This is the Mini Crooked River hunting pocket knife from the team at Benchmade, each one is made by hand in Oregon, and it’s designed to be the last pocket knife you’ll ever need to buy.
As the name implies the Mini Crooked River is the smaller version of the Crooked River hunting knives from Benchmade. There was customer demand for a scaled down version that was better suited to being carried everyday, with a lower weight but still using all of the same materials.
The blade is made from high-quality CPM-S30V stainless steel, this is an exceedingly hard alloy of iron with carbon (1.45%), chromium (14.00%), vanadium (4.00%), and molybdenum (2.00%). It’s been called “the absolute best blade steel available” and many knifemakers consider it to be the ultimate grade of stainless steel for making blades.
This is Les deAsis, the founder of Benchmade, taken back in the 1980s not long after the company first started out. Image courtesy of Benchmade.
The Mini Crooked River has a durable, stabilized wood handle and it has an Axis® assist opening that locks the blade into place when open, to prevent it accidentally closing on your fingers while you’re using it.
This knife has a blade length of 3.4” and a closed length of 4.5”, with an open length of 7.9”, a handle width of 0.52”, and a total weight of 3.29 oz. The blade has a split arrow clip point, and each is made in the USA.
The compact size of the Mini Crooked River makes it an ideal EDC or “Every Day Carry” pocket knife, for use with regular daily activities like opening mail and packages to slicing fruit.
The roots of Benchmade can be traced back to the early 1980s when founder Les deAsis began making knives under the Bali-Song brand in California. The company’s initial focus was on butterfly knives, also known as balisongs, which feature a distinctive opening mechanism that sees the handle open in the middle to expose the blade, each side of the handle then folds around 180º to join together.
The company name came from the fact that the knives are all handmade in America on workshop benches, not in a factory in a country halfway around the world. In the decades since Benchmade was founded it’s become a favorite among many outdoorspeople, and the quality of the knives is second to none.
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