When you are shopping for a new knife, either your first or your fiftieth, you probably look at the specs at some point. Handle length, blade length, weight, and so on. But after years of reviewing knives, the two most important specs in understanding how good a folder is and how it will carry are rarely listed. Time has shown me that two ratios, blade length to weight and blade length to handle length ultimately are more informative than any other specs on a knife.
Generally, I don’t carry folders that weigh more than four ounces, as any heavier and it is probably better to carry a small fixed blade. Additionally, because of complicated, state-by-state laws, I usually carry a knife with a blade under 3 inches (consult your local knife laws for more information).
These two basic numbers – a knife’s blade size and total weight – however, don’t really tell me how capable a knife is given its footprint in my pocket. For that, we need to look at the blade:weight (b:w) and blade:handle length (b:h) ratios. Here is a closer look as to why.
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Blade:Weight (1:1 or Better)
If you have decided to carry a folding knife, you are prioritizing convenience, and no single number better expresses convenience in a folder than its blade to weight ratio. In essence, this is a measure of how much cutting power you get for the knife’s “felt” size. While the length of a knife can be hidden in a pocket, there is no way to make a knife “feel” lighter, and so, in the end, blade to weight gives you the best sense of what a folder can do versus how it will carry.
In all of the performance ratios, the Al Mar Ultralight series is at the top of the scale. Thanks to linerless micarta handles and some serious attention to measurements, nothing in the knife world comes close to the Al Mar Ultralight Hawk, with a blade:weight of 2.81 and a blade:handle of 0.84. The Ultralight is not the sturdiest knife in the world, but if you don’t need to thump on your blade and are concerned about carry, it is a good place to start. A warning though—for all of the spec beauty, the Hawk is quite expensive for what it is—a folder with AUS8 steel and no pocket clip.
Other knives with superlative b:w include: the Spyderco Dragonfly (2.0), the AG Russell Light’n Bug (2.5; AG Russell is also a company that pays attention to the performance ratios), the Cold Steel Mini Recon (0.83), and Spyderco Manix 2 LW (1.15).
Blade:Handle (Approaching 0.75)
This is really just a matter of space—there is no way (aside from clunky designs like the Benchmade LFK) to get a blade as long as the handle. There are a few cheats; recurves, for instance, pack a longer cutting edge than non-recurves with the same blade length. Designers can also push pivot screws as far forward on the handle. In the end though, we will never see a 1:1 ratio without some contraption or cheat like the one seen on the LFK. The key here is that b:h tells you how much cutting capacity you have in knife of a given size.
If your knife blade is big enough to span an apple, but still rests in a reasonably sized handle, it feels like your getting something for nothing. Note that some designs, like the Spyderco Delica and the Paramilitary 2, are purposely designed with a longer handle (for better grip), but aside from these designs, you want a b:h as close to 1:1 as you can get. In reality, anything better than 0.75 is quite good (and quite rare).
Again, the Al Mar Ultralight Hawk is the best knife I have found in this regard with a b:h of 0.84, but there are other very impressive folders in this regard. The aforementioned Manix 2 LW ties the Hawk with a b:h of 0.84. The AG Russell K12 One-Handed Knife has a b:h of 0.80 (and a b:w of 1.03). The SOG Flash I has a b:h of 0.78.
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If you are looking for a new knife, it pays to go beyond the list of normal specs. Blade to weight and blade to handle ratios tell you a lot more about a how a knife will carry and what it will do than a list of inches and ounces. If car aficionados know that power to weight ratios are key to understanding car performance, these ratios are the same things for knives.
Nathan
interesting idea. so if you have a larger hand yet still are encumbered by the 3 inch requirement it would be wise to consider something with a blade to handle ratio of .6 maybe or the like.
Framer joe
Chris Reeve small Sebenza 21 plain….there is no better..love they couple I own…
Dennis
I find a third spec useful, and it is also not listed a lot of the time: Where it’s made.
Adam g
Blade hq is great at listing almost all knife specs including country of manufacturer.
Rem
That b:h ratio must include the choil for the manix 2 lw. I consider the choil to be more a part of the handle than the blade. Also, both of these ratios can easily be found using specs that are commonly provided by retailers, so including them would be redundant. Also, what good are these ratios if the ergonomics or the blade shape suck? This article is dumb.
