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comment by Pribnow
Pribnow  ·  3563 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How can I pick out the best Swiss Army Knife?

For the record, Swiss Army Knives are far from goofy knives with useless blades. Their blades work perfectly fine, the nail file works perfectly fine, and the scissors work perfectly fine. All of their tools work perfectly fine and the fit and finish is more consistently good than basically any other knife manufacturer. The smaller models have tiny blades and tiny tools, so I suggest getting something bigger than the SAK classic. I carried a Victorinox cadet and got plenty of good use out of it, and I had a Victorinox Champion + that was a bit too big to carry often that I also got plenty of good use out of. The version that actually gets sent off with Swiss soldiers has a one-handed main blade that locks open, too:

http://www.amazon.com/Victorinox-Swiss-Trekker-Pocket-Knife/dp/B001DZT0M0

However, given the thin blade stock and lack of lock (for the most part), I don't suggest them as a great outdoors knife for anything other than cutting up food, whittling, cutting rope/twine/whatever. For heavier use (batoning, chopping, etc.) I'd only ever suggest a solid fixed blade.