As a longtime knife user/aficionado/connoisseur/nut, I’ve owned, reviewed, and just fondl . . . er, handled a lot of knives, ranging in price from a few bucks for a Mora bushcrafter to over a thousand for an exquisite Ichiro Hattori field knife with a pattern-welded blade cored with Cowrie-X steel at HRc 65.
Yet only once have I spontaneously exclaimed out loud when handed a knife. And as beautiful as it is, it wasn’t the Hattori.
I was in the Benchmade booth at the Overland Expo. One of the company reps, London Krapf, had got in touch with me via email and set up an appointment to take a look at their latest offerings. As a longtime owner of several Benchmade designs I was happy to oblige. When I met London, she showed me, among other new models, a stout-looking kitchen implement called the Station Knife—sort of a cross between a chef’s knife and a cleaver—and another called the Meatcrafter—essentially a fillet knife on steroids suitable for deboning anything from a bass to a bison. The latter looked like a versatile design for hunting and fishing, and I immediately tagged it for an article I was to write for Wheels Afield on the best new products at the show.
Then she walked me over to another display and said, “Here’s an interesting one we’re just introducing, called the Narrows.” She plucked a knife off the pegs that looked from the side very similar in size and shape to my Chris Reeve Sebenza, one of the best folding knives on the market.
She handed me the knife, and . . . I blurted.
Honestly I don’t remember exactly what I blurted, but I’m afraid it might have been something along the lines of, “Holy shit!”
The knife was light. No, not just light; it was impossibly light, barely-there light, 900-fill goose down light, light in a way that made me wonder if Benchmade had found a source for Mithril.
London was grinning at me. “Pretty cool, huh?”
I looked closer. The knife’s handle was barely more than a quarter inch wide, yet it sat comfortably in my hand. Titanium scales and premium M380 steel drop-point blade, with handsome blue-anodized accents: screws, pivot, pocket clip, and ambidextrous thumb stud. It still incorporated Benchmade’s solid Axis blade lock—albeit without the usual steel liners. I tried the action, which was at least as silky as my Sebenza if not a little more so.
I handed it back reluctantly. After the show London got in touch again to confirm which models I wanted to test. I noted the Meatcrafter for the Wheels Afield review, then, even though I didn’t have a specific assignment for it, gave a professional pitch to get a Narrows as well, a pitch that went something along the lines of pleasepleasepleaseplease? And darned if one didn’t show up.
How light is this knife? My Sebenza, which also incorporates titanium scales, and whose blade is barely 15/100ths of an inch longer than the 3.43 inches of the Narrows, weighs 133 grams. The Narrows tickles the scales at 68 grams—almost exactly half. If you removed one side of the ambidextrous thumb stud it would probably knock off another gram or two. (The Narrows is user-serviceable with a T6 and T10 Torx bit.)
Now, let’s be fair. The Sebenza is rightly known as the strongest folding knife on the market. Chris Reeve’s Frame Lock is legendarily rock solid. Yet the Axis Lock of the Narrows—even without steel liners—feels reassuringly tight as well. There is absolutely no play in the open blade. Squeezing the titanium scales with all my thumb strength barely results in any flex.
Even so, I certainly don’t plan to use the Narrows to baton kindling in camp. The blade is .08 inches thick, compared to .12 for the Sebenza. But the Narrows adds a new dimension to the term EDC—as a knife for every day carry, this thing isn’t even there in a pocket. And as a conversation starter it hasn’t failed yet to elicit the same kind of outburst London got from me.
Benchmade is here. The Narrows is made in the U.S., and the company offers free sharpening for life.