Favorite knives but hated sheaths.

trailbum

trailbum

Joined
Sep 18, 2010
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3,493
We all have knives we love, but hate the factory sheaths.
Some of mine are the Esee candiru, Moras, and Becker knives.
I feel these knives are worth the cost of a after market sheath.
What are your favorite knives with junk sheaths, or sheaths you just don't like.
 
Cold Steel Braveheat - The sheath very neatly dulls the entire edge.

ESEE 4 - I seem to have two options with the kydex sheath - having it so tight that I can't take my knife out, or having it so loose that the knife falls right out. That's kind of a bummer. The Molle back is kind of a piece of junk - the velcro 'retention' straps don't retain anything worth a damn, and the little elasticised retention bit at the end has already lost all of its elasticity. I've only brought the thing out camping once or twice and the molle back is already frayed and falling apart. :thumbdn:

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I find I leave the knife at home as often as not because I don't trust / don't like the sheath.
 
I've tried leather sheaths, nylone sheats, and plastic sheaths. And by far I like the plastic sheaths of the Moras's the best! Super easy to clean, doesn't degrade like leather would without care, and has great retention. I can put the mora in the sheat, turn the sheath upside down and bang it on a counter and the knife won't come out.
 
The Boker Plus Rhino is one of my favorite little fixed blade knives, but the fact that Boker supplies a sheath without a means to clip it or attach it diminishes the knife's usability. I don't like having to dig inside my pockets to pull out a knife. Paracord works for horizontal belt carry, but it should at least be supplied with a clip or something.

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Skyline. Its not too bad, i prefer horizontal carry.

And my Izulas. The sheath is good enough but the clip plate should be reversible and able to switch to horizontal.
 
Becker BK14 .That sheath almost put me over the edge!!!! I could not figure out why my knife was going dull and I had not even cut anything.The cool dudes in the Becker sub forum set me straight(thanks ALOT guys!)I made my own sheath and now all is good!Great knife SH......ty sheath!BTW being left handed makes me not like ALOT of stock sheaths. I just taught myself to make kydex sheaths.
 
Cold Steel Trailmaster Bowie ( I had an old SanMaiIII version).

A knife that expensive should not come with a sheath that looks like some one made it out of cardboard and glue, with a recycled 80's windbreaker for the shell!

Couple of their knives have come with complete crap sheaths, but at that price, it should be a quality sheath.

I make leather sheaths, so it is never a deal breaker for me.

In fact, I collect Busse, which means I never pay for a sheath I don't want! I make my own leather, and buy custom Kydex for those I want the extra kydex option for!
 
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Cold Steel. I dislike the material in the pouch style sheaths on their Krupp line, though I love the knives. I also don't like the Secure-Ex sheaths on the PeaceKeepers, Shanghai Shadow, etc. These are supposed to be SHTF last-ditch weapons, yet you have to reach up and undo a strap and then hold the sheath down while you pull the knife out due to the nylon belt loop portion. These sheaths are relatively easy to mod to a strapless, rigid belt loop configuration, fortunately, but I wish I didn't have to do this. They're supposedly making all their Secure-Ex Tek-Lok compatible for '13, so that's a step in the right direction.
 
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All the beckers. They either come with the lame codura sheath that the whole industry seems to be so fond of or your get a GFN that dulls the blade and Ka-Bar just tells you to deal with it. A lot of good Ontario knives come with a similar codura sheath like the beckers. The mora sheaths are good in theory but poor in execution.

I just got two Condor knives and the sheaths are good quality and awesome retention without needing a strap (I LOVE good friction retention for quick one-handed drawing and re-sheathing) but they only have one way to carry them.

And I have a couple leathermans with cheap nylon sheaths with velcro closure which finally wore out on one that I was carrying a lot.
 
Well Mora's of course and I don't really like the snap on the retention strap of my SOG nw ranger, it's plastic, very bulky and it's a pain to do up, originally it wouldn't do up at all. I'd have to say ESEE knives as well, specifically the 3 and 4. When I first got them I thought the sheaths were great, they had good retention and with the molle backs attached the system seemed very secure but over time things have changed.
Both sheaths have loosened to the point of not retaining the knives well, the 4's sheath had the option to tighten it at least by putting a screw into the top hole of the sheath (there were some problems with that though because of the supplied hardware), the 3's sheath has no way of tightening it though so it's permanently loose now. The molle backs elasticated part slips off the top of the handle far too easily, if it's on my belt and I bump the sheath against something the flexability between the sheath and the backing causes it to pop right off. Maybe it wouldn't be such a problem with molle gear, I don't know. The retention strap is my main gripe with it though, I have no idea what they were thinking when they put velcro on it. The velcro has almost completely worn out on my 4's molle back causing it to come undone with the slightest touch, it also gets full of snow, grass and all sorts of things making it a pain to secure. Also I've found that since the same molle back is used for both the 3 and the 4 the one side of the retention strap is too long for the thinness of the 3's handle so that when I pull the tab over top of the other piece it has a tendency to push it over a little making it slightly loose (it's hard to explain). Now that tiny bit of looseness wouldn't normally be a problem except that it happens to make the retention strap wide enough for the whole knife including the guard to pass through it.
In theory the sheaths sound bomb proof but there seem to be some pretty big design flaws and with a little wear and tear they end up with horrible retention. I think if they added the slide lock they use on the 5 and LS to the sheaths of these knives and threw a snap on the retention strap (and sized them properly) they'd be way better, doubt that'll happen though.
 
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