2024 test19 productsHand Tools
Which Pocket/folding Knives Brand Wins?
We compared 19 pocket/folding knives options head to head. Boker came out on top. See the measured results, the runner-up, the budget pick, and a link to the full test video.
Winner
Boker
Price shown in test: $373
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Runner-up
Civivi
Price shown in test: $30
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Budget pick
Civivi
Price shown in test: $30
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The measured results
Every number below is read straight from the test. Scroll sideways to see all measurements. Products are listed in the order they finished.
| Product | Brand Resolution | Claims | Country Of Origin | Weight_g | Initial Sharpness_BESS_lower Is Sharper | Lock Release Force_lb | Opening Smoothness_g | Sharpness After Osage Wood Test_BESS | Sharpness After Resharpen_BESS | Sharpness After Bamboo Test_BESS | Blade Tip Drop Test | Pivot Slop_mm | Features | Retail Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1AOSILEY$6 | captioned as osley, ocle, OS, and ocel across the video; resolved to AOSILEY via the description, the only brand at the $6 price point | high quality stainless steel blade, aluminum handle, liner lock | China | 129 (just over) | 190, called a great result for a $6 knife | not stated; the lock-force test section opens mid comparison ('it takes a lot less force to unlock the albatross') implying AOSILEY's own figure was given just before this excerpt or as an implicit baseline, but no explicit AOSILEY number appears anywhere in the transcript, an apparent gap | 105, described as quite a bit of force | 300 (up from 190) | 110 | 145, held up really well for a $6 knife | held up really well with only a small amount of damage | 10.45, very sloppy and loose, as expected from a $6 knife | not tested | not tested |
| 2Albatross$10 | not tested | spring assisted, flipper deployment, 440 stainless steel blade, liner lock | China | 105.63 | 205, pretty sharp but not as sharp as AOSILEY | 1.37, finished third-lowest (easiest to unlock) of all 19 brands per the closing recap | 97 | 310 (up from 205) | 105, sharper than AOSILEY's 110 | 185 (up from 105) | direct hit, a little more damage than AOSILEY | 10.9, even more sloppy and loose than AOSILEY | not tested | not tested |
| 3GW$10 | not tested | compact, versatile, 440c stainless steel, liner lock, serrated blade, aluminum ergonomic handle | China | captioned as '11 17.76%'; the leading '11' and trailing '%' do not fit any plausible weight format used elsewhere in this video and are almost certainly caption artifacts around a real figure, kept verbatim rather than guessed | 215 | very close to 2 | 81 | 315, the dullest result yet at that point in the video | 125, described as the sharpest it could be made despite several attempts | 210, struggled to hold a blade edge | blade dulled quickly on impact, a good indication the metal is soft; a lot of damage | 8.1, moved into the lead (best so far) at that point in the video | not tested | not tested |
| 4Mossy Oaknot stated; the transcript has no price introduction sentence for this brand, unlike most others, an apparent gap | captioned as masio and Moke across the video; resolved to Mossy Oak via the description and the explicit later phrase 'not as sharp as a mossi oak' | not tested | China | 145.63, captioned with a leading '11 18.96%' fragment immediately before it that does not fit the video's weight format and is kept verbatim as an unresolved artifact rather than guessed | 165 | 4, described as taking a little thumb and finger strength | 44, by far the smoothest yet at that point in the video | 350, the dullest result in the entire video | captioned as 'maxed out at5 sharpness points', a dropped leading digit; not recoverable precisely, kept as an unresolved artifact rather than guessed | 215, dulled pretty badly | more damage than AOSILEY and Albatross but less than GW | 6.63, by far the best stability yet at that point in the video | G10 handle, opens via thumb stud | not tested |
| 5Steinbruckenot stated; the transcript has no price introduction sentence for this brand, unlike most others, an apparent gap | captioned as Stein Brook / Steinbrook throughout; resolved to Steinbrucke via the description | not tested | not explicitly restated for this brand individually in the transcript (implied China like nearly every other brand, but not confirmed in words) | not stated anywhere in the transcript, an apparent gap | 170 | 0.85, the lowest (easiest to unlock) of all 19 brands per the closing recap | 28, even better (smoother) than Mossy Oak | 240, held the sharpest edge yet at that point in the video | 100, described as very easy to sharpen | 195 | about the same amount of damage as Mossy Oak | just over 10, a lot of side to side movement | not tested | not tested |
