I have an online friend and he

says you can pay one price for three

Just look for Kershaw

At Samuel’s Retail Hell

And here we are once more, speedrunning towards irrelevance in the narrow window between right now and that inescapable moment at precisely 12:01 AM on the 25th that these instantly transition from the hot ticket to yesterday’s news. Hey, at least you can’t say I’m not timely for once.

Allow me to introduce you to this flowchart, which handily sums up the ground state of being in this hobby:

We’re always on the lookout for something nice… but not too nice. And preferably readily available in bulk.

Thus, among all the other cut-rate crap on display at Wally World I obviously couldn’t pass these up and brought this trio home for some yule tide yuks. It’s rare enough to find anything in this vein that purports to be from any real brand, let alone one I actually like. These retail for the same $30 as Wal Mart’s other current holiday smorgasbord packs, but notably the Kershaw set has only three knives rather than seven, and notably contains zero pieces of other ancillary pack-in trash that serves no purpose other than diverting some part of a meager manufacturing budget from, you know, the actual knives. Theoretically this ought to mean that there’s more quality to go around if it doesn’t have to be spread as thin across as many things.

Could these be the value-for-dollar sweet spot for a low cost EDC knockaround knife, and can we use them to finally vanquish Betteridge’s Law Of Headlines once and for all?

Threefer

Let’s put on our thinking caps for this one. What do you think?

Kershaw’s self-titled “2025PROMOX” pack contains three knives that are not just a repackaging of their existing models. Instead, these are bespoke pieces specifically contrived to be shoved into this holiday pack, the likes of which we’ve never seen before and will never see again. They haven’t even bothered to invent faux model names for these. We have only the melodiously titled “6.3 in. Knife,” “6.7 in Knife,” and “7.25 in. Knife.” So will these instantly become highly sought after short run collector’s items, or gently fade into obscurity by about sunset on New Years Eve?

Do you know, I have a hunch it’s going to be the second one.

Not a single attempt was made to differentiate these things. In addition to not bothering to supply model numbers on the box, they don’t even sport them on the knives themselves. Each of them has the same “2025PROMO” marking on the back with no other identifying information other than a Kershaw logo and the obligatory China mark.

You can try matching these up to some other Kershaw model or another to figure out what they’ve been derived from, but as far as I can tell this is a doomed endeavor. The closest I can come up with is that the smaller two of them kinda-sorta follow the pattern of the Outfield but not really.

All three are, per the back of the box, made out of 3cr13 steel. Needless to say, this is deeply unexciting. So despite everything these are clearly low rent junk tailor made for the types of idiots who buy it, if that reminds you of anyone you know.

But there are a couple of things to recommend these over the mountain of other bullshit cutlery-adjacent options found at your local big box junk purveyor.

For a start, the back of the card purports that these are subject to the same lifetime warranty as Kershaw’s other products. This is cruising so many miles above the warranty you’d typically receive on a Wal Mart knife, i.e. none, that I wonder if they put this here by accident.

All three of them are also spring assisted openers. And that’s awesome.

Kershaw don’t make as much of a fuss over their “SpeedSafe” spring assisted opening methodology as they used to, probably because the patent’s expired on it by now and everybody else has ripped it off. But in these dark winter months when I’m sitting here feeling both introspective and retrospective while I languish in my chair in the dark waiting for the damn sun to come back, seeing these brought me right back to that bright summer day all those years ago when I bought one of my very first “real” knives from Walmart with my own money. That was another spring assisted Kershaw, a Whirlwind model 1650. With these gazing up at me all full of hope and sorrowful trepidation, I decided I couldn’t just leave them there. Even if they’re cheap and janky and obviously mildly cursed, they still needed a home.

Remember: A pocketknife isn’t just for Christmas. It’s until you break it or it snags on some brambles and you lose it down a crevasse.

Ah, crap. That came out wrong.

The Nickel Tour

I see that what I’ve actually done here is make my job three times harder for myself by multiplying it triple.

So do you know what? I can’t be bothered today. I’m not going to look at each one of these individually in excruciating detail. They’re all basically the same so we can deal with them in aggregate.

Except they’re not. Despite being made of the same stuff and ostensibly differing only in size, each one has one unique attribute that the others don’t share. Two of the three have the same overall blade shape but have different finishes with the smallest being tumbled stonewashed while the medium one is as-machined satin; all three have rear flippers to open them but only the largest one has thumb studs…

…The medium one has a jimped spine on the blade whereas the other two don’t…

…All three of them have deep carry pocket clips…

…But for some reason despite otherwise being the most feature complete of the bunch with not only the aforementioned thumb studs but also a backspacer with an integrated lanyard loop, for some reason the biggest knife’s clip is the only one that’s not reversible.

Somehow like the sisters Phorcides, there’s some competence only one of each of these can have and apparently there wasn’t enough to share around. It’s decidedly strange.

Among the bunch I think I like the littlest one best. I do enjoy a drop pointed knife and I like the tumbled stonewash finish the most out of the available options, and the compactness is appealing.

