- Includes knife, box, and warranty registration Card
- Features a 3-5/8-inch drop point 420HC s tainless steel blade
- Features a textured thermoplastic handle
- Sports a stainless steel belt clip and a lanyard hole at the back of the grip
- Unconditional lifetime warranty
Product Description
Buck Knives 286BK Bantam TM BHW is the large sized entry into Buck’s popular Bantam Series. It is a large, lightweight, mid-lockback folding knife. It features a 3-5/8″ drop point 420HC stainless steel blade with a one h… More >>
#1 by E. Gracia on May 4, 2010 - 2:37 am
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small buck lock back knife; great knife , only disappointment in a “buck” product is that it was made in china and not the united states! ed gracia, ca.
Rating: 4 / 5
#2 by Ronald Flick on May 4, 2010 - 5:17 am
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Without any question, this Buck knife is the best knife that I have ever owned. Opens and closes with just one hand, very sharp and is lightweight to boot. Fits my hand well and this knife is an absolute bargain. Too bad it was manufactured in China. Still love it !
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by Goebbels Gerbils on May 4, 2010 - 5:31 am
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I have the medium and large versions of this knife. The medium is perfect and is my preferred EDC. The large is good but somewhat stiffer to open and close. Get the medium and you will never know it is in your pocket. Also, both of these knives came razor sharp and have retained their edges well.
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by J. Zhu on May 4, 2010 - 7:39 am
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This knife as to almost all factory manufactured knife is not sharp after open box according to all my knife buying experiment. This knife is no exception. People saying this knife is sharp is being ignorance. The Sharpness comparison I used is by testing with a blade with the same metal of this knife in a well-sharpened statue and compare the result of two knives to get the approximately sharpness value. I have another Buck knife which is the famous Buck 110 Folder that uses the same Stainless 420-HC metal. This 284 knife can’t cut through paper, while my 110 folder with same piece of metal can.If razor sharp is 10 and dull knife without an edge is 0, then the sharpness value to this knife is 5, and 110 folder being 8.
There are the pro and con
Pro
1, Light weight
2, Cheap Price
3, Good blade metal (should hold edge well and have a sharp edge in theory)
4, solid strong handle and has some slip resistance also
5, solid knife
6, lock back
7, good looking design
Con
1, not sharp out of box (you really need to sharpen it before use)
2, Parts made in China
3, the pivot point is weak, ie may fail apart easily
4, no belt clip
5, no sheath
6, not solid enough if applied force to the side blade, ie easily breakable.
7, Overall not solid enough to be a reliable knife (Please consider Buck 110 for reliability)
with this price tag, you really can’t find a better knife. It is sharp after you sharpen it correctly and will definitely hold the edge. but if you look for a reliable knife that you count your life on, this is definitely not the choice you should take because since it has a plastic handle, the build of this knife is not solid enough. Although with life time guarantee, it will fail.
Update:
failed after few day of normal use by dropping to the ground about 1.5 meter height. The springs holds the locking mechanism fail apart. I ship the knife out to Buck’s customer knife service in the following Monday, and 2 weeks has been pasted, just didn’t get anything back yet, not even a word. So here I am very doubting about the great Buck customer service every body are praising.
I owned 3 Buck knife and because of this. No more Buck knife for me.
Rating: 1 / 5
#5 by Dillon D Barnes on May 4, 2010 - 7:40 am
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Let me begin by saying I didn’t do my research before I bought this knife, that is completely my fault and I’m not reducing this knife’s rating because of it. There are four sizes of these Buck Bantam knives (nano, small, medium, and large). I purchased the small when I should have gone up to at least a medium. That being said, I’m not too disappointed with the small.
I like my pocket knife to fit in my fist, this knife (when opened and gripped as designed) only reaches about half-way down my pinky. It’s annoyingly close to being just big enough. Nonetheless, it’s comfortable and could be useful for smaller jobs. Minimal jimping on this knife, can’t downgrade the knife too much for this because it wasn’t designed for heavy duty work. Thumb stud is effective, but not as fast as some of my other EDC knives. Stud does not extend as wide as the knife body which reduces speed trying to get your finger to the stud. Knife is a lockback (as opposed to a Walker Linerlock sytle) which really comes down to personal preference. I prefer the linerlock because of the much easier one-handed operation. A big disappointment for me was the lack of a belt clip on the small knife. Looks like Amazon mixed some reviews together and I assumed (again my fault) it would come with one. I hate having any odd shaped object sitting sideways in my pocket, bugs the heck out of me, so I was really worried about this knife in there. Luckily it’s small enough and light enough that I easily forgot about it and it wasn’t a problem.
A lot of people are very hesitant of the plastic handle, first of all, it’s technically thermoplastic, a polymer. This isn’t a knife you see sitting on the gas station counter for $1 each. I’m fairly confident the rivets on the knife will wear out and loosen long before the plastic handle itself sees any damage or weakness. You WILL NOT be able to disassemble or adjust tightness of this knife, they are riveted. Time will tell how strong those rivets are but I doubt I’ll see any weakening soon. The blade is just plain sexy. Clean, great contour, and ‘BUCK USA’ written across the top. No ‘made in china’ written on the blade, it seems like Buck is downplaying these knives are imported. I’m always a little hesitant when people claim the knives are razor sharp from the factory, they haven’t seen my diamond wet stone yet. But they were right about this one, it’s shave sharp no problem.
Of course I have to note the price, GREAT VALUE!
If you’re thinking about getting this knife you need to think about what role it will fulfill.
*Size – knife offers smaller size but that means less control and force can be applied. (Should be noted the knife fits my girlfriends hand perfect)
*Speed of Deployment – it’s going to take longer to 1) dig this out of your pocket (vs a belt clip) and 2) utilize a slower thumb stud (personal opionion)
This knife is probably going into the girlfriend’s purse, it just doesn’t quite fit my needs. I’ve got a new knife on the way I’m excited to try out and test but will highly consider getting a medium or large Buck Bantam in the future for EDC or as a back-up to keep in the truck or tool box.
Rating: 4 / 5