In This Article
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Best Woods Knife on the Market? KA-BAR BK-7 Knife Review
Whether you’re hunting, fishing, camping, or partaking in any other outdoor activity, we’d bet you’re carrying a blade. While many outdoors lovers believe that one knife can do anything they’ll need it to do, we believe it’s important to have the right tool for the job, every time. With that being said, we think the KA-BAR BK-7 blade is one of the best all-around options for those looking for a “do everything” cutting tool.
The KA-BAR BK-7 also known as the Becker Combat Utility is a great blade right out of the box for anyone that wants to throw it on their hip and get in the woods with a reliable tool. KA-BAR’s website reads “The ultimate BK&T all-purpose utility knife was designed specifically for soldiers and adventurers requiring a sturdy but lightweight combat knife that can stand up to hard use.” While we may not be soldiers, we would consider ourselves adventurers and we can say that this blade has done what we’ve asked of it, and then some.
Weighing in at 0.85 pounds with a full tang, 7-inch blade (as the name suggests), and an overall length of 12.75 inches the KA-BAR BK-7 is that perfect in-between size that when on your hip, you’ll know it’s there but at the same time it won’t feel like a burden.
The blade comes in at 0.188 inches in thickness which allows the user to have confidence in the knife’s durability and with a blade width of 1.813 inches, you can be confident when chopping that your blade will get through that timber. With a flat grind and clip point blade, the KA-BAR BK-7 is made to be that “do-anything” knife for the user, and we can say that we believe it can be that knife for just about anyone.
Right out of the box the KA-BAR BK-7 is a great knife. From most retailers, including KA-BAR’s website the BK-7 comes with a sheath that some would consider subpar, but we think offers some value. While it is possible to find a nice aftermarket leather or Kydex sheath online, we’ve been using the included sheath and we love it!
Whether we have the knife on our hip, toss it in our pack, or use the molle strapping to attach it to a pack, the sheath that’s included securely holds the knife in place and even has a smaller pouch on the outside where we store a smaller blade and a Ferro rod. With a price point of $148, this is a great price for a quality, American-made, “one and done” blade.
While we have raved about how great this knife is out of the box, there are some modifications we have done to ours to truly make it a “do everything” knife. We didn’t do anything too crazy, but these few modifications have really made this knife superior.
The first thing we did was add a paracord wrist wrap to the end of the handle. The knife has a convenient hole at the end of the handle that makes it easy to loop paracord through. This allows us to have more stability and security of the knife when chopping.
The second thing we did was stipple the scales that the knife comes with to give it more grip in the hand. By using a soldering iron, we pressed the hot metal tip into the Ultramid plastic handle to give it a texture and grip we liked. The Ultamid handle material out of the box is high quality and feels great in the hand, but in wet conditions we found it to be slippery and we were able to solve that problem by giving the handle a tree bark pattern stipple job and some texture.
The last thing we did was cut out a spot for our finger to rest right where the handle and the blade meet so that we can really get up close and personal on any little knife work that needs to be done. This was the real game-changer for us. By adding this feature, we can chop down decent-sized timber, and whittle very small and intricate pieces of wood all with the same knife. That’s the true power of this knife. The 7-inch blade offers the perfect length for chopping large pieces of wood and for completing jobs made for a pocketknife.
Overall, we would highly recommend the Ka-BAR BK-7 to anyone looking for a one-and-done woods knife. For more information on the KA-BAR BK-7 or to purchase the knife, visit KA-BAR’s website.
