Ka-Bar Becker Drop Point Knife - Short Carbon Steel Blade for Hunting, Camping & Outdoor Survival

This is my new favorite knife! If you are looking for a new general purpose outdoors knife strongly consider the BK 16. My personal system is generally a hatchet or a folding saw plus a main knife and a backup (pocket/mora knife or multitool), for me this is exactally the knife I needed. I have been using my Becker as much as possible around the house and in the woods to get a good feel for it and so I could write an honest review. I have opened packages and cut up cardboard for recycling, cut rope/string, carved wood/notched wood, made feather sticks/fire, and prepared several dinners etc. I was not disappointed with in any respect with this blade. I have yet to clean and process any game with this knife but feel it would be up to the task, there may be better knives for the task but I feel this knife would hold up just fine. If I run into a problem with this I'll update the review, but like I said I don't expect it (I've done the job before with worse). The size is just about perfect for me, I was looking for a mid size blade that could accomplish many/most camp tasks while being small enough to be easily and often carried. I find some of my other knives beat out the BK in certain tasks like fine cutting or larger jobs but this is my favorite "do it all knife". The width is perfect for it to function at a variety of tasks, think "Jack of all Trades", this makes it functional for a wide variety of jobs but not perfect. I would rather not have to tote around several knives beyond my main and a folder so this suits me just fine. The weight is pretty negligible I do not find the knife taxing or annoying to carry around even after moving around quite a bit. The grips are slightly slippery when very wet but I didn't feel dangerously so, I plan to use some plumber or grip tape to sort that out anyway. As far as durability goes it has handled everything I have thrown at it and still looks almost new, but note I am not regularly batoning with this thing or chopping (If you are looking for a blade for those purposes there are other knives much better suited to the task - more on this later). The blade coating is... ok, it certainly serves its purpose and so far has held up well but its kind of chunky and honestly I see why some people remove it, personally I'll probably leave it on. If you want to strike a fire steel or flint to this thing you will have to do some moding but it's fairly easy for even an amateur. And finally the sheath, put simply I would rate the sheath as above average but nothing to write home about. The sheath should last you a long time and it's very functional but I personally will likely drop the money on a custom kydex sheath within a few months. So what is this knife not? It isn't a chopper, I knew that buying this knife and don't intend to use it that way except for emergency or rare circumstances. It struggles to chop, not that it can't chop at all, but there are better knives for that purpose so you won't be felling any trees. I have not batoned with the knife and don't intend to outside of emergencys or processing smaller bits of wood if I have no hatchet. Can it be used for that purpose? Certainly, but I generally have a hatchet and can split wood safely enough with that. That's me personally; I'm sure plenty of people do so with their BK 16, but just like with chopping, if that's your thing there are better knives out there, a few of them are the BK 16s bigger brothers. So far this knife has served my purposed as I expected it to (and I had pretty high expectations due to all the Becker hype) that's the reason I gave 5 stars. Overall I'm very impressed and satisfied with my Becker and would recommend it to a friend.And don't forget, if personalization is your thing this line of knives is for you, the amount of how to threads and after market options are pretty impressive. If thats what your into, google it and have fun leafing through pages of material.