Hey YouTube is Martin channel budget bug out. And as you probably know, at this point, I love talking about all things knives. Now I love having knives with me for everyday carry. I love having nice with me when I’m in the great outdoors. So whether it be fixed blade or folding knives, I love all things bladed.
Now, one of the things that I haven’t hammered on too much in my videos are tactical folding knives. And that’s what this video is going to be talking about today, I get a lot of questions, you know, what should I look for in a tactical knife or self defense knife to help me in a self defense type of scenario. So I’m going to be answering that question in this video going over what I consider to be the seven best tactical folding knives on the market today. So these are going to be basically the perfect seven.
And although knives come in all sorts of, you know, different shapes and sizes for everyday carry, you know, most of the tasks you’re going to come across, you know, you’re going to be able to resolve with something like a Kershaw League, or a bench made mini grip Tillion. But something that these knives cannot do. Not nearly as effective as the ones on the table in front of you is effectively protect yourself or your loved ones. As a last ditch resort. Another thing that these knives can do, in addition to self defense is if you’re a member of law enforcement or member of the military, maybe one of these knives might appeal to you because of your designated role. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and dive right in.
I do want to caveat that because of these knives and the lethality that they can administer, as well as their Blade Size and as well as some of the ways that these knives open or deploy, not just the ones that you see on screen. But all the other ones I’m going to be showing you in this video, make sure sure that you check your local knife laws and kids don’t play with knives.
Without further ado, let’s go ahead and get down to it. If you guys have questions on in these knives, as always, I’ve leaving links in description box down below. Let’s go ahead and get down to it talking about the seven perfect tactical folding knives on the market today. Stay with me. Hey guys, thanks for watching, and welcome back. So before we talk about each of these knives, let’s first discuss what features you need to have in a tactical folding knife.
So as a way of pointing out those features, I’m going to use my crucial leak to not only point to them, but also as a way of contrasting the difference between everyday carry knife and a tactical folder. So first off, you can see that the blade length on the Kershaw league is not super long, it’s got a slim profile, it’s lightweight, and the handle is not very aggressive, or grippy or anything like that, or as the knives in front of you are going to be basically the opposite where you’re going to have a longer blade length, you usually want to have a 3.5 inch blade to a four inch, that way you’re maximizing the reach of your knife without sacrificing too much pocket space because you do still need to be able to carry it, you’re going to want to have the handle be grippy enough so that it doesn’t destroy your skin, your palm, but also gives you a good grip.
And you want the ergonomics as well, to make it so that your your fingers don’t slip and slide up the blade of your knife. And if you were to use this in a piercing fashion, and you hit something like body armor, or you miss your target, and you hit something solid, or maybe hit a rib cage or something like that, or bone which stops your hand from moving. So kind of keep those things in mind as well as remember that dexterity is one of the first things that you lose in a fight or flight type of situation.
And you know, kind of huddling around to make sure that you’re you know, you’re just disabling you know, things like safeties and you know, things like that, or we’re trying to find the method of deploying the knife, and that’s all going to get in your way. So you want to make sure you to minimize all those things when you’re looking for a tactical folding knife. So let’s go ahead and get started with some of the more budget friendly knives and then kind of moving on from there.
So the first one is going to be from CR Katie, this is the M 16. And they’ve recently redesigned that this knife, so I’m really excited for the redesign. And you know, there are other videos explaining that but what I want to cover in this one is yet even though it is a slightly less aggressive grip, I do like the fact that it’s got jumping on the flipper, which then becomes a finger guard.
So like I said, that’s going to keep your hand firmly in place whenever using this in it in a piercing fashion. So I like that. I also like that the fact that they got rid of the extra safety lock to disengage the knife, which is known as the auto locks, which we have over here, I can kind of show you. Now, as you can see it, there’s nothing to interfere with the knife opening, it’s just this little guy right here, which automatically keeps the knife open.
If you were to try to disengage it, you have to first moves out a locks and then it will close. So I don’t care. Like I said as much for something like that, as I do with something like these knives, which is the Gerber fast, as well as the poker strike. So you guys can kind of tell that has a safety. So the Red Dead, you know, kind of like your gun.
And then this means it’s safe. But if you’re going to keep this in your pocket, because you know, this one is spring assist, and this one is auto, you have to basically Remember to move it out of the way before you open that. And it also does have the best torsion bar. So I don’t, it doesn’t always open all the way and especially if you were to bump something that you’re not going to have a really solid lockups, which you definitely are going to want to avoid that potential. Whenever you’re opening it. Like I said, you’re going to be kind of nervous whenever you’re opening this. So you know, kind of pulling this out of your pocket, you know, pressing the button, realizing it doesn’t work, you know that that’s going to be frustrating. And this one, you have to press kind of a little bit harder, but these are definitely cool looking knives. So if you if you just want a knife that that is pretty cool.
Or maybe those features or extra steps, don’t bother you, then maybe maybe these knives would be good for you as well. They’re also pretty budget friendly. So just kind of something to think about. And I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section down below. Like Yes, the fact that this could be a safety and could potentially be stopping you from opening your knife are those features that would deter you from purchasing a tactical knife or knife used for you know, tactical roll.
For me, those are things that I just simply am not going to spend my money on, if that’s why I’m carrying this knife for and seconds, definitely count move moving things around, you know, disengaging things that’s going to be not very good at this table, please. So let’s talk about the car Katie Homefront, you can see this is a another flipper knife, whereas a CR Katie, m 16 is going to range between 32, you know, upwards to $60, this one is going to start at around $60.
