BORELLI CONSULTING: Recreational Equipment Reviews

NRA Outdoorsman Knife by Benchmade
7 November 2005

As a police officer I carried my share of Benchmade knives. Before I could afford them (when I was a rookie starting out) I envied those who did have them. When I made enough money to invest in one, I bought several. "The grass is always greener..." Every time I bought one Benchmade folding lockblade, I always wanted another one. It was cooler. It was smaller. It was bigger. It had a reversible clip. I always had a reason. But one thing never changed: Benchmade makes good knives.

And for the longest time I couldn't figure out why Benchmade had so few fixed blade knives. There seemed no answer, but there was also no shortage of folders, so I could hardly complain. Recently Benchmade began expanding its line of fixed blade knives, and to my surprise, one of them was made specifically for the National Rifle Association: the NRA Snody.

Now I need to qualify this up front: I'm a lifetime member of the NRA. I am as pro-2nd-Amendment as they come and if I can do something to support the NRA, I will. That said, I don't know if any portion of the proceeds from the sale of this knife design goes to the NRA. As a result, the fact that Benchmade created this knife specifically for the NRA has had no bearing on my evaluation of it. Read on...

Those of you who have read my knife reviews in the Tactical / Service Equipment section are probably eager to see how well this knife put up to the abuse I normally subject knives to. I hate to disappoint you but I didn't abuse this one as much as I do knives that are meant for combat use. This knife was designed for recreational use: camping, fishing, hunting, etc. Does it cut? Yeah, it cuts. I had no issues cutting all strings, twines, ropes, etc that I found in my shed. I didn't attempt to punch this knife through any plywood. After all, why would I do that in the field?

To test the knife's performance in uses I thought it was designed for, I used it to prepare food, chop meat (simulating cleaning and butchering an animal) and other general chores. It performed well. The 440C Stainless Steel blade, hardened to HRC 58-60 held its edge pretty well. When it started to show signs of dulling it was easy enough to clean up with a diamond stick.

The blade is a full tang design and the grips are made of Santoprene (another simulated rubber material that is a little softer than most in my hand). finger grooves are milled into the handle and there is ample grip length to allow for leveraging the 4" blade. The nylon sheath, embroidered with "NRA", fits the knife snuggly and with the thumb-strap in place there is no movement of the knife in the sheath at all.

With an MSRP of $90, the NRA Snody by Benchmade is one of many general utility knives being made for the NRA. I will review other designs in the future.

I have a comment on this article.

Also, don't forget to read the Tactical Equipment Evaluations:

Gerber Silver Trident Combat Knife-----7 November 2005
Plus others!!!

Check out this week's Highlighted Training Article from SWAT Officer Al Garcia about being aware of the unexpected dangers of edged weapons.

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