| 6Crescent$16 | not tested | 3.5in harpoon blade, premium stainless steel, easy-action flipper tab, liner lock; transcript states both 'product of Vietnam and finished in China' and, separately, 'a crescent is made in China', kept as two distinct statements rather than reconciled | not tested | not stated; the transcript reads 'a crescent is the heaviest yet at price of $20 is this Oldtimer brand' with the actual weight number missing between 'at' and the next brand's price introduction, a clear caption gap | 235, described later as pretty dull to start | 2.08, about the same as GW | 33 | 335 (up from 235) | 115 | 135 (only lost 20 points from 115), the smallest sharpness loss of any brand in this final test | one of the heaviest knives in the lineup; a little more blade tip damage than Steinbrucke | 6.19, even better than Mossy Oak, moved into the lead at that point | not tested | not tested |
| 7Old Timer$20 | not tested | high carbon stainless steel, 2.9in drop point blade, wood handle, claimed 3.2 oz, back lock (most other brands in this video use a liner lock) | China | 87.8 | 195, described as maybe not the sharpest but still pretty sharp | 7.345, the most force required of any brand up to that point in the video | 91, described as a little stiffness and arthritis to be expected | 295, lost 100 sharpness points from 195 | 105 | 215 (lost 110 points from 105) | seems pretty soft, quite a bit of damage | 8.58, a little too much slop | not tested | not tested |
| 8Smith & Wesson$20 | not tested | high carbon stainless steel blade, 2.8in blade length, claimed 3.5 oz, two thumb knobs, frame lock | China | 99.37 (transcript merges this figure directly into the next sentence about CRKT with a stray '%' sign, 'the Smith and Wesson weighs 99.37% G for the crkt'; the number is attributed to Smith & Wesson by sentence position, the '%' kept as an unresolved artifact) | 185 | 6.615, also described as taking quite a bit of force | 82, about the same as GW | 290 (up from 185), a lot of dulling | 115, same sharpness as Crescent | 205 (up from 115), dulled quite a bit | the direct hit caused a pretty bad bend to the blade tip, one of the worse outcomes in this test | 7.77, better than average | not tested | not tested |
| 9CRKTnot stated; the transcript has no price introduction sentence for this brand, unlike most others, an apparent gap | not tested | not tested | not tested | not clearly isolated; the transcript's weight sentence for this brand is merged with Smith & Wesson's ('the Smith and Wesson weighs 99.37% G for the crkt'), leaving no distinct CRKT figure, an apparent gap | 205, stated as 40 points behind Mossy Oak's 165, which checks out (165+40=205) | just over 3, a little more than average | 98, about the same as Albatross | 320 (up from 205) | 120, not quite as sharp as Old Timer's 105 | 195 (up from 120), dulled quite a bit | pretty soft, quite a bit of damage | 6.7, moved into third place behind Mossy Oak at that point | not tested | not tested |
| 10Buck$30 | not tested | stainless steel blade for strength and edge retention; unlike most other brands in this video, has a frame lock rather than a liner lock; removable pocket clip | China | 132.5 | 175, good enough to move into third place behind Steinbrucke at that point | 3.42, a little more than average | 89, almost as stiff as Old Timer | 240 (up from 175), tied with Steinbrucke for the sharpest result at that point | 100, just as sharp as Steinbrucke | 180, described as unable to hold a sharp edge (as in the earlier durability test) | a pretty heavy knife; blade tip took quite a bit of damage | 7.41, performed better than average | not tested | not tested |
| 11Civivi$30 | not tested | black stonewash D2 steel, ceramic ball bearing pivot construction, G10 handle, liner lock, described by the narrator as a number one seller on Amazon | China | just under 79 | 130, called very impressive | 1.79, pretty easy to unlock | 11 (a mid-video comparison line separately states 'zero tolerance is the same as a civi at 13 G', which conflicts with the 11g figure stated directly for Civivi and confirmed again in the closing recap as 11g for both Civivi and Zero Tolerance; the mid-video 13g statement is kept as a flagged inconsistency rather than used) | 265 (up from 130) | 105 | 150, still very sharp | held up really well, only a small amount of damage | 4.36, doing a terrific job, moved into the lead at that point; closing recap confirms third place overall behind Zero Tolerance and Boker | not tested | not tested |
| 12Kershaw$30 | not tested | carbon infused black oxide coated blade, bright orange handle for visibility, liner lock, includes a window breaker | China | 121.6 | 160, one of the sharpest knives in the lineup | 1.62, also pretty easy to unlock | 48, better than average | 235 (up from 160), moved into first place (best edge retention) at that point in the video | 110 | 135, did a great job of holding a blade edge, as it had in the earlier durability test | held a very sharp blade edge and the tip seems very durable; narrator calls out better quality blade steel than many of the other knives | 10.7, performed very well in most categories but this is a clear area for improvement | not tested | not tested |
