coloradowildman
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2009
- Messages
- 1,202
Hi all, I'm fairly new to the forums here and I'm also a new Benchmade owner as well and thought I'd share my experience with my new Benchmade Rant Bowie 10501, which is the 440C US made version with the "washboard" satin finish. Here the link to Benchmade's info on the blade http://www.benchmade.com/products/10502
I had been looking for a US made bushcraft knife for a while that was tough but not too heavy and also reasonably affordable. The knife had to have a lanyard hole as I snowshoe and backpack in the Colorado Rockies in the winter and a lanyard ensures that I won't drop my knife into 6 feet of snow and lose it! My preference was for a good stainless blade as winter snow hiking means everything gets wet constantly if used.
Anyway, I found one of these US made Rant Bowies on a blowout sale at Grand Prairie Knives for an incredible $37.50 and couldn't pass it up. It came with a very nice leather sheath but the blade wasn't very sharp, so I sharpened it on my little portable Smith sharpener and got it hair shaving sharp before taking it into the field.
I took it out this weekend into the Rocky Mountain National Park on a snowshoe trip and used it for everything from food prep to whittling to batoning some small pieces of firewood and it worked great. The grip feels very good in the hand and the blade seems to be very stout and also holds an edge well. Even though I own both the drop point and the bowie versions of the Rant (I recently bought the Rant DPT drop point 10502 that I haven't tested yet but will hopefully post my impressions of soon as well), my biggest concern with the Bowie version was the strength of the tip. After comparing both the DPT 101502 and Bowie 10501 side by side, it appears that the tip of the Bowie version is actually slightly thicker, so no worries there, as this is one stout blade
Both versions feel like they would be very hard to break, so I feel good so far in saying that I would be comfortable in relying on either version as a survival knife.
All in all both the Rant Bowie and Drop Point seem like affordable versions of the Benchmade Doug Ritter survival knife, even having a similar finish. The "washboard" finish doesn't make much sense from an aesthetic point of view until you've used it in the bush, as then it makes more sense than any finish I've ever used. According to Benchmade this finish hides the marks and scrapes that accompany heavy field use, and in my limited use this seems to be right on. This finish encourages using the knife as intended, unlike black finishes which scratch or rub off in the field or highly polished blades which look great when new but eventually show a lot of scuffs and scratching after field use.
Here's a link to a great review by Gunblast.com on these knives as well:
http://www.gunblast.com/Greg_Benchmade-PardueMDP.htm (notice how well the washboard satin finish looks on the blade in the pics after being abused for over a year)
All in all a great bushcraft knife for an incredible price. Too bad Benchmade decided to stop making these recently, because for the money they may be the best bang for the bushcraft buck out there.
I had been looking for a US made bushcraft knife for a while that was tough but not too heavy and also reasonably affordable. The knife had to have a lanyard hole as I snowshoe and backpack in the Colorado Rockies in the winter and a lanyard ensures that I won't drop my knife into 6 feet of snow and lose it! My preference was for a good stainless blade as winter snow hiking means everything gets wet constantly if used.
Anyway, I found one of these US made Rant Bowies on a blowout sale at Grand Prairie Knives for an incredible $37.50 and couldn't pass it up. It came with a very nice leather sheath but the blade wasn't very sharp, so I sharpened it on my little portable Smith sharpener and got it hair shaving sharp before taking it into the field.
I took it out this weekend into the Rocky Mountain National Park on a snowshoe trip and used it for everything from food prep to whittling to batoning some small pieces of firewood and it worked great. The grip feels very good in the hand and the blade seems to be very stout and also holds an edge well. Even though I own both the drop point and the bowie versions of the Rant (I recently bought the Rant DPT drop point 10502 that I haven't tested yet but will hopefully post my impressions of soon as well), my biggest concern with the Bowie version was the strength of the tip. After comparing both the DPT 101502 and Bowie 10501 side by side, it appears that the tip of the Bowie version is actually slightly thicker, so no worries there, as this is one stout blade
Both versions feel like they would be very hard to break, so I feel good so far in saying that I would be comfortable in relying on either version as a survival knife.All in all both the Rant Bowie and Drop Point seem like affordable versions of the Benchmade Doug Ritter survival knife, even having a similar finish. The "washboard" finish doesn't make much sense from an aesthetic point of view until you've used it in the bush, as then it makes more sense than any finish I've ever used. According to Benchmade this finish hides the marks and scrapes that accompany heavy field use, and in my limited use this seems to be right on. This finish encourages using the knife as intended, unlike black finishes which scratch or rub off in the field or highly polished blades which look great when new but eventually show a lot of scuffs and scratching after field use.
Here's a link to a great review by Gunblast.com on these knives as well:
http://www.gunblast.com/Greg_Benchmade-PardueMDP.htm (notice how well the washboard satin finish looks on the blade in the pics after being abused for over a year)
All in all a great bushcraft knife for an incredible price. Too bad Benchmade decided to stop making these recently, because for the money they may be the best bang for the bushcraft buck out there.
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