{"id":29979,"date":"2025-06-21T00:01:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T07:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=29979"},"modified":"2025-06-22T09:26:33","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T16:26:33","slug":"gordon-knives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/06\/21\/gordon-knives\/","title":{"rendered":"Gordon Knives"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

Gordon knives?\u00a0 You may think you\u2019ve never heard of them, but maybe you’ve seen them without realizing what you were seeing.\u00a0 Gordon, you see, is the house brand for Harbor Freight knives.\u00a0 You know Harbor Freight: It\u2019s where the folks who badmouth Chinese motorcycles buy their tools.<\/p>\n

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The Gordon Bowie. It’s a nice knife.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I don\u2019t shop much at Harbor Freight these days, but it\u2019s not because I think their stuff isn\u2019t any good.\u00a0 I\u2019m an old\u00a0 guy and I have all the tools I\u2019ll ever need.\u00a0 But I still get the Harbor Freight ads, and one of them caught my eye recently.\u00a0 It was for what I initially thought was a Buck 119 hunting knife, but it wasn\u2019t a Buck: It was a Gordon.\u00a0 They call it the Gordon Bowie\/Hunting knife.\u00a0 So I rolled on over to my local Harbor Freight store to check it out.<\/p>\n

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The Gordon has some heft to it. It seems to fit my hand perfectly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The Gordon Bowie has a 6-inch blade.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can see the Gordon Bowie before you buy it because it\u2019s packaged in a clear plastic bubble wrap container.\u00a0 Getting the knife out of that package was a bit of a challenge.<\/p>\n

The Harbor Freight website lists the blade material as 7Cr17MoV stainless steel.\u00a0 Even though I had a course or two in metallurgy in my formative years, I wasn’t sure what that meant, so I Googled it:<\/p>\n

7Cr17MoV is a Chinese stainless steel, often used in budget-friendly survival and kitchen knives, known for its good balance of hardness, corrosion resistance, and toughness. It’s essentially a modified version of 440A steel, with added vanadium to enhance strength and wear resistance. While it may not offer the best edge retention compared to high-end steels, it’s relatively easy to sharpen and is known for its durability under hard use. <\/em><\/p>\n

A Buck 119 goes for about a $75.\u00a0 The Gordon?\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s a whopping $29.99.\u00a0 I had to take a look, and when I did, I liked what I saw.\u00a0 So I picked one up.\u00a0 At $30, I can take the risk of it not being perfect.<\/p>\n

Then I noticed another Gordon knife hanging on the Harbor Freight display next to the Gordon Bowie.\u00a0\u00a0 It was a monster that caught my attention (it was hard to miss, actually).<\/p>\n

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Visions of Sylvester Stallone as Rambo swam through my mind when I saw this Gordon. Check out the sawing serrations on top of the blade.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Harbor Freight calls the knife you see above their Survival\/Hunting knife.\u00a0 In addition to its size, the other thing that grabbed my attention was the price.\u00a0 It was either $9.99 or $6.99.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t tell which, and I\u2019ll return to that part of the story in a minute.<\/p>\n

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The Gordon Hunting\/Survival knife has an 8-inch blade. It’s an impressive knife.\u00a0 I don’t know what impressed me more:\u00a0 The knife’s size, or its low price.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The gigondo Gordon is called their Hunting\/Survival knife.\u00a0 It\u2019s a monster with an 8-inch blade.\u00a0 The knife has a hollow handle with a cap that unscrews, and inside the cap, there\u2019s a compass.\u00a0 Cool beans.\u00a0 A compass.<\/p>\n

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The Gordon Hunting\/Survival knife handle. The end cap unscrews and you can store stuff inside the handle.\u00a0 Because the handle is hollow and made of aluminum, the knife feels much lighter than it looks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I later read the online reviews, one guy said the compass didn\u2019t work.\u00a0 But you know those online reviews.\u00a0 Some folks would complain if you hung them with a new rope.\u00a0 Mostly these reviews consist of what emanates from the southbound end of a northbound bull.\u00a0 My compass works just fine.<\/p>\n

