(dear gods... what have I done? )
Some of you may remember my Weird Knife Wednesday post from a few months ago about the 2022 Walmart crossbar lock (hilariously called "shaft lock") knife. It was a first for Ozark Trail. Here's a link: https://lemmy.world/post/5850196
That knife came out of nowhere and many of the budget-oriented knife communities took notice. If your local Walmart had them, it wasn't for long because they were selling out. I bought 2 (and gave one away as a part of a white elephant gift).
Skip to 2023 and Walmart has released not one, not two, but three different crossbar locking knives for this holiday season. (more on that later).
For those who don't know, Ozark Trail is the Walmart in-house brand (the Amazon Essentials of the brick and mortar world) for many, many things. Including knives.
For $5-6 US, these are knives built to a very specific price point and it shows.
Enough talk, time for some photos:
As mentioned these are 2 of the 3 released this year for the holidays. You'll find these two, along with a few liner lock, frame lock, and fixed blades, in an end-cap or center-aisle display if your Walmart has them in.
The textured G10 (?) one at the top looks suspiciously like the Sencut Scepter (which, is par for the course for Ozark Trail "designers"). The second one, with the blue pivot ring does not look familiar but I'm assuming eagle-eyed readers know its inspiration.
It's hard to see in these photos both knives have deep-carry clips that extend past the back of the scales. These are very deep carry indeed.
The action on these knives is really bad. As if straight out of the factory they decided to take them to the beach and bury them all in sand before shipping them off. The crossbar on both grinds against the back of the knife. The spring tension on the bar is not as strong as last years model but could still use some work. I'm sure that they will break in, even if it takes a year. You can't really flip them open (without also throwing your wrist around wildly and looking like a lunatic) and you're mostly going to have to 2-hand shut them.
On the other hand: these were $5 each. So if you have to slow-roll them open, maybe that's not so bad?
I had mentioned a 3rd "shaft lock" knife that seems to be mostly available online, though I did find a few stores listing them as in stock (but I'm not driving further than I already have for these). It comes as a part of a 3-pack of knives and some other tools.
I'm blatantly lifting this image off the Walmart website:
I don't think I'm going to buy the pack though because, while only $5 each, buying a couple of these gets me into "real" knife territory (the aforementioned Sencut Scepter being a great knife for the money) and I'd rather buy more of those than more of these.
Should you buy these Ozark Trail knives? I would hope not. I made this sacrifice for you. Don't repeat my mistakes, learn from them.
Got a 6-pack of Ozarks to give the guys in my wedding last month. Honestly, $20 for 6 is a lotta bang for the buck.
Went hiking with the kids today and my daughter couldn't carry hers, no pockets, gave it to me. Got to the creek and busted it out to cut some lines off the trees. Meh, simple chore, but I was liking the knife. Light, easy, works.
Love me some Ozark Trail gear. If you know what you're getting going in, it's great. These are my favorite general purpose camp knives. Sheath is crap, but it's perfectly serviceable for only $10. Liked it so much I got a used one off eBay when I lost the original and Walmart no longer sold them. LOL, and they came back that every year.
Like Harbor Freight tools, you find some winners and losers, and you don't want such tools for daily or hard use. Anyway, Ozark beats hell out of the low-end, and more expensive, knives at the local hardware store.
I'm certainly of two minds when it comes to Ozark Trail knives. On the one hand, the knife you have is better than the knife you don't have. And if $5-6 is all you can afford to spend right now, then you should absolutely get an Ozark Trail knife instead of some gas station/flea market garbage.
But I also know how good knives are when you spend only a "few" dollars more. If you're buying 6 at a time, well that's some real money but for one knife, if you shop deals/sales, you can get some knives that are clearly way better than Ozark Trail for $15-20. Double the price of the OT but I would argue often more than double the performance, action, and reliability.
I will never yuck someone's yum. Hell, I wouldn't give these away as gifts if I thought they were truly bad tools. As you said, you have to know what you're getting going in.
The one thing I'd say is a good reason to buy an Ozark Trail knife: you can practice your sharpening and not worry about ruining a more expensive knife. :)