Lucas Burnley Kihon Gets New Crossbar Variant

Lucas Burnley is back with a fresh release under the Boker Plus line. Meet the Kihon DC, a new, budget-oriented take on one of his most popular designs.

The Kihon, as a design, may be in Burnley’s top three in terms of visibility; we’d rank it behind only the omnipresent Kwaiken and the Squid. The Kihon has much more in common with the former than the letter, as Burnley built it too on a foundation informed by Asian styles of blade design. The result was a knife that landed right in that do-all EDC zone, with a low-key, pared back design that looks cool without going over the top. In the production realm, the Kihon has been an ongoing project between Burnley and Boker, with models appearing every so often over the years.

Boker Plus used to be associated strictly with value knives, but these days you see stuff at every price point imaginable. The prior Boker Plus Kihons landed on the spendier side, and compared to these, the Kihon DC lands in a lower price bracket: strictly entry level, with an MSRP of $50. Anybody who follows the production knife scene of 2023 will be able to guess the materials on offer here: a D2 blade and black handle scales made from GFN. That’s a recipe for a hard working EDC that should be able to punch above its weight in terms of raw performance.

But the DC isn’t just about the savings. It’s also the first Kihon model to come with an Axislike crossbar lock. Compared to the button or frame locks on prior Kihons, it is the only one that’s truly ambidextrous, which should bring our southpaw friends some joy. Every once in a while you see a knife with an ambidextrous lock, but a non-reversible, righty-configured clip; thankfully that’s not the case with the Kihon DC: it’s loopover clip can be swapped to either side.

You can expect to see the Kihon DC in the near future. The German Boker website lists the release date as OCtober 6th, but it may take longer than that to get stateside.

Knife in Featured Image: Boker Kihon DC

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