| 13CJRB$36 | not tested | AR-RPM9 blade steel, stainless steel handle, button lock (a distinct lock type from most other brands' liner locks), claimed 3.7 oz, dual thumb studs | China | 112.71 | 185, performed well | 2.67 | 18, very easy and smooth | 295, lost 110 points from 185 | 125, pretty challenging to sharpen | 265, really struggled to hold a sharp edge, in really bad shape | some damage to the blade edge as well as a small bend to the blade tip | 5.8, offers a lot of blade stability | not tested | not tested |
| 14Gerber$39 | not tested | 5c stainless steel blade (steel designation as captioned, kept verbatim) | China | captioned as '19.764miles', an obviously garbled unit and figure; by far the heaviest knife in the lineup per the narrator, exact grams not recoverable, kept verbatim rather than guessed | not given an explicit number at introduction; the later durability recap states only that Gerber 'started off the dest in the lineup' (dullest of all 19 brands), with no numeric starting score ever stated, only the post-test figure of 260 | 3.97, quite a bit of force from the thumb | 187, by far the stiffest (worst) opening force of all 19 brands | 260 | 100, formed a very sharp knife edge | 150, did a fantastic job of holding a blade edge in both durability tests | the heaviest knife tested; the blade tip survived the impact and still looks as good as new | 6.52, quite a bit better than average | not tested | not tested |
| 15Kizernot stated; the transcript has no price introduction sentence for this brand, unlike most others, an apparent gap | captioned as Kaiser throughout; resolved to Kizer via the description and testing-order position | German-made Nitro-V steel (as captioned; the steel type is Nitro-V, while the country of origin stated immediately after for the knife itself is China, kept as two separate, non-contradictory statements: a German steel used in a China-made knife), flipper plus liner lock combination | China | 61.85, very light | 225 | 1.25, second-lowest (second-easiest to unlock) of all 19 brands per the closing recap, which also includes a stray fragment ('1.25 five') not otherwise explained | 13, very smooth and easy to open, the same as SOG | captioned as 'held up well at 27', a dropped trailing digit; not recoverable precisely, kept as an unresolved artifact rather than guessed | 105, about the same sharpness as Gerber | 155, also held a sharp blade edge in the first durability test and is still sharper than new | a very lightweight knife; held up very well from the direct impact, just like Gerber | 6.52, performed the same as Gerber | not tested | not tested |
| 16ICON$40 | not tested | ceramic ball bearings, premium D2 blade steel claim, low friction pivot point, blade length just over 3in, liner lock | China | 109.15 | 175, performed well | 1.745, also pretty easy to unlock | 7, moved into the lead, the smoothest (lowest force) opening of all 19 brands | 290, lost 115 points from 175 | 115, the same as SOG | 125, the sharpest knife in the lineup at that point; closing recap confirms second place overall behind Zero Tolerance | wasn't happy about getting dropped, held up really well with just a small amount of damage | 5.34, moved into second place behind Civivi | not tested | sold at Harbor Freight |
| 17SOG$40 | captioned as so, S so, and theog across the video; resolved to SOG via the description | cryo 44c stainless steel (steel designation as captioned, kept verbatim), spring-assisted technology, liner lock | China | 127.66 | 155, very sharp, moved into second place behind Civivi at that point (subject dropped from the transcript sentence, resolved by testing-order position and later cross references) | right at 2 | 13, the same as Kizer | 225, held up well, moved into first place (over Kershaw) at that point in the video | 115, the same as ICON | 130, a strong performer in both durability tests, much better than average; closing recap confirms a tie with Boker for the final spot behind Zero Tolerance and ICON | held up really well, still looks as good as new | 7.37, a little better than average; the brand name is dropped from this specific sentence in the transcript ('the is at 7.37 MM'), resolved by testing-order position between Kizer and ICON | not tested | not tested |
