Buck Knives 0346RWS Vantage Select Large Folding Pocket Knife, 3-1/4" 420HC Stainless Steel Drop Point Blade, Rosewood Handle

Just opened this up minutes ago, so these are all first impressions. Will update if my opinion changes.Overall I chose the 5 stars because it’s visually appealing, has a great pocket clip design that really hides the knife, is made in the beautiful U.S., has a great warranty, and is made of the famous Buck 420HC that should handle all my light duty needs just fine. Also an easily sharpened steel.The dymondwood is visually pretty awesome. Much better looking than the majority of my knives that are a little too “tacticool” for my liking. Blade is hair shaving sharp right out of the box. Price point is very good too. I’m sure the pro model is great with the upgraded steel, but 420HC is plenty for my needs from this knife.The bad: flipper tab is too small. Nice that it doesn’t catch your knuckles when reaching into your pocket, but doesn’t have enough material to really grab it with your finger. Could have really improved this with a touch of jimping as well. Which brings me to my next point. Super tight right out of the box. Can’t flip it without using your wrist, and blade is also slightly off center. Going to make some adjustments and clean it up to see if I can fix that. If the blade flipped a little easier/smoother, the small flipper might not be so bad. I also might touch it up with a dremel to give a little bite to the flipper.All the reviews I’ve read said Buck had made some serious quality control progress on the newest production, which is why I waited so long to purchase this knife. I had actually forgotten about this model because of the negativity surrounding it, but it came up on a forum and sparked my interest again.Not as bad as some I’ve seen/read about, but I now understand exactly what everyone was saying.Overall it’s a great looking knife and is cheap. I think I’ll keep it and see what I can do to “modify” it a bit. The Force model does have the jimping on the flipper, but I don’t like the handle near as much as the avid’s dymondwood. If you really want the best of both worlds you could buy both and combine them to make one outstanding knife. For the price, I might just do that!Update: Been carrying this knife daily for the past week or two. Blade has held up great from cutting open boxes, to cutting airline hoses, and all the other daily chores I use it for.Ended up taking it apart and discovered the new models are riveted together. Still took the blade out to clean up the action and polished the washers slightly with some Mother’s polish and a piece of cardboard. Reassembled with some quality lubricant, and wow! Knife action is much smoother, and by polishing off an ever so slight amount of material from the washers, it is now perfectly centered with a nice smooth action.Decided not to added any jimping on the flipper because once I did the polishing and cleaning, I found it not to be necessary. Still a great looking knife and now smooth as butter!

Buck knives are high quality, reasonably priced, and durable. great EDC knife, so glad I chose Buck over Benchmade. smooth action, beautiful rosewood, perfect.

Update 5 years later: I still carry use this knife almost daily. I haven’t bought another knife in the five years I’ve had this one because I’m satisfied with it. This is a great knife if you maintain it., I rarely use or try to use the flipper tab, it works much better with the thumb hole for right handed folks like me.In the review below I mentioned I didn’t expect the printing on the blade to last, and I was right. I haven’t been able to read the Buck name, USA, or the model number and date in several years now, it all wore off.The wood handle scales do scratch fairly easy. Some furniture polish such as Pledge or Murphy’s oil soap can help them look better.While disassembling it for cleaning it the other day I stripped one of the handle screws. I called Bucks warranty and repair department and found out that I could purchase new fasteners for the knife and that I could even purchase new red wood handle inlays. I spoke with Lonnie in the warranty and repair department, she could not have been kinder or more polite.In short I LOVE this pocket knife, if I ever loose it, I will replace it with the same model.I’m now nearly fifty years old. In my original review I mentioned I would update it in a year well I forgot, so this update is four years late. What follows is my original review that I wrote five years ago.••••••••IMO, I generally prefer knives that look like they should be in Western movies rather than some silly Sci-FI Action thriller. That is to say I prefer traditional looking knives more than modern Tacti-cool knifes.I'm 45, and grew up with a Buck 110 and always compared other knives to it.I wouldn't have considered buying a Vantage if it didn't have these wood grained handles. The blade is ½” shorter than a 110 but same cutting length as the 110 has a ½” of un-sharpened tang. This is the first knife I've ever had, that I like to use as much as a 110.PRO's:•Liner Lock- Locks like a bank vault•Sharpness - like a razor•Deployment,- both a flipper and a right handed thumb hole.•Aesthetics:- Stylish and beautiful wood grain handle, for grown men, it doesn't look like a school boy's plastic toy.•Maitinence- open back and threaded fasteners make the knife easy to clean.•Carry system: Small but strong pocket clip. BTW fits in a 110 sheath too.•Value:- 40 bucks for a high quality U.S. Made knife!CON's•Deployment- flipper is a little awkward to me, The liner lock covers 1/3 of thumb hole rendering it useless for the left hand. Both are useless with work gloves, two hands are required when wearing gloves or use the ol' drop method.•Logo- the Buck name, model #, USA and date code are simply printed or etched on the blade not stamped into the metal. This is my first Buck with out blade stamping, makes an other wise beautiful knife look cheap like a knife from the county fair. Heck, even the budget Bantam series has blade stamping! I used to have a Gerber with printed logo and it lasted so I'll see how long this printed on logo lasts too.I'm sure the Select, Pro and the Force models are nice knives too. The plastic GRN and G10 of those just doesn't apeal to me aesthetically.Didn't think I would like this modern folder but it has quickly become a favorite.I'll try to update this review in a year.

Comes VERY sharp out of the box. I have a missing piece of fingernail to attest to that. It's a very good looking knife, which is icing on the cake. Before buying, I read a few reviews talking about the blade having weird machine scratches on it. Mine has them I think, but personally, I dig it. It looks like a cool brushed stainless finish, and I'm pretty sure it's intentional, not a QC issue. Some reviews mention the blade being off-center in the handle when folded, but mine is aligned pretty much center. Maybe quality control isn't that great and I just got lucky, not sure. I really like the clip, it hides discretely into a pocket where you can't actually see the body of the knife, just the clip. It's not assisted opening, which I was worried about at first, since I bought this to replace an assisted opener that broke, but it honestly opens just as fast/easily as an assisted opening knife with the flick of a wrist. Blade locks up very solid and it doesn't have any springs to break like the Gerber it replaced, so I'm very happy about that. I can't speak to the blade's edge retention since I haven't actually done much cutting with it. I've been carrying it daily for about a month and it has developed a few small surface rust spots, but I rubbed a thin coat of oil on the knife and they came off and haven't come back. I'd buy it again, and just might buy a second one.