coloradowildman
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2009
- Messages
- 1,202
I've never owned Benchmades before but when I went looking for the best wilderness knife under $100 (for my purposes) I found these US made Benchmade Rants by Mel Pardue:
The black drop point 10502BT is still new but I did take the 10501 Bowie on a wilderness hike in the Rocky Mountain National Park recently and it performed excellent in everything from food prep to whittling to splitting some small logs. It's a pretty thick knife with a strong tip but only weighs a little over 7 oz with the sheath (around 6 without). I was looking for a US made wilderness knife under a $100 with a 4" to 5" blade and preferably a good stainless because I spend time in lots of wet conditions (440C or better).
The Becker BK2 seems like an excellent design but weighs almost 3 times the Rant and is made of maintenance intensive (in wet condtions) 1095 steel. The Cold Steel SRK is a great knife but I wanted a shorter blade for bushcraft. I won't carry a serrated wilderness knife so the Gerber Prodigy and LMF II were out along with the stainless KaBar. I'm still intrigued by the Frosts Mora knives and will probably grab a couple but they are just not thick enough for me as my main fixed blade (great secondary though).
This left me a realistic choice of the Cold Steel Master Hunter, Benchmade fixed Griptilian, or the US made Benchmade Rant II. The CS Master Hunter was twice the price and I heard too many reviews of folks saying the knife wasn't the greatest cutter and that the blade was prone to chipping. The Griptilian was also twice the price and was kind of thin compared to the stoutly built Rant which also has a great santoprene handle.
After my research I decided on the Rant, and of course my decision was made that much easier after finding the Bowie version (10501) on a blowout sale for only $37.50 (outrageous price for a US made Benchmade Mel Pardue). I also found the Black Drop Point 10502BT on sale for $49 which was also an incredible deal! Sadly, they have all but dissapeared in the last 1-2 months because Benchmade decided to discontinue these. If you poke around online you might still find some of these but they are dissapearing fast (or try your local dealer who might have one hidden and gathering dust).
They should have been marketed as Benchmade's affordable Mel Pardue wilderness\survival knives, sort of a working man's Doug Ritter blade
I know the Doug Ritter model uses S130v steel but it's 2 1/2 times the price! For the money I'm just not sure these can be beat for their overall features, but of course, I'm a bit biased.
Thanks for reading my comments!
CW
The black drop point 10502BT is still new but I did take the 10501 Bowie on a wilderness hike in the Rocky Mountain National Park recently and it performed excellent in everything from food prep to whittling to splitting some small logs. It's a pretty thick knife with a strong tip but only weighs a little over 7 oz with the sheath (around 6 without). I was looking for a US made wilderness knife under a $100 with a 4" to 5" blade and preferably a good stainless because I spend time in lots of wet conditions (440C or better).
The Becker BK2 seems like an excellent design but weighs almost 3 times the Rant and is made of maintenance intensive (in wet condtions) 1095 steel. The Cold Steel SRK is a great knife but I wanted a shorter blade for bushcraft. I won't carry a serrated wilderness knife so the Gerber Prodigy and LMF II were out along with the stainless KaBar. I'm still intrigued by the Frosts Mora knives and will probably grab a couple but they are just not thick enough for me as my main fixed blade (great secondary though).
This left me a realistic choice of the Cold Steel Master Hunter, Benchmade fixed Griptilian, or the US made Benchmade Rant II. The CS Master Hunter was twice the price and I heard too many reviews of folks saying the knife wasn't the greatest cutter and that the blade was prone to chipping. The Griptilian was also twice the price and was kind of thin compared to the stoutly built Rant which also has a great santoprene handle.
After my research I decided on the Rant, and of course my decision was made that much easier after finding the Bowie version (10501) on a blowout sale for only $37.50 (outrageous price for a US made Benchmade Mel Pardue). I also found the Black Drop Point 10502BT on sale for $49 which was also an incredible deal! Sadly, they have all but dissapeared in the last 1-2 months because Benchmade decided to discontinue these. If you poke around online you might still find some of these but they are dissapearing fast (or try your local dealer who might have one hidden and gathering dust).
They should have been marketed as Benchmade's affordable Mel Pardue wilderness\survival knives, sort of a working man's Doug Ritter blade
I know the Doug Ritter model uses S130v steel but it's 2 1/2 times the price! For the money I'm just not sure these can be beat for their overall features, but of course, I'm a bit biased.Thanks for reading my comments!
CW
Right now that is my favorite folder.