| 18Zero Tolerance$265 | not tested | 20CV stainless steel blade, titanium handle with glow-in-the-dark carbon fiber overlay, flipper with the KVT opening system | United States | 141 (right out at) | 220, started duller than average for a knife at this price | 2.65, pretty close to average | 11 (a mid-video line states 'zero tolerance is the same as a civi at 13 G', which conflicts with the closing recap's '11 G' figure for both Civivi and Zero Tolerance; the mid-video 13g statement is kept as a flagged inconsistency rather than used) | 220, essentially unchanged from its initial 220 score; the narrator explains that starting duller than average left it with less room to dull further during this test, a real result rather than a caption error | 105 | 115, by far the best (sharpest) final result of all 19 brands | made of a very hard metal designed for a long-lasting durable edge; only a very small amount of damage | 2.86, the best (most stable) of all 19 brands by a wide margin | not tested | not tested |
| 19Boker$373 | not tested | hardness of 62 to 63 HRC, ball bearing blade for smooth and quick opening | Germany | captioned as '91.67%'; the trailing '%' does not fit the video's weight format and is kept verbatim as an unresolved artifact rather than guessed | 140, extremely sharp; this figure only appears later in the durability-test recap, not in Boker's own introduction paragraph, which jumps straight from weight into the next section without a sharpness number | captioned as 'only 2105 lb', almost certainly a dropped decimal point given every other brand in this test reads between 0.85 and 7.345 lb; kept verbatim as an unresolved artifact rather than corrected to a guessed value | 15, very smooth | 210 (up from 140), still the sharpest blade in the lineup at that point in the video | 105 | 130, tied with SOG for the final spot behind Zero Tolerance and ICON | constructed with very hard blade steel; the tip still looks as good as new | 4.2, very good side to side stability, second place behind Zero Tolerance | not tested | not tested |
How it was tested
- factory out-of-box sharpness, BESS score (lower is sharper; per the video's own reference chart, roughly 50 to 75 for a double edged razor, 150 to 200 for a utility razor, 250 to 350 for a new high-end cutlery edge, 400+ needs maintenance, around 2000 for a dull butter knife)
- blade lock release force in pounds
- blade opening smoothness in grams of force
- sharpness (BESS) after 15 back-and-forth passes across osage orange wood with 5 lb of downward force
- sharpness (BESS) after resharpening all blades to a deliberately aggressive 17 degree edge
- sharpness (BESS) after 50 back-and-forth passes across a bamboo cutting board following the resharpen
- blade lock strength: 25 lb of downward force applied to the open blade (all 19 brands held up fine, no per-brand differentiation reported)
- blade tip durability: dropped from about 4.5ft onto mild steel, qualitative damage assessment
- blade pivot slop/wobble in mm of side to side movement, measured with a dial indicator 3.5in from the pivot
“the booker came out on top with the best average finisher rating of 3.9”
Data notes and caveats
This transcript systematically inserts a stray dollar sign before plain BESS sharpness-score numbers (e.g. 'a sharpness score of $190', 'sharpness of $220'), which are scores on the video's own 0 to 2000+ BESS scale, not prices; every such figure in products[] has been treated as a BESS score, not a price, and the dollar sign discarded as a caption artifact rather than carried forward as a dollar value. Four of the 19 brands (Mossy Oak, Steinbrucke, CRKT, Kizer) have no price stated anywhere in the transcript, an unusually large and clustered gap versus other Project Farm showdowns. Several weight readings carry unexplained '%' or unit artifacts (GW, Mossy Oak, Smith & Wesson, Boker) or are outright missing (Crescent, Steinbrucke, CRKT) or garbled beyond recovery (Gerber's 'miles' unit); all are preserved verbatim per product with the pattern flagged here. The overall winner is explicit and score-based: the narrator converts raw per-test results into a 1st-through-19th average finisher rating, with Boker on top at 3.9 and Civivi a close second at 4.2, which the narrator also names as a personal everyday-carry pick over the numeric winner. Zero Tolerance gets an explicit, unusual near-miss callout: 'it would have definitely won The Showdown if it had a very sharp knife edge when new,' since it won or tied for best in the final sharpness-retention and pivot-stability tests but was dragged down by a mediocre out-of-box sharpness score. ICON gets an audience-specific value recommendation ('if you're a Harbor Freight customer the icon knife is of very good quality') distinct from the numeric winner and runner-up. Two brand pairs have internally contradictory opening-smoothness figures (Civivi/Zero Tolerance: an 11g figure for each stated directly and confirmed in the closing recap, versus one mid-video line claiming both are 13g); the 11g figures are used as the better-supported value with the conflicting line flagged rather than silently dropped.