever use your knife to pry.” But he’s clearly never used the latest Badass Knife of the Week.
The KA-BAR BK3 Becker Tac Tool is the ultimate tactical fixed blade that takes the definition of hard-use knives to a whole new level. This knife is designed to be used and abused, tortured and beaten, and pushed to the extreme.
Legendary knifemaker Ethan Becker and 37-year police veteran John Benner designed the Becker Tac Tool for urban SWAT teams who would need a reliable tool that could pry, chop, hack, chisel, hammer, and more. Although the boys delivered a remarkable tool for SWAT teams, the BK3 has taken on life as an all-around survival tool.
The heart of the Tac Tool is the beastly blade. Coming in at a hefty 7 inches, the blade is made from 1095 Cro-Van steel with a thickness of a quarter of an inch. The partially serrated blade is powerful enough to pry open doors without breaking a sweat and a slot on the black offers another method for cutting rope or saving lives.
Thanks to the advent of YouTube, there’s no shortage of amateur scientists doing crazy things at their house.
We’ve seen the unparalleled Joerg Sprave create the knife chainsaw and some dude heat up a knife to 1000 degrees to cut things. Now, the Backyard Scientist is taking things to the next level with his latest experiment: the 1000 Degree Red-Hot Rocket Knife.
Normally, these videos only elicit a shrug in me, but some are just really captivating. In the latest video, the Backyard Scientist created a rail to act as a track for a knife to be shot 150 miles per hour at an object. To add to the insanity, he also heated the knife up to a temperature of about 1000 degrees before it’s propelled.
The vast forests of Finland are home to an estimated 1,500 brown bears — creatures that can go from docile and majestic to fierce and intimidating in a moments notice.
Cold Steel combines elements of the popular Finnish puukko knife with the spirit of the bear in the Finn Bear.
If you’ve never carried a fixed blade as your everyday carry, this is the perfect knife to get you started. It all begins with the 4-inch blade made of German 4116 stainless steel, which is known for its corrosion resistance and ability to be resharpened easily. The hollow grind edge coupled with the blade’s shape makes this a practical knife that people have been using in some iteration for centuries.
This knife is robust enough to skin a moose and delicate enough to slice an apple, making it a master of the outdoors.
This year is already shaping up to be a great one for knife lovers. We’ve got a ton of new innovations coming out of the knife community, and some interesting new designs.
As always, Kershaw is releasing more than 30 knives that’ll sure to appeal to the masses. While there tends to be an overreliance on 8Cr13MoV steel and the SpeedSafe mechanism, the diversity of designs is encouraging.
You can find the full list of new knives on the Kershaw website, but here are the 10 we’re most excited to get in the coming months.
10. Kershaw Reverb
The first knife we’re looking forward to is the Reverb. This lightweight knife weighs 1.6 ounces and is billed as a knife for outdoor activities. With a 2.5-inch blade made from 8Cr13MoV steel, the Reverb features a multifaceted handle. The front is G-10 with carbon fiber overlays and the back is steel.
And another appealing aspect is the carabiner clip. I wrote an article a while back about the best knives with carabiners and this will surely make the list.
9. Kershaw Fraxion
I’m a fan of Jens Anso, so I was pretty excited to see the Anso-designed Fraxion. This is a sleek and slim knife with an all-black profile. It also has G-10 handles with carbon fiber overlays. It’s a manual knife with a flipper and uses 8CR13MoV stainless steel.
Kershaw is famous for making affordable folders with outstanding craftsmanship and top-notch technology. And our latest Badass Knife of the Week is the perfect example of this.
The Kershaw Oso Sweet is an exceptional everyday carry that proves you can get a well-made knife by one of the top-rated knife brands around without selling a kidney. That’s why it’s no surprise this oh so sweet (get it?) pocket knife from Kershaw is among the brand’s best-selling.
Its qualification as an EDC starts with the knife’s speed. With a gentle pull of the ambidextrous flipper mechanism, the blade shoots to life using Kershaw’s patented SpeedSafe assisted opening.
When the first modern multitool was introduced in the late 1800s, it was truly revolutionary and groundbreaking. While the idea of combining a few tools into a single gadget dates back hundreds of years, this design was so well-conceived it remains in production to this day. Yes, I’m talking about the Swiss Army knife.
If you take a look at the design of the Modell 1890, one of the first iterations of the SAK, you’ll notice how surprisingly similar it looks to current Swiss Army knives. It just means that the design was near perfection.
Swiss Army Modell 1890
The design of multitools stayed relatively unchanged for decades until a young man spent time traveling abroad after graduating from Oregon State University with a degree in mechanical engineering. During his travels, he realized that the one thing multitools was missing were functional pliers.
That man was named Tim Leatherman.
In 1983, Tim completely changed the multitool landscape with his first design called the Pocket Survival Tool (PST). Now retired, the knife set the standard for what a multitool with pliers should look like — tools coming out of the two handles and the ability to fold into a rectangle.
Unfortunately, the way things work is that one company makes something revolutionary and the others just try to copy it and add small changes. It’s no coincidence that most multitools these days look like the Leatherman Skeletool (a very good design).
More than 30 years after that last true innovation in the multitool world, we’ve been waiting for the next big thing.
SOG may have found it.
SOG Baton Series Rethinks the Multitool
Most multitools fold up into thick bricks that take up way too much space in your pocket. That includes both SAKs and Leatherman types.
So SOG decided to do something a little different.
In conjunction with global design and consulting firm IDEO, which is responsible for such innovations as Apple’s first mouse and the convenient Swiffer, SOG created a new line of multitools called the Baton series.
Here is a quick look from GearSight:
When the tools are in the open position with the pliers (or scissors) engaged, it looks like any other pliers multitool. The difference is that the tool folds up into a relatively thin vertical design that’s more in line with a marker than a brick.
