I have been already looking at the most well known and famous knives, like the Ka-bar USMC straight edge, the Buck 119 special, the Aitor Oso Negro, the Eickhorn km2000, etc.
But do I really need to spend more than 20/30 € to have a wonderful knife? Do I really need a big knife?
At home I have several flashlights, some convoys T3, T5, S2+ with Nichia 219B, 519A and B35AM, and of course big ones like the L7 or the M21C or M26C with the LHP73B when I need seriously lumens. I have very good flashlights, that are very good for my needs, with a very good price.
Is there any knives brand that allows me to select the best steels available depending on my needs, and at the same time with a cheap price?
Could you please recommend some of the best budget knives / steels for each category? Keychains, EDC, survival & hunting, etc?
Rough Rider for traditional folders, Civivi for modern folders. Mora of Sweden for traditional scandi grind fixed blades, and it used to be that Condor knife and tool was a good value for choppers. I’ve been out of the knife game for a while, so take these suggestions with a grain of salt.
There are some really good Chinese manufactured knifes out there but not for the price of Convoy lights. Kunwu is my favorite Chinese manufacturer for knives and they are definitely premium but cost anywhere from $200-$700 (Giga Padre). Quite Carry is another good one I like. There are several. Of course you can always find clones of popular knives on Ali Express but I don’t condone that because they are essentially ripping off a hard working Knife Makers design.
I’ll add that if you go to the subreddit called chineseknives you will find endless information for sure.
https://manly-bg.com/ makes really solid knives at rather low prices. I have the Peak in CPM S90V and it was only €75,- (on sale). 14C28N version is 49,-
Petrified Fish produce awesome fit and finish knives for very good prices. The Forward is amazing value and has a grin worthy action. Also had a Beluga fixed, a Beluga Mini, a Ripple, and a Zonda on the way. Cant go wrong with PF.
Real Steel, I’ve had a Luna, and still have the Stella. Huge choice of knives for sale.
I ha(d)be a few rough rider knives. I had a pretty nice small green bone trapper, with the three blades, AND it had a clip. I’ve since given it to my brother but I definitely want another. I have a modern style RR knife that has copper scales, and a big hollow ground VG-10 (really 10Cr15MoV, a Chinese VG-10 analogue) cleaver/sheepsfoot style blade. they also had a drop point model, but they’re both since discontinued.
If I had to pick a single brand that is similar to the Convoy brand, it’d have to be Civivi. You can get the same or similar model with a number of different handles and steels, especially the Elementum. I have the larger 1st gen Elementum button lock, without flipper tab. I love it. VERY slicey hollow ground 14C28N blade. it came with black micarta, and micarta is probably my favorite scale material, but it was really smooth, and Flytanium had a clearance deal on scales for it, so I got some black titanium scales now.
I would almost say Spyderco because of their different sprint runs etc., but they are NOT a good price to value ratio comparatively. It really would have to be WE Knives/Civivi or any of a large number of similar Chinese knife manufacturers.
We are in the days of a hugely oversaturated knife market. Very very many actually good budget options nowadays. 10-15+ years ago this was NOT the case, but all these Chinese brands are going crazy with new models and all that. Kershaw might be a good comparison as well, they have a lot of models, budget or otherwise.
So yeah basically Civivi or a similar brand, maybe Kershaw. Mayyyybe even some Bucks with the custom knife shop option, but they’re more expensive. Civivi has knives ranging from like ≤ $30 to over $100, with many different options.
thanks for showing this. it is very tempting, as I have my only D2 knife to my brother. it was a ganzo brand RAT 1 clone with a Benchmade style lock and G10 scales.
But this knife looks pretty good for $20, especially with that micarta. I have spent far too much on knives in the last 3 months. mainly Spyderco cause I wanted to grab a 15V model.
I’m looking at a few different traditional styled knives currently, but I may grab this one first. I haven’t used AliEx since May. are there hidden US tariffs? or are they included in the price, or somehow ‘taken care of?’
edit: I wonder how their heat treat is. I did like the D2 knife I had, and I like the patina that can come with it. Love my Mora and Opinel carbon
I do like D2 when it’s done well. Usually doesn’t sharpen up quite as well as some of the finer steels, but provides a nice toothy edge. Well, that’s also probably due to my poor sharpening skills. Honestly though, I usually stick to carbon steel. Opinels sharpen up to a wicked edge with little effort, and Case CV has always been reliable.
If it’s the same as it was 20 years ago, I’d say not. It’s a bunch of tacticool designs made of AUS-8 or 440A. That isn’t to say that they don’t have some fun designs. Their Okapi was a great bargain, though it does use softer steel.
If anyone is interested in assisted-openers, Kershaw is the Convoy of those types of knives.
Kershaw owns the high-quality low-budget A/O market.
All of my Kershaw knives are A/O’s (except for one automatic), so I don’t know about their other knives.
I’ve got a few Chinese knives with mystery steel and or mystery heat treat, from the era before civivi et al exploded onto the scene with higher quality stuff, perhaps I need to try some modern Chinese knives.
All that said, I picked up a Spyderco UKPK in magnacut a couple of months ago for about £110, and it’s awesome - slipjoint is handy for EDC carry in the UK and I’m yet to need to sharpen it.
For the same price I could get 2 civivi elementum folders in 14C28N…I know for the price the Spyderco is better value for money…
One day in the future, I’ll probably pick up something in the lower-right side of that chart so as to have something with low toughness but high edge retention (S90V, S110V, M398 etc) to round out the “collection”.
Edit to add now the coffee has kicked in: for value for money, it’s hard to ignore the Victorinox SAK offering, if you like these kind of knives. They’re a bit slow to innovate, but for europe-produced multitools they’re good value for money, in my opinion.
Mmmmm, too bad you weren’t around for the go,comma years. I loaded up on that PF clone/rebrand/whatever and am still on my first one. For some retarded price like 7bux a pop, I thought they’d be disposable, but damn, they’re great little knives.
Then there was Gonzo aaaaand… that other brand… forgot. I’d remember if I heard it.
Got all the cutlery I can use, so dropped out of that “hobby”. No idea if those brands are even still in existence.
Members old enough to remember few decades back when things made in China were complete garbage. I mean literally Made In China meant garbage.
Not the case anymore. Yes a $10 Chinese knife may be garbage but the more expensive ones are fabulous.
Most if not all the Cold Steel knives are Made In China. They are excellent knives. Some them including the AD10 are put through complete torture tests and survive with barely a scratch.
