Purpose of lanyard?

[dumbo]

Is a lanyard attached to a wave knife (like my Spartan) in order to provide something extra to grab on to in the event the knife slips out of your hand on deployment?

 

[sven56]

Lanyards can help extract a knife from a pocket, loop around the hand to prevent you from dropping your knife in the water, deep snow, or off a cliff. They can also extent the handle so as to allow different grips. You can put do-dads on them to make them look cool.

 

[RevDevil]

^^this. I think a Spartan has plenty of handle to grab onto if clipped to a pocket. If you need a lanyard on that, you are doing something seriously wrong.

 

[Call_to_Arms]

I know I started using one in the army when I saw the senior guys had them on there Gerber 400's, the idea being you could get it out even with gloves on. Years later, when I was a tow truck driver used to swing the same tool to break car windows, the tip of the pliers being hardened. I pretty much only had one on that multi-tool for years until I got a folding CSAR-T and the end of the knife only comes out of the sheath by maybe 1/4", a lanyard made it much easier to get out. Keep in mind these are practical 4" lanyards with regular green paracord.

 

[OpKey]

I had always thought one of the main reasons for a lanyard was to free a knife from your pocket, which had no clip. You would stuff the knife down into your pocket, and leave the lanyard hanging out so you can grab onto it. I've also seen lanyards used on small knives, such as three finger knives, and you can use the extra length from the lanyard to wrap the fourth finger around. The above suggestions are other reasons I've heard aswell, so it's basically for whatever you can use them for.

From my own experience, when I first started making paracord lanyards I would practice putting them on my cheap knives. I stuffed the knife down into my pocket, yanked on the lanyard and when the knife came free from my pocket, it actually flipped open from the force of the pull. I don't think this is very safe, because it could probably whip around and slice your hand open, but it worked at the time. It was very fast pulling the knife out and having it ready. Atleast for a folder with no clip. I'm not sure if people actually use the lanyard for this, or if it even works that well, but it worked for me at the time. Safe or not.

 

[Hadji Flip Me Over]

I don't keep paracord lanyards on anything but my fixed blades. For smaller clipped pocket knives, I find it works very well for me if I put a split-ring in the lanyard hole and use that for extraction. I just slip my pinkie finger in the hole and pull and it comes out quickly.

 

[Mtell1]

I just use mine on my folders for decoration...or as a loop to be able to tie the knife to me so it wont fall out of my pocket if I was doing any type of extreme survival which I have never done before.

But you can buy some nice paracord on Ebay and make a little loop knot lanyard it looks nice I think...