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Bestech Brings the Arctic Out in Time for Winter

November 20, 2020

After some releases that play in the mid- to high-end production arena, Bestech is back with the Arctic, a brand new budget knife design. The Arctic is a mid-sized user and represents some of Bestech’s core design tenets.

The Arctic’s design spices up conventional user knife dimensions with some small but noticeable visual flourishes. Its blade is a drop point, but one livened up with a big harpoon swedge. The swedge adds some extra beef to the tip for piercing jobs as well. Meanwhile the main cutting edge, running to 3.54 inches in length, provides that mix of straight and curved blade that makes the drop point such an EDC favorite. And EDC is the name of the game with the Arctic: daily slicing and piercing chores are within its wheelhouse, and it’s large and hardy enough for some heftier jobs beyond the capabilities of smaller knives.

Bestech’s last two releases, the Poltergeist Works-designed Delta 2500 and Ostap Hel’s Ivy, were premium efforts with correspondingly higher-end steels – S35VN in both cases. Here, we are back in the sub-$100 price bracket, and so Bestech reverted to its standby D2 steel. In this application on a rugged EDC knife, D2’s edge retention and relative toughness should serve its users well. The Arctic is a flipper-only design, and locks up with a liner lock mechanism.

Like the blade, the Arctic’s handle takes a simple, recognizable shape and dolls it up a bit. The handle profile is one any knife user will recognize: one finger groove, a gentle downward arcing shape, and a lanyard hole on the back. But three large, circular cutouts on front and back scales provide some character; the deep carry pocket clip has its own set of holes cut into it, echoing the handle’s visuals in miniature. The Arctic weighs 5.71 oz.

In addition to being a return to the budget arena, the Arctic also marks the first new design we’ve seen from Bestech’s in-house team in a while. The previous two releases were both collaborations, and indeed partnerships with outside makers has been a vital part of the company’s 2020 strategy.

The Arctic is available now.

Knife in Featured Image: Bestech Arctic

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