Opinions of Becker Knives

ReconTech

ReconTech

Joined
Dec 3, 2002
Messages
316
I used to have a BK1 brute, but it had been resharpened and resurfaced, but still a fabolous blade....

I have been thinking about getting a BK10, which looks like a smaller version of the BK7, to take the handle off and wrap with paracord...For about $50, seams like a pretty good deal...Opinions?
 
I love the beefy-ness and shape and utility of Becker Knife and Tool knives, and the handles are great, but I simply do not like carbon steel (as opposed to stainless steel). I understand that there are benefits, like hardness, but I dread seeing corrosion on a knife of mine, and as I understand it, carbon steel requires additional care to keep it from rusting.

If BKT were to make some of their line in, say, 440C, I would jump at the chance to get myself one. In fact, I was recently a hair's bredth away from buying one from Knifecenter.com and as soon as I realized I was about to buy a carbon steel knife, I changed my mind.

As far as design, I think their knives seem way cool and useful, and tough.

---Jeffrey
 
The knife is a righteous deal. I was thinking the same thing if the handles ever broke. I learned a trick from somebody that the handles can, also, be used as life casules when bolted together. As well, they can store stuff when clamped to the knife for survival purposes. They are even very grippy than what they were made like before, from what I undesrstand. Neat. I recommend getting the knife. The Desert Tan motif is even more nifty. Cheers!
 
I have a few Camillus/Becker "BK" knives, and I think they're great knives at low prices. While a stainless Becker WOULD be nice, I can live with the "0170-6 high carbon tool steel".
 
take the handle off and wrap with paracord

I did the same, works real well...as said, allot of bang for the bucks.
 
The Bk7 is now my knife of choice for any bush adventure I have. I even pack it on sea kayaking trips. The extra care required when compared to stainless is minimal in my opinion. Just a wipe with an oily or greasy rag before I put it away at the end of the day and that's it. I've left it out overnight on a couple of occasions, wet with salt water, and all I had to deal with was a couple of small rust spots on the edge that scraped off easily.

It comes down to use really. If it's just camp food preparation then I think stainless is fine, in fact any knife is fine really. But when you start hacking, chopping and the like, carbon steel works better and stays much sharper. I've got a stainless CS bushranger, great knife and about the same length as the BK7, used it for years, 95% of the time around camp and 5% of the time hacking through thorn thickets to get to camp spots on river banks. Tried the BK7 for this one day and never went back.
 
Becker's larger knives, 7" on up, make sense to me, and are a good value and most are good basic "using" designs.

The bigger the knife, the more likely it is to be used for chopping, hacking, moderate prying. This is the realm of the carbon steel blade, because of general toughness (resistance to chipping under impact) of CS relative to stainless.

It is not simply about hardness ... stainless can get hard too.

For the money... BK&T knives are good value, no nonsense knives designed to be used.
 
Originally posted by Ming65
It comes down to use really. If it's just camp food preparation then I think stainless is fine, in fact any knife is fine really. But when you start hacking, chopping and the like, carbon steel works better and stays much sharper.
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I thought that the use of carbon steel was not to make the knife harder, but to make sharpening easier... Maybe I'm misinformed. But the listed RC hardness of the various BKT knives (on Knifecenter.com) is 55-57. That's not really *up there*, right?
When knife steel is described as "tough," I thought that meant it was *not* as hard, because real hard steel would chip or crack, being more brittle and less "tough" (but being hard, would have better edge retention).

---Jeffrey
 
I'm not sure about the role of 'hardness' either PJ. Cliff Stamp I'm not. But the Becker can hack and chop for longer without going blunt better than any knife I own. Most of my chopping is vines and small stuff less than 1 inch diameter. There is no point chopping jarra, redgum or tuart with anything - some of the hardest wood in the world.

Ahh I'm just being fussy really. The Bushranger works fine too. It's just that if I have to press it into service as a machete then it goes blunt and takes a while to sharpen. The BK7 takes ages to go blunt and sharpens fairly easily.
 
Like all Beckers the BK 10 is an awesome knife. I got one last week and just got around to testing it. I was surprised to note that it really cut extremely well considering its blade thickness. Better than some very thin bladed knives I've had that costed four times as much. Somewhat lacking in agility, but that's more than made up for in brute strength.

I personally REALLY like the carbon steel in Beckers. I aint no metallurgist or nuthin', all I do is slice, chop, an' ocassionally dig with my Beckers, but I know it takes quite awhile before I need to resharpen them, and then they resharpen quite easily. I also hacked up some steel cable with the thinner bladed BK 5 and it hardly left a mark. Could care less about discoloration, the knife is to use, not to look at. I grew up eating meals prepared with 1095 carbon steel kitchen knives, still here to talk about it.

Didn't Blackjack make some Becker designs in 440c with a higher RC? I tend to recall reading that the 440 just was not strong enough, especially at the higher RC. Like a prototype broke in half after just a couple swings.

There aint more bang for the buck than Beckers out there.

Can't wait to get my hands on the BK 11....(a Becker Necker!)
 
The 0170-6C carbon steel used in the BK&T line is tempered to 58-59Rc, not 55-57. I checked www.knifecenter.com, and the only references I could find were the correct, 58-59 Rc, listing. I hope this helps, and thanks for the interest!
 
I have no problems with carbon steel knives here, even though I don't even regularly oil them. I suppose we're less humid. None of them have really rusted so far.
I don't yet to have a Becker (couldn't find a half decent part time yet), but neither my 8670 or my Carbon V knives have rusted yet.
I did get to see a BK5 up close and it was only dullen because it was sitting in a display case and probably dropped a million times before it starts having dull spots. The person who end up with the BK5 had no problem sharpening out the dull spots.
 
I like them as an excellent tool that no current manufacturer can come close to the value.
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The only problem with Becker knives is that they combine good quality with low prices, this causes you to keep buying more of them. I started with a BK-7 and then bought a BK-9, then I read about how great the BK-2 was and because I found one for $56 I decided to buy that too. These things are just too damned tempting!
 
slapper said:
I like them as an excellent tool that no current manufacturer can come close to the value.
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I agree, as value goes they are top notch.

I tend to mod my gear so value is paramount for me, (considering resale is near impossible) but don't think value is a dirty word... the quality of Beckers is right up there with the best of 'em.
 
And Kabar (not Becker but meh) has recently made available a line of 'zombie killing' knives - appropriate for zombie threads and such. :p

---

Beckerhead #42
 
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