He go up to up to $80, although most of them around $60. And it does have that finger guard like I was talking about with with the previous one. And what’s really cool about this one is that if you were to you know, if you’re a military, you want to look for a knife, that would be good in a setting that deals with a lot of sand or in mud and etc, then this one might be great because the fields strip technology, as the sticker implies to your head to send me one and another one as well. So they sent me this one, which is basically another hub Homefront.
And then they also sent me this guy right here, which as you can see still has that same field strip technology, as they say. And I think this one’s called h FAS. And it basically is kind of more of an EDC version, I think it’d be cool to have a bright orange or blaze orange colored one uniform for the woods in case you drop it, just my two cents.
But yeah, I definitely like the look of this kind of a classic World War Two Captain America ish design. And although this one also isn’t as a super strong grip, like some of the other ones are going to be talking about, I still think that is going to keep her hand firmly in place if you were to use this and it’s kind of self defense role. So that combined with the like I said, the the ability to take this apart and put it back together, put take it apart, clean it, put it back together, without any tools is going to make this invaluable. Moving on to the Recon one, does this knife even need an introduction at this point is from cold steel, it I bought this one for about $70 because it has the OS eight a steel but I think now with the upgraded Carpenter steals, it’s around $99 for this knife, and extremely strong ergonomic handle extremely strong grip, I should say, excellent packing mechanism with that triad lock, you know, that is going to be secure.
And it’s not going to close up on you whenever you use this knife. And yeah, I think some of the complaints is that the fact that this will actually wear away your pocket and training. So it’s good and bad in that case. So let me know what you guys think when it comes to the handle grip, you know, is there a way that an act grip can be too aggressive? Why or why not or should we just get used to buying you know, pants every six months. The next one is from spider co This is of course the paramilitary to this is one of the most popular knives in the knife industry.
And because the the blade length being over three inches and more people wanting this knife that just the demand was so high that they came out with the para three, which is a knife play that has a under three inch blade. But I really think that if you’re looking for a tactical knife that can also be used for everyday carry, then that’s the paramilitary to is pretty much perfect for that. It’s lightweight, more lightweight than other knives on the table for sure. And it’s still a aggressive handle material without being overly aggressive doesn’t really wear away your pocket.
And it also is pretty easy to keep this clean. I can take a Q tip some oil, and you can maintain that pretty easily. And I really like the the compression lock, it’s pretty cool way to close this knife. So paramilitary to this one’s going to range a little over $100 only around $119 is what I paid for mine. Moving On Up in at least in price Anyways, this is the Emerson mini see qc 15. And this guy costs I think around $170.
And what I like about this time is of course that Emerson patented Emerson wave which as you take this out of the pocket, the knife deploy so there’s no other knife that is going to do that for you nearly as good as as this knife does. And so if you if you’re wanting to a knife, especially in a self defense type of role, I mean look no further than an Emerson knife with that Emerson patented wave and is extremely grippy Gitane on both sides.
But if you are wanting more budget friendly one as I said in other videos, you can get one of the Kershaw collaboration Emerson knives, like the secret qc 10 K, and that that k at the end of it is stands for Kershaw, which is what the company Emerson partnered with in order to manufacture these knives. So excellent option for especially for everyday carry and or for self defense, especially.
Moving on to probably the most ergonomic knife on the table. This is from Hogue Hogue is famous for making excellent gun grips. And like I said, this is extremely ergonomic. What I like about this knife is Yeah, I’ll talk about that safety here in a second. But it’s very easy to get the thumbs tab, open it up and then whenever you need to close it, you can keep your fingers clear and just press that button.
The safety comes into play when you open the knife and you can lock it open that way doesn’t close so that’s the only way that their safety is used you cannot use the safety to keep this knife from from being open. So that is why I don’t mind adding this to that list of what I consider to be the perfect seven tactical knives.
Now last but definitely not the least this was sent to me from a bench made this is the contango or maybe it’s pronounced it can t go but this is around $170 and I really really liked this night for several reasons. First off, it’s made from bench made so it’s got that access locks that I you know everyone loves so much.
And here’s here’s a good example you can see the difference between the bench made mini grip telling you can take it is it is big and it’s got a blade length of basically four inches I think it’s like 3.9 inches but basically four inches. And as a bonus in addition to having the designer talked about the beginning of the video, it’s got a glass breaker I thought at the bottom so I really love the grip of this but I kind of feel I won’t have the same problem as the the recording we’re just gonna you know, hit my pocket lining but these are going to be what I can to be like I said the seven best knives there are some other knives that like I said, I know you kind of seen throughout the video, but this one from Strider the SMG this knife is just way too expensive.
And it just doesn’t think the quality on some of these knives feel better than the striker knife and this one cost over $400 and so I really can’t recommend this one unless you know you can afford it as far as meaning you know, I’m I’m enlisted in the military I really don’t have that much money to spend most I’ll be willing to spend on a knife is you know, around $100 give or take so you know I like to budget my money hence the the channel name save up for some of these better knives.
But some of these more budget friendly or affordable now on this side are also going to be excellent, excellent option for y’all depending on what your needs are. So let me know what you guys see in the comment section 10 below. So just just to be funny. I have this other recon one and this is the large version of it.
Look at the size differences. I need to move that safety. Look at the size difference between that and the Kershaw league. So you know, are there tactical knives that are too big you know? Or can you just never have a knife that is that is too big? Let me know in the comment section down below. What are some of the things that you’re looking for in a tactical knife and just love to hear your feedback and of course as always, check out those links in the in the description box down below for where you guys can purchase any of these nice if you are if you’re curious about them. Y’all stay safe out there and remember pays to be prepared.