The picks
Look at any knife your grandfather would have recognized and you are almost certainly looking at a clip point. The spine runs straight from the handle and then appears to have a section clipped away near the front, either straight or in a concave sweep, which drops the tip down and thins it out. It is the shape on the Bowie, on nearly every traditional trapper, and on the Buck 110.
What that clipped section buys is a fine, controllable point that still has belly behind it for slicing. Forty-seven clip-point folders are live on our shelves and these eight run $28.35 to $166.46. This completes the blade-shape set our drop point, tanto and wharncliffe guides started, and reading them together is the fastest way to work out which shape you actually want.
Take a blade with a straight spine and remove a wedge from the front third. Two things happen at once. The tip drops below the spine line, so it sits lower and closer to the center of the blade, which puts it more directly under your control. And the steel behind the tip gets thinner, because you have taken material away from exactly there.
A thinner, lower tip pierces far more easily than a drop point's, and it gets into tight spaces a broader tip cannot. Picking a knot, starting a cut in the middle of a sheet, working under a staple or a stitch: this is the shape that does that comfortably. Meanwhile the belly behind it is untouched, so the slicing performance you would get from a drop point is still there.
The cost is the obvious one. Thinner steel behind the point means a weaker point, and the clip point is the shape most likely to lose its tip if you pry with it. That is the trade in one sentence: it is the most capable point on our shelf and the second most fragile, after the wharncliffe.
Two versions of the same idea show up across these picks. A straight clip cuts the section away in a flat line, leaving more steel behind the tip and a slightly more robust point. A hollow or concave clip scoops it out in a curve, producing a finer, more needle-like tip and the swooping profile people associate with Bowie knives.
Traditional slipjoints tend toward the long, elegant hollow clip; modern working folders tend toward a shorter, straighter one. Neither is better in general, and the practical difference is small compared to the difference between a clip point and any other shape. If you want the finest point available on a traditional pattern, our Texas toothpick guide covers the extreme version of it.
The Kershaw Camshaft at $28.35 is the least expensive pick, an assisted-opening 3 inch blade in 4Cr14 stainless on a glass-filled nylon handle, with Kershaw's SpeedSafe mechanism. Be clear-eyed about that steel: 4Cr14 runs soft, around 50 to 55 on the Rockwell scale, and this grade gives up a lot of edge life. It sharpens in seconds and it will need to. At this price you are buying the mechanism and the shape, not the alloy, and that is a legitimate thing to buy.
The Gerber Paraframe II at $36.89 is the one most people have handled without knowing the name, a 3.5 inch stainless clip blade in a skeletonized stainless frame that weighs almost nothing. Its listing names no alloy, so we make no steel claim about it; what it offers is a large blade in a frame that disappears in a pocket.
The Buck Lockback Hunter at $39.00 is the traditionalist's entry, a 3.75 inch 420HC clip point in a checkered nylon handle with a belt sheath. 420HC gives up edge retention and returns excellent corrosion resistance and easy sharpening, and on a knife with a sheath meant for outdoor work that is a sensible way round.
Three picks show the clip point doing what it has always done. The Böker Traditional Series Folder at $57.56 is 4 inches closed with a mirror-finished clip blade and a hook, in a walnut handle with nickel silver bolsters. The Böker Magnum Lady Lockback at $70.16 is the small dress option, a 2 inch Damascus clip point in burl wood. Damascus names a layered construction that is etched to show a pattern rather than any particular alloy, so we make no performance claim about it.
The Case Masonic Trapper at $108.99 is a full trapper carrying clip and spey blades in blue jigged bone, with the clip blade etched "In Search of More Light". The trapper pattern itself is a subject of its own, and our trapper guide covers it; this page is about the blade at the front of it.
The Case Stripes Service Copperlock at $114.89 rounds out the traditional group, a 3.63 inch closed knife with a locking clip blade in black smooth bone with a green line flag on the handle. A Copperlock is Case's locking version of a traditional frame, which is worth knowing if you like the look of a slipjoint but want the blade to lock.
The Hogue Deka in Flat Dark Earth at $166.46 is the most expensive knife here and the one built to modern standards throughout: a 3.25 inch CPM MagnaCut clip point under a black Cerakote finish, on a polymer handle with Hogue's ABLE lock.
MagnaCut deserves its reputation. It is a modern alloy designed so that its chromium stays available to fight rust instead of being consumed forming carbides, and the practical upshot is a steel that does not ask you to sacrifice any of the three things buyers care about. On a clip point, whose tip is the part that gives out first, the resistance to chipping matters every bit as much as the long edge life.
This is also the lightest serious knife on the page, because the handle is polymer rather than metal or bone, which is a real consideration on a knife you carry every day.
The clip point's one weakness deserves a practical answer rather than a warning. Do not pry with it, and buy a dedicated pry tool instead: our keychain multi-tool guide has several under ten dollars, and a six-dollar pry bar on your keys protects a hundred-dollar blade. Prying is the single most common way tips get snapped.
When sharpening, pay attention to the last half inch. A clip point's tip is thin and narrow, and it is easy to round it off by letting the blade lift as you come to the end of a stroke. Keep the same angle all the way through and let the tip leave the stone last, not first.
Everything else is ordinary. Wipe the blade dry after wet work, a drop of light oil in the pivot twice a year, and any stone from our sharpener guide handles every steel here. The MagnaCut Deka will go longest between sharpenings and the 420HC Buck will come back fastest.
This is the real question for most buyers, since these two shapes cover the overwhelming majority of folders sold. The honest split comes down to what you do with the tip.
If you regularly need the point, piercing, detail work, getting into tight places, starting cuts in the middle of material, the clip point is meaningfully better and you will notice it weekly. If your tip mostly just exists and your cutting is slicing, food, boxes and rope, the drop point's stronger tip is the better trade and you will never miss the finer point.
There is also the matter of what a knife looks like, which is not a trivial reason to choose one. The clip point is the shape that reads as a knife to almost everyone, for better and worse: it looks like heritage on a bone-handled Case and it looks more aggressive than a drop point on a black tactical folder. Our drop-point guide makes the other case, and between the two pages the decision usually makes itself.
Take the Hogue Deka at $166.46 if you want the best steel on this page and a light knife to carry every day. Take the Case Copperlock at $114.89 if you want a traditional knife whose blade locks, or the Masonic Trapper at $108.99 if you want the full two-blade pattern.
Take the Buck Lockback Hunter at $39.00 for the outdoor version with a sheath included, the Paraframe II at $36.89 for the most blade in the least pocket weight, and the Camshaft at $28.35 to get an assisted clip point for under thirty dollars. The Böker Traditional at $57.56 and the Lady Lockback at $70.16 are the two to look at if the knife should be handsome first.
All eight are picked by hand off our racks in Woodlawn, Virginia and typically leave within a day on the business calendar. The Deka clears our $149 free-shipping line to the contiguous US on its own.
