Knife Reviews, Blade Steel Guides, How to Sharpen, Flashlights & More

Benchmade Mini Crooked River: On the Hunt for Sadly Absent Value

Imagine this. It’s a beautiful, crisp autumn afternoon and you are out in the wooded foothills of the western Cascade Mountains for a week-long, solo hunting/fishing/camping trip during which you plan to live off the land. You are out for the 1st hunt, excited to be carrying your new Browning X-Bolt 2 bolt-action hunting rifle chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor. You hike down toward a shallow river, figuring there might be a good chance of finding a young deer. Courtesy of WideOpenSpaces.com As you hear the babbling river waters coming up before you, the notice the woods up ahead starts to ...

Vosteed Porcupine: Cute, Little Budget Knife That Can Be a Little Bit Prickly

There comes a time in many a pocketknife enthusiast’s life when, due to continuous exposure to higher and higher end products, one’s taste grows to enjoy those finer things in life. For example, let’s say you started your journey with a cheapo knife that uses a piece of a wooden broom handle and a thin strip of an ancient variety of crappy carbon steel as a blade, a knife so poorly designed that it’ll eventually rust out from the inside of the “pivot” joint (really just a lousy wood-on-metal – no washers! – “action”, pinned in place by an axle!). ...

FengHua TC21 S110V: A Beautiful But Enigmatic Knife with a Steep Surprise

The Chinese pocketknife brand, FengHua, is a new brand to me. There’s not much information about them online, however. Extremely little, in fact. From my understanding, FengHua appears to be the premium sub-brand of a group of brands. WIN+, another member brand I am also unfamiliar with, sells the budget-end knives of the group. Dreamtech, yet another unfamiliar member brand, looks to be their middle-tier. Oddly, it’s impossible to tell which of the 3 brands is the company’s primary brand. For example, their Our Story page (that URL is misspelled, BTW) and their “blog”, located deep at the bottom of ...

Winterblade Factor B4: A Powerful Magnetar in the Pocketknife Cosmos

“Magnetar (mag·ne·tar). Noun – from the field of astronomy. A magnetar is a type of neutron star. A neutron star is created when an extremely large star, whose mass is 10 – 25 times that of our sun, enters a supernova event and is crushed into an object with a diameter of only ~20 kilometers / 12 miles. That supernova event caused the crushed star’s subatomic particles, its protons and electrons, to be converted into atomic neutrons, resulting in the neutron star’s hyper-extreme density. A magnetar is type of neutron star whose spin, temperature and strength of its original magnetic ...

Kunwu Excalibur: Black Magic Wizardry from Metal Complex

Greetings to thee, gentle reader mine. I bear tidings of a tale so wondrous and grand that it shall cast into doubt the very certainty of thy senses. Attend now as I unfold before thee an illustrious chronicle of the magnificent Excalibur, most peerless marvel of bladesmith’s cunning craft e’er witnessed in all the realms. Perchance thou dost inquire: is this that same Excalibur, bound in stone from ancient days of Arthur, noble knights, and damsels fair? Nay, I speak plainly—this is not the storied blade of eld. Rather, it is a new-forg’d wonder, wrought with unmatched skill by artisans ...

Arcane Design Creature: A Mysteriously Impressive Knife

I hate to admit this, but until just recently, I was totally unfamiliar with Arcane Design. I am glad that this has changed. The company is, as far as I can tell, a one-man shop run by the founder, a clever and talented young dude named Israel Bacchus. He specializes in crafting visually provocative knife designs, in which his deep interest in angular, geometric-based shapes consistently comes through in his work. In its relatively short history of 6 years, Arcane Design has released (at least) 12 knife (and knife-related) designs, all of which share its clear and consistent design language. ...

Benchmade Shootout: An OTF in the Back of the Pack

Out-the-front (OTF) automatic pocketknives have a mystique about them. They are members of the switchblade family, and switchblades have been the subject of controversy and legislation for ¾ of a century now. Because of the bad boy taboo they (used to) represent, their association with lawlessness (whether or not it’s true), and the fear-inducing automatic deployment feature rocketing the sharp blade straight-forward from the handle, they are perceived to be as dangerous as a cocked crossbow loaded with a bolt at the ready. They just seem inherently hazardous, like they’re about ready at any moment to launch that sprung, sharp ...

TuyaKnife Anzu: Excellent Action with a Funky Finish

TuyaKnife is not one of the major brands of popular pocketknives today, but it would be a mistake to ignore them. TuyaKnife is a small Chinese knifemaker (when I first heard the name, I thought they were a Russian knifemaker!) about which little is publicly known (and I’m here to fix that). Founded 8 years ago, they have produced several recent models that have earned consistent acclaim from aichmomaniacs (knife aficionados) who appreciate higher-end knives made of premium materials using highly skilled, technical artisanship. TuyaKnife has scored several hits with their releases of the Envy, Wrath, Strength and several more ...

Benchmade Mini Crooked River: On the Hunt for Sadly Absent Value

October 5, 2025

The Latest from the Blog

Benchmade Mini Crooked River: On the Hunt for Sadly Absent Value

Vosteed Porcupine: Cute, Little Budget Knife That Can Be a Little Bit Prickly

FengHua TC21 S110V: A Beautiful But Enigmatic Knife with a Steep Surprise

Winterblade Factor B4: A Powerful Magnetar in the Pocketknife Cosmos

Kunwu Excalibur: Black Magic Wizardry from Metal Complex

Arcane Design Creature: A Mysteriously Impressive Knife

Benchmade Shootout: An OTF in the Back of the Pack

TuyaKnife Anzu: Excellent Action with a Funky Finish

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