High Quality Budget Folding Knives for this Christmas season

[ez bake]

So this year, I've been getting a lot of the folks on my Christmas list knives, and for ~$20 gift exchanges and what not, this means that my choices are limited. I like Byrd knives and Spyderco's value line, but they tend to hover around $25-30 and I've gotten a few of those, but what I'm finding out (and I posted this over in the Kershaw section of BF) is that for every ~$20 Kershaw I buy for someone, I end up ordering another for myself. I've done this with a few so far and am really impressed, so here is EZ's list of knives for ~$30 or less that are actually quite impressive:

Small knives:
Kershaw Chill
Kershaw G10 Hawk
Kershaw OD-2
Kershaw Half-Ton
Kershaw Nerve
Blem'd Chive/Scallion from KershawGuy
Spyderco Ambitious
Spyderco Ladybug
Spyderco Manbug
Byrd Robin
Byrd Medowlark
CRKT Lake
CRKT Drifter
CRKT McGinnis Tuition (one of my absolute favorite CRKT knives and a great designer - Gerry McGinnis)
CRKT 14K Summit Series
CRKT Ripple Aluminum (Ken Onion's design)


Medium knives:
Spyderco Persistence
Kershaw Nerve
Blem'd Kershaw Blur (from KershawGuy)
Kershaw One-Ton
Kershaw Black II
Bad Blood Knives Spiraling Demise
CRKT Ryan Seven
CRKT Premonition
CRKT Carson M16 / M21 series (several in this price-range - look for the Zytel versions)


Large Knives:
Spyderco Tenacious
Ontario RAT1
Bad Blood Knives Harbinger
Bad Blood Knives Fire Splitter
Bad Blood Knives Partisan Nano
Byrd CaraCara2
CRKT Surf N' Turf

Check out H&K's Benchmade-made knives (basically their old Red-Box value line), or some of the Lone-Wolf Benchmade-made knives too - good values there.

I'm sure I've missed some, but I'm having a blast with giving out knives to friends and relatives (and I'm making out like a bandit with the whole "one for you, one for me" system going).

 

[Ignored Member]

Some good knives in there.
I got my wife a CRKT drifter awhile back and lately I've been carrying a Spyderco Tenacious.
Now I have a whole list of other value knives to check out, thanks for thinning out my wallet again. Damn you EZ

 

[ez bake]

It's what I do man.

 

[ripnbst]

Could add the Kershaw Clash. It's what I have from them and I love mine. It's roughly the same size as the RAT-1. You can get it as cheap as less than $20, or just over $30 depending on the features/exact model.

 

[Garand]

You forgot the Skyline ;-)

Although that may be because they are becoming harder and harder to find.

 

[foghorn918]

thanks for the post. I need me a new (or 2 or 3) budget knife, I'm always hard on my daily pocket knives

 

[Ignored Member]

I've been pretty abusive to a Benchmade Vex for the past 2 years and It's in basically perfect condition still.

$30 was well worth it.

 

[ez bake]

Kershaw has a ton of new folders out in the budget category this year.

Probably the best I've ever seen are the Thermite (hinderer) and the Injection (Rexford).

I just ordered a Coast FX350 and from the reviews I've seen, I'm prepared to be impressed.

(also, we need to get this thread moved over to the Knives sub-forum if someone doesn't mind)

 

[tharper]

I bought a blem Blur last fall from Kershaw guy. It doesn't have the X's to indicate it's a blem. I paid blem price, did he just send me a regular one possibly?

 

[ez bake]

I bought a blem Blur last fall from Kershaw guy. It doesn't have the X's to indicate it's a blem. I paid blem price, did he just send me a regular one possibly?

Could be - I'm fairly certain all of the KAI blems have the X's. I'm not sure if they have another indicator now - it's been a while since I bought a blem (I will say that the blems Kershaw Guy has are almost never anything other than a barely noticeable laser misprint).