It’s About Time You Get a Good Pocket Knife

When it comes to multi-tools, Leatherman quite literally invented the category. While Switzerland’s famous army knife has kicked around since the turn of the 19th century, Tim Leatherman was the first to create the pliers-plus-knife multi-tool that adventurers everywhere have come to know and rely on. The style has proliferated across knife brands, but you can’t beat the original.

We love the Leatherman Free T4, but sometimes you need a pair of pliers. The Wave+ is Leatherman’s best-selling multi-tool for a reason: 18 tools cover a variety of needs, but still slip into a pocket or pack without too much weight.

For a long time, I was a James brand doubter. EDC nerds love the brand, and they love it loudly. Go to any Reddit forum, IG story, or IRL demonstrations, and you're going to see James brand. I have a reticence for anything overhyped, so I ignored it for a while. Then decided to try it.

I was foolish to wait, the Carter delivers on all its promises. It has all the bells and whistles: a slide-lock mechanism, corrosion-resistant VG-10 stainless steel blade, Micarta scales, and a deep-carry, reversible pocket clip, but mostly, it just feels really good in hand. A knife you want to keep using, even when there’s nothing left to cut.

I’ve surrendered more knives to TSA than I care to count, a hazard of unorganized packing and my carry-on-only-when-possible flying policy. I’ve (mostly) learned not to store my expensive knives in bags I regularly travel with. For those, I toss in an Opinel, specifically, the No. 7.

Opinel’s No. 7 is a knife you can afford to lose, not that you’ll want to. The heritage French brand manufactures has been making knives in a the Alps since 1890. The company suite of unpretentious and practical knives that get the job done. The original No. 8 is a classic, but it's a bit large for around town. The No. 6 gets into box-cutter or whittling knife territory. Right in the middle is this perfect No. 7.

Benchmade makes some of the best knives out there, and has the pricing to reflect it. So I was intrigued when the brand announced a new version of its flagship Bugout knife with even more premium materials. I have a few knives from the brand (including this wicked sharp Station chef knife, which is a daily driver in our kitchen) and I keep them in high drawers, very far away from the toddlers. These are tools, not toys.

The upgraded Aluminium and Richlite Bugout mixes premium materials for a beauty of a handle, but if the steep $400 is out of your price range, the Dark Olive Grivory delivers the performance at half the price point and with a slightly less impressive blade steel.

Do you really need a fixed blade? It takes one camping trip to realize, yes, yes you do. Fixed-blade and full tang—meaning the blade's structure extends within the entire length of the handle—is what you want for any multi-use work. The Terracraft won’t be a knife you need to use every day, but it’s a knife you’ll want to use every day. It’s designed for serious bushcraft, but if you take the kids to the lake for a weekend, you'll get plenty of use out of it. It’s the only knife I own capable of both supreming oranges for this very good avocado salad and splitting logs into kindling. You won’t even need to use your hatchet.

My brother-in-law heats his house with a wood stove. That means he has a backyard full of stacked wood and a garage full of Scandinavian axes. Blacksmiths in Sweden and Norway have crafted blades for centuries, and the experience shows in both axes and knives. In the knife category, Norwegian-made Helle is one of the first brands you should get into.

The Nipa has a birch handle married to a traditional Scandi grind blade style. Sharp out of the box and ruggedly handsome, this knife patinas the more you use it. Mine was stolen in a car break-in earlier this year, and I lamented it more than all the credit cards (I can just cancel those). Now I keep this much less expensive, but still very good, Gerber Scout in the car and pine for this beautiful lost birch handle.

Despite the logo that looks straight off an EDM festival side stage, Giant Mouse makes serious knives. The brand and the name come from an international trio of knife makers: Danish and American designers coming together to "build a better mousetrap,” like that old Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.

Is the GM13 that better mousetrap? It’s almost sculptural in quality. A reimagining of the classic hawkbill blade, rendered in stonewashed S90V steel, makes it exceptional at precision cuts. It also has a contoured titanium handle that’s both beautiful and lightweight. The team made it in a limited run of 400, so get 'em while the getting is good.