Best Traditional Safari Knife – Arthur Wright Bushcraft

The A.W. Wright (Not to be confused with LT Wright!) is a glorious knife for the safari hunter and it will look beautiful in your display case when in repose. Made by trusted hands in Sheffield, England from 01 Carbon Tool Steel and hardened to Rockwell 56/58, this blade was meant for safari use. The Wright also comes in beautiful grip adornments such as Snakewood, Ebony, Horn, Rosewood or our favorite, Stag. With an MSRP of around $300.00 and a street price in the UK of about $230.00 not counting international freight, it is an expensive but beautiful knife. Here’s a great video of the manufacture and history of the Arthur Knife Bushcraft here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzhdlid5MM4

What we loved: The substantial, extremely hefty 3.9mm blade makes this knife suitable for all forms of torture and the scandi grind made putting an edge back on a straightforward ordeal. The handmade nature of the blade and the one of a kind natural handles give this knife the counterpoint to the Fallkniven’s space age technologies. While some knives one points for innovation, the Arthur Wright caught our eyes for its lack of innovation in its traditional, proven design, known materials and first world hand crafted nature.

What we didn’t like: Jabbing the knife into some mopane wood was all it took to fold over the tip of the blade at 56 rockwell and striking the spine of the blade with a soft flint for starting a fire did scratch the spine and displace some metal. The lack of a guard is somewhat compensated by the contour of the handle and blade but it certainly is the least sure gripped choice of the lot. The beautiful handle rivets mean the stag scales aren’t coming off anytime soon but neither are you going to easily replace the handle with a piece of giraffe bone, warthog tusk or impala horn from your trophies brought back from Africa. Nonetheless, this is a forever knife and no matter how many times you polish out blemishes or redress the edge profile of the Scandi grind you’ll never wear this knife out.