As for another good knife, the various Chris Reeve knives are excellent. No crowbar, but seriously refined cutters of excellent geometry blades, and superbly precise, light, strong handles. As everyone knows, the first popular titanium intergral/frame lock, changing the knife world.

Others will be discussed, but first will simply get out of the way any discussion as to what is the best. Best at what? To my mind, the big, tough folder as a user, and not decorator item. And there simply is one obvious THE BEST of the Reeve line, or, at least the Sebenza line.

As what set the world on fire back a quarter of a century ago was the flat, smooth, super light, super strong, super simple, super precise, incredibly rust resistant framelock...it reaches its perfection of that idea by using extremely stiff, light, carbon fiber for one side, and using the titanium only where necessary, on the lock side.

Also counter-intuitively, the damascus blade is the best hard use material, being 92% super clean, super fine grained carbide dispersion Böhler AEB-L (think copy Sandvik 13C27 and Mora knives, even held at same best hardness level of circa 57Rc), 8% 304 stainless for etching contrast, of very good toughness and resiliency, if not the extreme paper cutter edge holder of alternative S35VN. The latter an excellent steel so long as edge, tip, or blade not flexed past limits, where it chips or breaks, something true of most powdered metals, almost never used for springs. A fast hard cut into cardboard and a large staple, or into a hard little limb knot, etc, can end up being a problem, the damascus more able to tolerate impact out of axis line, easier to straighten edge with smooth steel, and easier to sharpen.

Aesthetically, was suprised how well the damascus patterned light and dark steel bridged the gap from patterned black carbon fiber, to lighter matte grey deeply sandblasted titanium (not my favorite finish, at all, easily damaged, hard to repair, hard to alter). A very attractive thing, and again, not what one normally thinks of except in a safe, when it is the version most able to handle the rigors of field use, at least in the Sebenza line.

A Reeve grind note, the recent grind is thicker in hollowground side of blade, that area thickening to tip from about halfway back, and notice full spine width until almost very end. Far tougher than a straight tapered, flat ground, anything, no matter what elite name. Both the Reeve grind and many flat tapered grinds go to very fine splinter picker tips, and a personal use choice as to that being appropriate for the use. Tougher than you might think, but still not "tough". The Hinderer uses same S35Vn steel as Reeve, at higher hardness, is very tough and chip resistant, but must accomplish this via edge, tip, and blade are extremely thick, and will not/cannot attempt to bend at that hardness/thickness, the handle springing before blade. No magic. Just mongo. Reeve keeps the hardness down a notch on his finer blades to maintain toughness. No magic. Just common sense. Tougher than many same material blades, and the damascus simply the fail-safe option.

















And yes, this one has been used and edge touched up. The damascus stainless quite abrasion resistant from scratches, and masks those scratches well. The pattern holds until, I guess, outer stainless wears away, moreso that simply wearing off oxide?

As for wearing, the lock side carried IWB, clip under belt, and knife scrupulously never laid on a bare hard surface, and wish i had done so with others, where titanium sandblast looking more as worn parkerize today.

PS-obviously forgot to mention weight. It weighs a mere 1/4 oz more than the all-plastic handled Spyderco Pacific Salt pictured elsewhere in this thread. This knife can be one travelin' dude, and where was it back when I could have REALLY used the snot out of such?

For those doubting appropriate style and size of blade for most every field task, my bet is they would be too young to remember dressing out deer just fine with an old trapper folder and stone to keep edge fresh, and having no trouble making a camp/cooking fire with same.