B.K. Knives Damascus Camp Knife
Introduction
My wife is a wonderful woman. I cannot stress this enough.
A while back, for Father’s Day, she gave me one of the best presents I’ve ever received: A custom made knife.
I love knives, and I own a ton of them, but I’ve never had a knife made for me before. I would buy ready-made knives from the knife section of Academy and call it a day. I didn’t really look too hard at custom made knives because I always thought they would be too expensive and not necessarily worth it.
I was wrong.
When I opened up the packaging on Father’s Day, I was greeted with a custom BK Knife. BK Knives is owned and operated by Bruce Klawinsky and his wife Tracy. Bruce makes the knives in his shop in New Waverly, Texas and Tracy makes the custom sheaths.
So not only is this knife American-made, it’s Texan-made, which is unarguably better.
This post will dive into what makes this knife special and why I think you owe it to yourself to check out BKknives.net and pick yourself up something nice.
What It Is
This knife is a handmade Damascus steel knife with a real ram horn handle. The Damascus used in this knife is the 10 series with 1095 15 N 20. Now, I have no idea what that means, but Mr. Klawinsky does. Furthermore, when he says, “This Damascus combination has taken years to perfect and has been tested under a variety of applications which offer professional performance in categories of toughness, strength (lateral stress), edge honing and holding ability”, I tend to believe him.
These knives are made from “carbon steel”, which means that they need to be regularly oiled and used in order to maintain the blade.
The leather sheath is just as nice as the knife itself. It’s got a custom fit and finish that pairs well with the knife itself. Each sheath is hand cut, tooled, sewn and finished—complete with maker's mark.
What I Love About It
In this part of the post, I’ll discuss what I love about this knife.
Damascus
Damascus steel is my favorite steel, if one could have such a thing. It’s beautiful. It looks like a gun and a topography map had a tough, angry baby. It’s a really mesmerizing thing to look at, which isn’t strictly necessary for a knife blade. However, if you can make something that works AND make it beautiful and beautifully made, why wouldn’t you.
Sheath
The sheath is really beautiful and compliments the knife well. It feels durable and looks great, very similar to knife itself.
Made in Texas
I can’t stress this enough. Texas is better than any other state in the union.
Don’t argue.
It just is.
Useability
This particular knife is 9.25 inches long in total with a little more than half of that making up the blade. The point of this knife makes it really useable for just about anything. It’s sturdy enough for batoning wood for fires and tent pegs and delicate enough to use in the kitchen. I haven’t processed any game with it yet, but I would imagine it will work well for that also.
I use this knife when making breakfast for my family on the weekends and it works great at slicing and chopping. It’s an incredibly useful blade and it has displaced my Becker BK2 as my knife of choice when going out into the backcountry.
Price
I don’t know what this knife would cost, because I’m not going to ask my wife and she had it customized for me.
However, I do know the prices on BKknives.net and they are reasonable. You can expect to pay just north of $100 for a knife from Mr. Klawinsky. This isn’t as affordable as a Mora or a Buck 100 (both also excellent knives), but this is an heirloom. This is something your kids will be happy to have when you pass it down.
What I Hate About it
Nothing.
Rating 95/100
This is the portion of the blog where I rate the item and tell you it’s score according to the very scientific Capture-Crown-Country-Because-I-Said-So-Scale.
Price 10/10
I didn’t ask my wife what she paid for my knife, but I went to their website and it looks like a very similar knife to mine is around $145.00. For a custom-made knife with a real horn handle, it’s hard to think of anything that could beat this.
Build Quality 9/10
The build quality on this is pretty exceptional. My only slight gripe is that the horn handles could use a little more polishing and refining, but I honestly probably don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to this. I know that natural material is a lot more difficult to work with than something synthetic, so I’m very forgiving of some inconsistency when it comes to these scales. I do have to mention it though.
Performance 10/10
Thus far, this knife is durable, it takes an edge easily and holds it well. The knife seems durable enough to really use rather than just keeping it as a show piece. It’s a great all round performer.
Versatility 8/10
I don’t know of too many knives that can make the transition from delicate kitchen tasks to batoning wood for campfires. The Becker BK2 is excellent for the later, but it’s a pain to use in the kitchen. A knife like the Buck 110 is honestly great in the kitchen and it’s a study knife, but I wouldn’t trust it to baton through a small log.
The only reason I’m not giving it a perfect 10 is because it’s a large, fixed blade knife and I am not going to wear this on a daily basis. I’m not cool enough to pull that look off. However, this could arguable be a flaw in my design rather than the knife’s.
Features 10/10
I feel like these are all variations on a theme, but this knife has quite a bit going for it. The blade is thick enough for camp chores, but not preposterous like the Becker. It’s got a Damascus blade, which is just cool. The Ram horn handles are beautiful and grippy and the leather sheath is the cherry on top of the Sunday.
Subjective 10/0
It’s a Damascus steel, Texas-made knife with a custom leather sheath and my initials on it. 10 out of 10!
Closing
In closing, this knife is incredibly useful, it’s well made, it’s beautiful and it’s a great value for what it is. I don’t know why you’re still readying this. You need to open a new tab, go to https://bkknives.net/ and get yourself a piece of Texas-made steel.