Matt
Wow. That was almost a reasonable comment. Thanks for the ad hominem at the end there to let us all know to completely discount your opinion
bobad
I love knives of all types, but being a generalist, I have to carry a classic 3 blade stockman’s knife. The most important specs to me are the versatility of 3 blades, good steel that can be honed razor sharp, and hold an edge. If I tried carrying a knife with a single blade as shown above, sure as heck I would need a different blade.
satch
I am not sure what the ratios are but I have owned a Spyderco Delica for over 25 years. They came out with it and the larger Endura about 1990 and I bought mine vey shortly after that. I carried it daily for work in my back pocket with the clip on the outside. The clip was originally part of the moulded handle. I broke it off somehow along with about 1/4 inch of the blade tip. I mailed it off to Spyderco and they regrou d the tip, attached a metwl clip, and sharpened it for about 20 dollars! That was about twenty yeard ago. I just retired in May and retired it as well. It is likely goimg back to Spyderco to have the clip tightened down and a factory sharpening. Then to the storage box til my grandson is old enough to tak responsibility for it.
I have to say it was the most useful, ergonomic tool I carried daily. Ans was the perfectmsize. When it got gummy or greasy from cutting electrical tape, just chuck it in the sink of Dawn dishwashing water and scrub it clean. No harm, no rust. I have bought no more Spyderco knives since but I didn’t have to. This one never let me down. I note they are now around 100 dollars. I gave less than 25 for mine. I feel old.
John
Really appreciate this article. So useful, and well written. Thank you!
Koko The Talking Ape
Interesting ideas, but you can derive both ratios easily from the ordinary specs that come with knives.
Also, you don’t really need to calculate one ratio. As Anthony says, the blade length is often pretty strictly limited to 3 inches, maybe 3.5 inches. So practically speaking, a low weight-to-blade length ratio means that the knife will have FRN or G10 handles, possibly skeleton liners or no liners, and a liner or back lock (no frame locks.) Just look for those features in the specs, and you will have a light knife for the blade length.
The other ratio, blade-to-handle length, doesn’t seem universally useful. I have never felt I needed more blade length in a particular knife, and as Anthony says, blade length is often limited anyway. But I have often felt I needed a bigger (and also more comfortable or more secure) handle. So as Nathan says, for some people, the better knife will have a LOWER blade-to-handle ratio.
So I would propose three other criteria instead:
– Handle comfort
– Ease of opening and closing the knife
– Ease of sharpening (which, besides blade steel, means a shallow convex or straight edge, with no recurve or serrations.)
The first two cannot be expressed in numbers, so you have to check out the knife in person.
No matter how cleverly designed, new specs or metrics cannot always tell you what you need to know.
Bruce
Not specs I normally care about. As nice as it is to have a hand filling handle, I opt for a flat profile with as much blade strength as possible. Any good knife cuts well, but often there is a lot of prying activities that occur with any pocket knife you might carry.
Nathan
looking back I would like to see something more about the overall blade shape. Since there are quite a few out there it would be nice to see the details of why one shape vs another for a purpose – or purposes.
JoeM
NICE! Yes. I hadn’t thought of this, I’d love to see a blade-shape > best used for chart/write-up!
As a former scout, I’ve been a blade person since I was very young. I’ve used certain blade shapes for certain uses, but, frankly, the variety is so vast that the one rule I DO know about the shape of a blade is totally useless! “A Curved blade end allows for a longer, extended cutting stroke in a material as you slide it through the slice.”
More exact details would be GREAT! Thanks Nathan! And Thanks for the awesome write-up AGAIN, Anthony!
Koko The Talking Ape
If it helps, this is what I know:
– A curved blade allows a natural slicing motion (where the edge moves both forward and sideways through the material.) That tends to improve slicing performance, because an edge angle of 30 degrees, or whatever, can become a virtual 20 degrees with some sideways motion. That can be useful in cooking or dressing game. Blades with some belly are also useful for skinning game, if that matters. But for chopping, a mild curve (like you find in chef’s knives) is best.
– Recurve blades (where the blade profile has an inward or reverse curve, usually near the handle but sometimes over the entire blade) are hard to sharpen using the traditional flat stones. A fully concave blade is used in karambits and other defense knives. Partial recurve knives look cool, but I’m not interested.
– Tanto or modified tanto blades (where the tip looks like a slanted chisel) are designed to create a strong point, and therefore be good for stabbing into tough stuff like car doors. If you are intent on stabbing a lot of car doors, then that’s the blade for you. Otherwise, they aren’t super-useful.
– Drop points (where the top or spine of the blade is ground down near the point) bring the blade tip in line with the handle. That can be useful if you need to pierce or drill (shudder) with your knife. Lots of outdoorsy knives have drop points.
– Clip points (where the spine has a kind of bite taken out of it just behind the tip, like in a traditional Bowie knife) create a weak but pointier tip, and preserves the sweep of the blade. Maybe that’s good for something, I don’t know.
– Spear points (where the blade looks kind of symmetrical, and where the spine of the blade is ground down, either to a sharp edge or a “false edge”) are also good for stabbing. Yay stabbing! You don’t find sharp back edges in folding knives, because a sharp edge would be exposed even when the knife was folded.
