Honey Badger isn’t a name you hear often, but there’s a reason we chose it as the name for our knife and knife accessory ranges. Honey Badgers are known for their strength, fearlessness and most notably, their toughness. They are Africa’s toughest animal, so it made sense that Africa’s toughest knife should carry the same name.
Honey Badger Knives was created in 2014 by our CEO and Head Knife Designer, Marc Ager who saw a need in South Africa for an affordable range of high-quality, practical and durable EDC knives. Marc has over 30 years’ experience in the hunting and outdoor market, having originally started Ramrod in 1987. Ramrod was renamed as Lite Optec and is still to this day, one of Southern Africa’s leading and most reputable importers and distributors of high-quality products and brands to the hunting and outdoor market.
With his lifelong passion for knives, wealth of experience and stellar reputation in the industry, Marc spent 18 months researching and fine-tuning his designs, and these became the first 3 models of the Honey Badger range. The Claw, Hook and Flipper launched at the April 2016 HuntEx Expo in Johannesburg, South Africa, and 6 years later, the success of the original 3 models has resulted in an expanded number of models and range extensions, including bespoke replacement machined G10 handle scales.
Marc’s unwavering dedication to good knives can be clearly seen in Honey Badger – a range of 7 different blade styles, all superbly designed to be tough, hard-wearing, and totally competent in varied long-term use. Each knife style is offered in 3 different sizes and all are light-weight. They feature either high-quality 8Cr13MoV stainless steel or D2 blades that have excellent cutting ability and edge retention, whilst being easy to resharpen when needed. All our knives have an incredibly smooth, almost frictionless opening and closing action, that is facilitated by two opposing roller bearings that contain a total of 18 ball bearings. Africa’s toughest knives are also Africa’s smoothest, and using them is an absolute pleasure.
The handle slabs of each knife are made from a Fibre Reinforced Nylon (FRN) and are available in 6 colours – there’s a choice to suit every preference. The FRN carries a ridged honey-comb pattern that provides an excellent multi-directional grip, and whilst light in weight and slim in width, they are extremely tough, slip-resistant when wet and dry, and they fit ergonomically in your hand. In addition, the new 2022 introduction of Accessory G10 handles in 8 colours gives you the opportunity to further upgrade to a more exotic, customizable option if you prefer.
Honey Badger is the perfect blend of quality, functionality, fun and most importantly, our range is affordable. Customer service, innovation and consistent, competitive prices are at the heart of our business, and our friendly and dedicated customer service team are trained and ready to answer any and all questions that you may have.
Drop-Point Blade – Honey Badger “Flipper” Model
One of the most common and popular blade shapes, the drop-point is characterized by a convex spine that curves down from the handle to the point. This creates an easily controlled point and a bigger belly for slicing. Drop points are great for general-purpose use and ideal for hunters. Overall, this blade style has been Honey Badger’s most popular, best-selling model."
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This the HONEY BADGER claw series of knives, Chinese-made but locally conceived, engineered and assembled.
The blade finish features a stainless, light-refractive hue, made from robust D2 tool steel. If you might be wondering what that means, please see read this handy introduction to this steel type;
https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/11/05/all-about-d2-steel-knives/
Otherwise, these knives really are flyweight, making them incredibly easy to manipulate - holding true to the manufacturer's claims. The blade itself locks positively in place, thanks to a rightward liner lock, whereupon the rotational blade sits perfectly still in place, holdings its zero if we may put it like that. The gripscales are Fibre Reinforced Nylon as indicated, w/ a robust feel to it. It is hexagonally checkered, providing multi (6)-angle traction. The fine ridges are 90° / square angled, to allow for maximum traction.
The gripscales are Fibre Reinforced Nylon as indicated, w/ a robust feel to it. It is hexagonally checkered, providing multi (6)-angle traction. The fine ridges are 90° / square angled, to allow for maximum traction. The frontal end of the grip scales on the front end has a grooved scallop for one's thumb to rest upon ergonomically. Slipping off of said scallop, one's thumb can easily push down on the exposed grooved liner which otherwise prohibits the knive end from hinging. Once engaged, the knife can rotate freely and fold in 180° to close into the handle, safely hiding away the edge.
The upper shoulder of the knife feature a small plethora of fine teeth; from the grip scales, traversing as jimpings onto the false edge / spine of the blade. This presumably was designed to allow for finer control over the knife when performing tasks such as fine carving. The base of the false edge also slopes up, to form a mating silhouette w/ the shape of one's frontal thumb digit. Likewise, similar to your SPYDERCO, you have a sizeable hole at the rear of the knife blade, which actually serves a number of uses. We could elaborate, but off hand, you can utilize it to flip open the blade faster with your thumb, it reduces the front-end weight of the knife, to bring its balance point slightly more rearward. For further reading, please see;
https://www.knifemanual.com/7-reasons-that-pocket-knives-have-holes-in-their-blade/
In front of this, in a shade of lighter brown, the company logo is etched into the metal, which is a nice touch and will ensure that it stays there for as long as you'll be owning - and using - this knife. On the counter side, the blade material (D2) is etched perpendicular to the handle. The blade otherwise has a 3/4 about straight edge, tapering upward to meet the dropping false edge of the knife. This effectively brings the knife tip of the blade closer to the middle, to allow for better support behind piercing work that needs to be done w/ the tip. There of course, is a V-edge machine grinded onto the edge and right out of the box, these Honey Badger knives will shear through paper w/ gliding ease. It will do so w/ your skin as well if not careful, so please handle with due caution and always keep a knife edge pointed away from you.
To open this knife, we have a nifty ridge called a "flipper";
It acts two-fold; its uprights are cross-serrated for traction and simply by pulling hard enough on the flipper, the knife will fully hinge out and lock into its working position. The second function is to ensure that, once the blade is fully engaged, that if you were to accidentally disengage the knife edge by depressing the liner lock, that the knife won't come around and slash into your hand, as the flipper will press against your thumb end and prevent the blade from hinging further.
Once the blade is fully engaged, the liner lock catches the blade, whilst the cross-bar at the shoulder of the handle, acts as stopper to the false edge of the blade, preventing any further rearward movement. These two retainers lock the blade of the knife in place.
The fasteners on this knife is of exceptional quality. They are stainless steel, so will never rust and seize-up in place. They will also not readily loose their sheen either, though after some years, might become more dull / matte looking.
The knife itself of course, has two edges - primary and secondary, as is appropriate for a good knife.
As you might have already guessed - a stainless steel pocket clip is included and is ambidextrous. It is retained by 2x M2.5x4 Torx panhead screws and w/ the included two way allen torx key. The other end of this said torx key, is to toggle the main pivot, to set the blade friction tighter or looser. This blade however, will not loose its retention setting over time, so you needn't worry about needing to regularly fasten the screws / the screws coming loose over time.
The back of the handle has some cross-grooves, which is the outermost of a curved inset which presumably is designed to allow the knife better traction into your palm. This is a stand-alone part, btw.
Also, at the rear of the handle, there is a lanyard loophole, through which one could throng through a parachord lanyard. This can be done relatively easily, please see this instructional video;
https://youtu.be/ae460LXyoTw
We also do stock parachord if you might be interested - for a HONEY BADGER knife, we recommend ATWOOD MFG's range of AMERICAN MADE Genuine MIL-C-5040 Type III Parachute Cord rated for 550 lbs. These you should be able to find by searching for "ATWOOD" in our listings.