Gordon also gives you some thread, a few matches, and oddly enough, a button or two.\u00a0 It all fits in the handle and it\u2019s focused on helping you survive in dangerous places.\u00a0 You know, like LA.\u00a0 \u00a0In case you need to hack your way through some bamboo or you lose a button.<\/p>\n

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The handle’s cap is sealed with an o-ring.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A compass inside the handle’s end cap.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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There’s room inside the handle to store the survival accessories that come with the knife, and maybe some other stuff.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This little package of survival stuff came with the Grodon knife.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Gordon survival knife is cool.\u00a0 It makes me feel like Rambo. Maybe that\u2019s what it is supposed to do.\u00a0 The upper part of the blade has a sawtooth pattern milled into it.\u00a0 The blade is sharp.\u00a0 Is the metal any good?\u00a0 Hell, I don\u2019t know, and I probably won\u2019t find out.\u00a0 I\u2019m not planning any expeditions into the Amazon basin, and even if I were, I probably couldn\u2019t get on the airplane with this thing.\u00a0 Will it hold an edge? I don\u2019t know that either.\u00a0 But at $9.99, if I can\u2019t sharpen the thing I\u2019ll just buy another.<\/p>\n

The blade material is specified on the Harbor Freight website simply as “stainless steel.”\u00a0 A Reddit post by one of the many folks on the internet who post such things states that it is 8CR13MOV steel (I don’t know if that’s accurate, but it’s the only blade material reference I found).\u00a0 Here’s what Professor Google has to say:<\/p>\n

8Cr13MoV steel is a popular Chinese stainless steel known for its good balance of performance and affordability, making it a common choice for budget-friendly knives. It offers decent edge retention, corrosion resistance, and ease of sharpening.<\/em><\/p>\n

Both knives come with sheaths, not that I\u2019ll ever use either.\u00a0 But it\u2019s nice to know they\u2019re there just in case I ever get the urge to make a Rambo movie.<\/p>\n

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The Gordon Bowie and Survival\/Hunting knives both include sheaths in their incredibly low prices.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You know, it\u2019s funny.\u00a0 The young lady cashier at Harbor Freight asked if I knew the price of the knives.\u00a0 I told her the 6-inch Bowie Buck 119 wannabe was $29.99, and the big Gordon survival knife was either $9.99 or $6.99.\u00a0 I explained that I wasn\u2019t sure because there were two price tags on the larger knife.\u00a0 She explained that if I was a Harbor Freight member, I could buy the knife for the lower $6.99 price, but as a plain old Harbor Freight nonmember, I\u2019d have to pay the higher $9.99 price. She went on to explain that the annual Harbor Freight membership fee is $29.95.\u00a0 I told her I didn\u2019t want the membership because, like Woody Allen, I wouldn\u2019t be a member of any organization that would have me as a member (I thought I was really on top of my game with that one, but my borscht belt shtick went right over her head).\u00a0 She then told me if I told her my email address, I could select one of four different prizes.\u00a0 As a guy who still gets excited opening a box of Cracker Jacks, her offer appealed to me.\u00a0 (I was really having a good day.\u00a0 I love going into any store that sells tools, I was getting two cool knives, and now I had a offer for another free prize.)\u00a0 I gave that young lady my email and she showed me a menu.\u00a0 I selected the convertible screwdriver.\u00a0 And finally, when she rang up the knives, she looked at the Buck 119 wannabe.\u00a0 \u201cWhy is this one so expensive?\u201d she asked, pondering its $29.99 price against the much larger $9.99 survival knife.<\/p>\n

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Me? Not hardly. But I have the blade if they ever offer the role to me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So there you have it.\u00a0 Are these knives any good?\u00a0 I think they are, but hey, at these prices, who cares?<\/p>\n

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Like our knife stories?\u00a0 \u00a0We have more, you know.<\/p>\n

A Custom Bowie Knife<\/a>
\nA Buck Canoe<\/a>
\nBuck, Cold Steel, and Chinese vs. US Quality<\/a>
\nMan, This Is Scary<\/a>
\nA Tale of Two Pocketknives<\/a>
\nA Stag Film?<\/a>
\nTexas Rangers Smith and Wessons<\/a>
\nThe Buck Stopped Here<\/a>
\nThe Buck Stops Here<\/a><\/p>\n

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