Boker PSK: One Tough Ankle-Biter

A fixed blade today, and it's not even Friday. Luxury.

This is Böker's PSK, or "Personal Survival Knife." So think of it like a personal pan pizza but, you know, made of steel and different in every possible way.

This diminutive, now discontinued knife is a Tom Krein design and Böker seem to want you to think of it as a fixed blade version of their Krein designed Pocket Bowie. I think it's better described as a smaller version of the Böker Vox Rold, but that's just my take on it. And it would be a funny old world if we were all the same.

The original run of these are made of 12C27, but the later ones got downgraded to 440C. If you find one of these, the 12C27 version is the one you probably want; it's a tougher steel, which for a knife like this is exactly what the doctor ordered. 440C is fine and all, but I think the 12C one is better. Mine seems to be from pretty early on, since its serial number is 0315. I've never been able to nail down exactly when the changeover happened, but by at least serial 0780 they'd already switched steels. So if you've ever wondered why half of all online retailers listed this as one steel and the other half as the other, now you know.

The PSK is a little 6-5/16" long jobbie with a 2-3/4" long drop pointed blade. But it is ridiculously stout for its size, with a blade that's 0.185" thick at the spine or 4.71mm. Böker themselves call it 4.7, so you get a whole 0.01mm more than what you paid for, gratis. Shrinkflation ain't got nothing on this.

The other headline feature is that the handle is a massive 0.786" thick (near as makes no difference to 20mm) so this combined with the thick blade means despite its compact footprint the PSK is, to use the vernacular, not fucking around.

It weighs 159.4 grams in total or 5.62 ounces, so "ephemeral" is precisely the wrong word to describe it. This is not a bantam weight holdout knife destined to spend its entire life unused and quietly rusting under your shirt. Besides, if you tried to use it as a neck knife you'd probably wind up looking like Rubiel Mosquera by the end of the week.

The handle is made of two thick slabs of sculpted G-10 with red fiber/rubber spacers beneath. The PSK presents a pleasantly ergonomic grip that is a far cry from the flat, barely-there perfunctory handle scales or dinky cord wrapping of most compact fixed blade knives. This is especially important if you plan to actually seriously use your knife for an extended period for any serious task. That is, beyond opening packages, cleaning your fingernails, and showing off to your buddies at the camp site. In the tail, the rearmost handle pin is hollow and also serves as a lanyard hole in case you're one of those lanyard people.

The spine contains an interrupted section of very square and precise jimping which is really my only gripe with the PSK's design. Not from an ergonomic sense, but rather because the cuts are so square and closely spaced that they tend to accumulate crap in them, which is a minor league irritation to pick out afterwards.

The PSK has a full flat grind and a relatively shallow factory edge angle, which gives it surprising cutting performance for its size and the thickness of its blade. Thickness is what it's got, too, in abundance. Böker's blurb for this describes its design as "nearly indestructible" and I believe it.

And let's be honest, the 2-1/2" blade length is all most outdoors people actually need -- despite any mumbling they might do to the contrary about bears or mountain lions or whatever else. The reduced length mainly means it is much easier to carry without swinging around all over the place or knocking against everything all the damn fool time. If you need a fucking machete, carry a machete. Otherwise, don't.

To assist with this, it comes with an injection molded sheath patterned very much to look like Kydex, but it isn't. The pictured Tek-Lok clip comes with it in the box, too, which was a nice surprise. Usually if the manufacturer provides a hard sheath they just leave you to your own devices to figure out how to carry it or mount it to anything. But in this case that's probably because the Tek-Lok is basically mandatory. The PSK is very handle heavy -- the balance point is about 3/4 of an inch rearward of the front handle pin -- which is great for ergonomics but means that without a very solid attachment mechanism you'll wind up with your knife wanting to do a backflip off your belt. And that's only funny the first time.

The sheath does not have adjustable tension and its retention is achieved by a pair of round nubs molded into it that go just behind the knife's finger guard. The retention is positive, but only just. It doesn't take much of a tug to draw it which is a mixed blessing depending on how you prefer to carry your knife. If you're one of those cool guys who likes to go handle-down, you might want to revise that strategy with the PSK. Contemporary reviews mentioned the loosey-goosey sheath also, though I have to say that even shaking mine vigorously I can't get it to drop out of the sheath of its own accord. But if you hang it upside down and anything so much as brushes against it while you're pressing through the bush, it'll probably get pulled out and you'll wind up with bruised toes.

And for all you low-drag tactical operators out there, yes, the blade can audibly rattle in the sheath laterally. Give it a rest; You're not Solid Snake. If this really annoys you, you'll have to pry the sheath apart and line it with felt yourself, or something. Or just press your own sheath out of actual Kydex.

Böker is proud enough of their association with Tom Krein that they put his logo right here on the reverse of the blade. The steel descriptor is on that side as well, so if you wind up handling a used one of these remember to look for it there. Pay no attention to the "China" marking in the finger notch. This knife cost $45 when it was new. What do you want?

If you haven't gotten a handle on the PSK's proportions yet, this ought to shed some light on it. (I don't know if you noticed, but that was a "pune," or a play on words.) The PSK is shorter than the Usual Article, my CQC-6K that I carry nearly every day, both in overall length and length of the blade.

The Inevitable Conclusion

History is just littered with knife designs that tried hard to be folders with fixed blade performance. If you ask me, that sort of thing will always be a fool's errand. If you want fixed blade toughness with folder-like convenience, just go on and get yourself one of these instead.

Needless to say, I think the PSK is boss as hell, with only the minor letdown of its factory sheath. That's easy enough to rectify, though, for anyone with access to some foam and a blowdryer. Or failing that, there's room enough to drill your own hole for a tensioning screw on the stock sheath. Swings and roudabouts; nothing is ever perfect.

So I have no idea why Böker discontinued it other than the usual relentless march of capitalism. What a drag.