The big one’s coated blade is a big detraction if you ask me, especially for something probably destined to be a beater. It’s going to get scruffy in a hurry.

The middle child is, aside from the blade surface finish, probably the best looking of them. The jimping on the spine makes it look complete in a way that the the other two don’t manage.

All three of 'em are liner lockers, of course. As usual there’s a minor difference: The big one has a textured lock bar, and the other two are smooth.

…This is like one of those spot-the-difference puzzles you used to get in the back of Highlights magazine, only much cooler.

If I had to cast about for a comparison, what I would say these remind me of the most — especially the largest one — is my old Kershaw Brawler. The Brawler is another similarly proportioned SpeedSafe spring opener with a rear flipper, and although the latter is much beefier than these three, there is a distinct sense of design similarity about it with the overall length and the vibe of the injection molded scales.

The Kershaw Holiday knives certainly look nice. But then again, I suppose that’s their actual job.

Smashola

In keeping with our theme of laziness, I’m not taking all three of these apart. I don’t doubt there are trivial construction differences between them to excite the very select types of hyper-nerds in the audience, and I know what one of them is offhand already. But by and large they all work the same way and go together the same way. We can allow one to speak for all.

Given that I care for it the least out of all of them, I took the big one apart just in case something wound up going hilariously wrong and I broke it.

In retrospect, that might have been a mean thing to say about it.

Yes, they all have flush fit and smooth headed pivot screws just like your big brother’s knife.

The clip on this one is recessed, and as usual it’s a unique feature to this knife that the other two don’t share. In exchange for that it’s not reversible. One of its screws also pulls double duty to hold the handle together, which isn’t how it works on the others. This probably goes some way towards explaining why you can’t flip it over.

The clip and body screws are assembled with real blue Locktite. Not superglue, and not the gritty chalky Chinese stuff.

Instead, you’ll find that under the pivot screw. But thankfully not to such an extreme degree as our last subject. I’m pleased to report that to go along with the smoothed head the pivot screw has an anti-rotation flat in it that’s the real deal. Only one of the liners is broached for it, though, probably to save a penny.

Here’s the springamadoo that drives the assist action.

The “safe” part of Kershaw’s SpeedSafe arrangement is that the spring itself is totally relaxed at both ends of the range, when the knife is either fully opened or fully closed. This is much unlike various other spring assisted schemes from back in the early aughts which were much more like unto switchblade mechanisms, just with the switch part defeated. That motley bunch were theoretically capable of getting set off in your pocket if any of their parts were worn or busted, whereas the SpeedSafe arrangement can’t.

Partially opening the blade loads up the spring, and once you get it past about 20 degrees or so it goes from being compressed to being allowed to spring back out, which handily flicks the blade open the rest of the way. This means that it does take some effort to get one of the SpeedSafe Kershaws over the hump and into a position where it can fire off. But if you fail to do so, the blade will snap back into its closed position rather than trying to open on you. The original patent actually described a variety of spring shapes and not this zigzag arrangement, but the mechanical action is the same.

This obviates the need for the little safety switches and toggles which festooned early spring assisted knives and are, let’s face it, hugely annoying. The world decided that Kershaw’s plan was better, so much so that nowadays if you crack open any given Chinese knockoff piece of shit you’re sure to find a clone of Kershaw’s idea with one of those wiggly springs in there.

One other random observation here is that the scales are screwed to the liners via the inside as well as the outside. I suspect this is to keep the scales in firm contact with the liners and discourage the spring from escaping.

The big knife has white plastic pivot washers that may or may not be some fancy low coefficient of friction material, but probably aren’t. Wait for it, wait for it… The other two are different, because of course they are, and self-evidently sport bronze pivot washers instead which are visible from the outside:

There’s a semiconcealed endstop pin in here which rides in a little cutout in the back of the blade. Here you can also see the SpeedSafe spring peeking through its hole. Because I like you guys so much, the stray piece of lint I’ll throw in for free.

Here’s the sum total of what’s inside:

The hardware lineup.

The scales are some manner of injection molded fiber reinforced stuff, and the backspacer appears to be the same. The handle is separated with two plain threaded barrels which slide through the backspacer; for $10 each in a three pack, you’re certainly not getting fancy machined aluminum spacers. I noticed also that one of the interior scale screws was kind of wonky from the factory, but it still goes in fine without seeming to affect anything so what can you say.

So How Bad Is It, Then?

One thing I’ve always been able to say for Kershaw is that even their cheap knives are put together very well. These are no exception. The blade centering is very good on the big one…

…The medium one…

…And the little one.

Do you hear that? I could swear there’s a noise. What is that?

Oh, yeah. It’s the entire readership of this column screaming at their computer monitors, “But they’re made of crap steel!!!”

Look, there’s no escaping it. Calling 3cr13 a budget steel is probably the nicest thing we can do to it. It does bring a couple of bullet points to the table which Kershaw studiously play up, including a very high degree of rustproofness, resistance to snapping, and, ah, “ease of sharpening.”