– Wharncliffe blades (where the edge is straight, and the rest of the blade curves or angles down to meet it) are simple to sharpen, but also have a weak tip, and aren’t good slicers.
So a mildly curved edge with a drop point is probably the most useful blade shape, unless you want to stab something. If you skin lots of animals, you may prefer a non-dropped blade or a clip point.
Here’s a more complete discussion:
https://lansky.com/index.php/blog/knife-blade-profiles-and-uses/#.W3ORT-hKg2w
JoeM
I knew a lot of that, but, if I may point out (without criticism, simply an observation.) many of those explanations are purely made up of your personal experience with using that kind of blade. Such as the Recurve Blade, which you end your description with “Not Interested” as personal experience. Totally informative of the type, and cool as hell that you know this. But, that’s not what I was going for.
It’s really helpful to a first-time buyer to know your personal experience, yes. But, look at the past posts from Anthony, and how completely objective he can get with the descriptions of everything. Yeah, YOU used those kinds of blades that way, but what can Anthony dig up about what their TECHNICAL purpose is? I mean, BEYOND what you and I have thought, felt, and used for that kind of knife.
I’m also a military history buff, so I can tell you that curved, and recurved, blades in swords, daggers, and knives, have a long history with soldiers who wish to do more harm to flesh than can be repaired easily by a medic/field surgeon of the age it’s in. You know that movie-inspired serpentine shaped dagger that is almost exclusively used in Medieval fantasy films? Curves back and forth a bunch of times, sharp on both sides, comes to a direct point? Yeah, those were real historical daggers. Usually ceremonial, but were meant for causing an increasing opening while it was shoved in. It has very little effect being used like a knife, with the cutting surfaces so far apart on the side.
But, y’know what? We’re not buying those serpentine blades anymore. My knowledge that a Recurved Sword, often depicted as the sidearm of Middle-Eastern warriors, is for slashing with the end, and decapitation with the closer end. And that knowledge, coupled with your experience with them being not-for-you, really makes me wonder… What AWESOME purpose can Anthony data-mine his knowledge for in MODERN uses for these blades?
It’s not like I absolutely NEED this… I mean, really… I have several multi-tools, utility knives, and all sorts of blade-like stuff already. I’m not in any rush to be put on any kind of watch list (though, if I’m not already on one, I’m both surprised AND disappointed in those who actually KEEP those watch lists.) for openly discussing the desire to purchase YET ANOTHER deadly sharp weapon on the Internet. This, of course, I say with as much sense of humour as I can possibly muster, because, really… I would rather it be funny than a criminal offense, or offensive to the rest of the ToolGuyd community. I just would get a genuine bit of entertainment out of Anthony giving us a Technical Rundown of these things. Because he’s shown that he’s REALLY good at it!
JoeM
I have to admit… the vast majority of the blades I use, and have lasted longest for me, don’t fall into this set of ratios. Then again… that same vast majority are in multi-tools and utility knives. My actual lock-back was inherited down to someone who joined Scouting, and it was closer to a ratio in size of ~0.9, with the tip sliding into a notch in the brass butt of the handle. Plus, I’m Canadian, so there were no limitations on the blade size I could carry, and it was a 4.5″ blade, give or take. Larger knife for larger hands, and far more useful as a knife in the old fashioned survivalist way, than in the modern EDC way.
I’d love to see more blade stuff from Anthony at this point. Every single one of these write ups he has done has genuinely made me think more about my EDC in depth. I’d be more specific about what I’d like to see, but… Frankly even when he surprises me with stuff like this ratio trick, I’m made better by it. So, Bring it on, Anthony! I’m lovin’ this addition to ToolGuyd!
Keith Gordon
My EDC knife for over 50 years has been (& still is) a Victorinox Tinker. I have one on me at all times except when I’m asleep! The blade is great (although it does need sharpening rather often) & the other tools are invaluable during my day.
I often carry a larger knife also , esp. when hiking, & agree that 4 oz. is about the upper limit for weight.
David R
Who is this Anthony doofus?
Just kidding. I read Tony’s review site and listen to his podcast. Great knife and other gear reviewer, and seems like a good all around guy. And funny.
J
Id carry a manix 2 lw s110v over any al mar, anyday.
Also you forgot the benchmade bugout in s30v. the new top contender for ultralight practical edc.
The handle to blade size ratio is one of many factors that go into my knife buying decision but blade to weight isnt. I want my 3″ folders to be ultra light, my 3.5″ folders to be decently stout while still thin enough for carry, and the 3.8″+ to be overbuilt and weight and concealment arent my first priorities. I want it tough and ergonomic for hard use.