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Pros: Blade Material, Blade Sharpness, Finish, Handle Material, Materials, Overall Quality, Sheath/Scabbard, Weight
Cons: None
Best Budget Survival Knife
I own BK9, BK7, and BK2 survival knives, and I thought I would never want another. Then I found out about the 5" Joker Nomad, and it displaced the BK2 in my bug-out bag. I considered it to be my best knife, though I considered the length to be barely adequate. Then I found out about the Nomad 6.5. (A YouTube knife channel was touting it as the best survival knife of 2023, displacing the BK2.) I had to back order it, but it was worth the wait. It is identical to my 5" Nomad, except the sheath is already oil treated and smells WONDERFUL! I should mention that the quality of the sheath is something you could be proud of. No shortcuts there! It even has a plastic insert that retains the blade. Everything good about the 5" Nomad is still there. Now it has the profile of an over-built butcher knife. (Dave Canterbury says that frontiersmen carried butcher knives; I have a butcher knife with a sheath among my preps.) But this ain't no butcher knife. It has a 90-degree, 5mm spine. (I prefer the slightly reduced thickness to the quarter-inch thickness of the BK2.) The handle swells securely into one's palm. My Nomads have walnut handles, which I find particularly satisfying to handle or to just look at. Fit and finish are commendable. Both 5" and 6.5" Nomads have very satisfying weight and balance that I immediately notice as I handle them. It comes with a good, convex edge that was, out of the box, almost as sharp as I could make it. My only contribution was to give it a good stropping. If you strop it regularly, you should never have to sharpen it. If you ever damage the convex edge. It can be restored by using sandpaper on top of a sponge or a piece of thick leather. You can get really fine-grit paper at an auto-parts store. N695 is of the class of steels that is a cut above the AUS8 class of stainless steels, but not as good as the powder super steels. I prefer a hard, stainless steel to the high-carbon steel of my BK's (though, in fairness, rust has never been a problem with BK). The old, 5" Nomad chopped well enough, but the extra weight and length of the Nomad 6.5 seem to make a significant difference. I have seen it take some amazing bites out of wood because of its sharpness and the leverage one can get with that long blade. The high flatness of that grind is great for chopping and cutting. Should you ever have to use it to defend against a predator, the long reach and huge belly (I must be projecting here.) make it great for slashing, though I can't honestly say I've ever tested that. (I could say it, but not honestly.) I can't find a single flaw in the knife itself. The one disappointment is that my sheath didn't come with a fire steel. The sheath of my old Nomad did, and the 6.5's in the videos I saw all did, but mine didn't. At least it's a very fine sheath, and the leather smells great. I have a new, best survival knife, surpassing four very worthy former survival knives.