Come look around our tactical knife reviews and guides for a sturdy utility blade to carry for emergencies, or a quick-access neck knife for protection. It’s rough when any knife fails on you, but it’s a lot worse when they fail in life or death situations. We do our best to test and review tactical knives for their ability to be deployed quickly, cut reliably, and stand up to the rigors of an emergency.
Many of our writers have backgrounds in law enforcement, military, and martial arts, and are well acquainted with what elements of a knife make it vital in critical situations. We also really like playing with knives and have developed a sense of what makes knives dangerous over many years of stupid mistakes made during hazy dares and overconfident demonstrations. So we like to think we have the full spectrum of expertise in this area.
New Lock, New Look, New Ownership, But Everything About This Knife Screams Cold Steel. I have mostly ignored Cold Steel since the company sold to GSM Outdoors almost two years ago. This reaction is not justified, and I certainly don’t have any particular issue with GSM Outdoors. It was mostly just due to my general …
This Subtle Workhorse of a Knife is a Fitting Homage to the Gun That Shares Its Name There’s a lot of crossover between those of us who are fixated by knives and those who like guns. Knife companies have long recognized this and many have tried to create gun-themed knives that are doubly appealing–something Hogue …
This is a Great Machete, Hatchet, and Work Out Routine in One Package The Apex is a burly chopper with a surprisingly keen edge. It looks like something you slam against a rock to crack a nut for fun, but the ergonomics and the blade geometry give it a lot more utility past the typical …
A Tactical Spear Point Knife that’s almost a Folding Dagger So this thing is lethal. You could say that a four inch spear point blade is good for a lot of different things, but when I look at this knife there’s always one thing that comes to mind before anything else. This is a purebred …
The Benchmade 430BK Redoubt. A Lightweight Black Classic Knife. Redoubt. What a strange and oddly anachronistic word. A redoubt is a fortification of sort—but without the strength or permanence of a full-sized fort. These are often temporary fortifications built by smaller, faster-moving units that need something like a fort, but who don’t have the time …
Ka Bar and Spartan Basically Made a Small, Tactical Prybar I don’t mean that in a bad way, though. This little beater of a thing is handy to take pretty much everywhere. That’s the whole intent of the design, from the lightweight build (in spite of the thick blade stock) to the retention straps on …
A Tough Assisted Open Flipper with some Blade Options This is the flipper update of the REVO Warden. The main change here is that it has a flipper tab instead of a thumb stud. Since I never handled the first version, I can’t tell you to what extent this knife is better or worse (I’m …
A Lightweight, Versatile Fixed Blade That Punches Well Above Its Price Tag After spending a few weeks with the Waxahachie, I am still not sure how to pronounce it, but I am sure this knife will become one of my most recommended budget fixed blades of all time. The excellent design of this knife results …
A Surprisingly Comfortable, Surprisingly Tactical Budget Knife Design This is a good hard use tactical knife with a nifty steel and great ergonomics all around. It has a lot of function as a camping knife (which is how I mostly used it), but the really impressive talking point is the drawing ergos with the sheath …
This is a Pricey Hard Use Folder Wearing Tactical Clothes The Vision XR is a revision of an older design with a few changes based on user feedback. Supposedly this one is built more effectively for “professional use case situations, with a focus on general purpose utility and combative use” according to SOG’s description of …
Affiliate disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases from Amazon.com. You can learn more about our editorial and affiliate policy here.