That’s because 3cr’s edge retention is a lot less of a bullet point, per se, and more like a ragged bullet hole. The stuff only has 0.3% carbon in it, for fuck’s sake, which is a far cry even from boring old 440C’s 1.1-1.2%. Its hardenability is so low that you could slip it through the crack under your door. It’s looking up at the worms in the dirt. It’s limbo dancing in hell.

I chose the medium sized knife out of the lineup for my testing, because I’ll be buggered if I’m repeating this for all three. I’m not expecting a Christmas miracle to befall me on this day of days, just on one knife out of the trio above the other two; they’re all made out of the same stuff and they’re all going to work the same way.

Attacking its edge with my graded set of hardness files reveals… That it only manages to fall in between 45 and 50. If I were you I’d be careful using this on your Christmas cheeseboard; the cheese may actually win.

As it happened to just so shake out, I was vindicated anyway because the medium sized one had the best edge out of the box. Here it is up close.

All three edges also arrived noticeably out of true, and they’re also corkscrewed. Here is the medium one.

And the same again for the small one:

And the big one:

The latter actually arrived with a flat spot on its edge out at the tip which is visible to the naked eye. I don’t know if it was ground that way or if it got whacked somehow in transit. All three knives had the obligatory and by now familiar polypropylene tip protector thingies on them in the package, so given all we’ve seen it’s most likely the factory just did a crap job in sharpening it.

Shocker.

In our standard Highly Scientific Post-It Note Chop Test, the medium knife scored the best with an average cut pressure of 60.5 g and a peak of 77.7 g. The little one scored a less respectable 103.8 g peak and 85.89 g average and the big one slouched up at a truly abysmal 129.7 g peak and 104.69 g average.

Numbers are boring. We need something a little more exciting, more superlative, more bombastic.

So apropos of nothing, and after our last little incident, I’ve been trying to cook up a slightly smarter way to repeatably knock down the sharpness of knives without fucking up the surface finish. I don’t know if I’ve succeeded, but I’ve settled on using this rather clever cutter thingy I found on Printables to process down the frankly prodigious and highly absurd amount of cardboard that accumulates around here into standardized strips. My new and hugely rigorous testing regimen involves taking stacks of these six strips tall and julienning them across the grain into confetti. This highly productive activity has the net effect of throwing the equivalent of nine linear inches of cardboard cutting at the edge with each chop, while theoretically the cut off bits flake away from the blade, so that mostly only it rather than the entire surface gets exposed to the shocking amount of abrasive bullshit that’s found in ordinary cardboard.

That’s the idea, anyway.

With the sharpness it had right out of the box I took the medium Kershaw and hacked at the stack five times.

You guys want to guess what it scored after I did that?

That’s right, with only 45 combined linear inches of cardboard under its belt, the poor little thing was too dull to even complete the Post-It test again. The cutting force went right off the top of the chart until ultimately the thing smashed the Post-It into an accordion without managing to achieve any length of cut in it at all.

Well, crap.

Undeterred, I dutifully ground the blade back into full sharpness at a 17° per side angle, which is no doubt hopelessly optimistic for this steel but still better than the 15° I usually do. This took practically no time at all, so at least the bit about 3cr’s ease of sharpenability was the fuckin’ honest truth.

This brought matters back in hand, with the cutting performance evened out and restored to within spitting distance of its former, er, glory. For anyone wondering, the reason that the thing appeared to achieve that degree of sharpness at all was because the edge was decidedly sawtoothy and probably heavily burred, which has an advantage for cutting plain paper any time you draw the full length of it through the cut which I do when performing my little assessment. But once that burr snaps off and the little teefies wear away, it’s Dullsville for you.

I repeated the cardboard test.

With an actual edge on it, the medium Kershaw’s performance was significantly less embarrassing but still not exactly stellar. After 5 cuts, sharpness was reduced to needing 116 g peak and 82.82 g average, and after 10 cuts it leveled off to 123 g peak and 99.77 g average, whereupon at the tail end of the test the edge snagged and once again crushed the remaining little bit of Post-It rather than cutting it.

And that’s a wrap. You guys remember all that howling I’ve been doing for years about how fancy knife steel doesn’t really matter for casual everyday use? It turns out there’s a definite floor somewhere down near the bottom of the barrel where that doesn’t apply anymore. Now we know just about how deep it is.

That’s right, kids. I was wrong about something.

The Inevitable Conclusion

Don’t think of this as gifting somebody a cheesy knife, or even three cheesy knives. We can do a lot better than that. Instead, give the gift of teaching somebody how to sharpen their knife this Christmas.

Because believe you me, with these fuckers they’re going to get good at it. Or else.

But still, I wouldn’t be too pissed to get a pack of these in my stocking. It could be worse. It could be a golf tee puller, or yet another novelty tie. And this time I think we really have finally managed to break out of the flowchart. Here’s a trio of beater knives that I really won’t care about if I destroy them.

To quote the inimitable Tom Lehrer: Just the thing I need.

How nice.