Warren Osborne is one of the cleverest knife designers that has worked for Benchmade in a long time. Although it was recently announced that his contract with one of the highest quality knife manufacturers is no longer valid, in just a few years it has given us some of the best Benchmade designs in history. Among these great designs is the model 930 Osborne kulgera. The Kulgera falls into the every day carry, or edc category of knives. In other words it is the kind of knife that is meant for all around work and is fit to be carried in a pocket everyday. The spear point blade shape works well for opening packages, wildling, or any other everyday activity one might encounter during the course of a normal day.
This knife’s design is 98% perfect. The blade shape is large enough at 3.47 inches to accomplish hefty tasks, but small enough to be legal to carry almost anywhere. The handle is also a good size and is extremely ergonomic. As mentioned earlier the blade is a long spear point with a thick spine. The blade shape allows the user a large, flat working edge while still preventing the blade from snapping if you ever need to use your knife to pry. This marvelous design however, does have its drawbacks. Because the G10 handle is not textured it is fairly slippery, and to make the problem worse there is no gimping on the top, back side of the handle or the spine of the blade. Instead, the gimping is on the lower back of the handle and almost completely covered by the G10 scales. This won’t be to big of a problem when it’s being used as an edc, but if you get into a tactical situation, you better hold on tight.
As with all of Benchmade’s knives the materials are top of the line. The standard blade steel is S30V with a 58-61 HRC level. This means that the blade is easy to sharpen and will hold an excellent edge for almost eternity without being brittle. The G10 handles are also perfect for an edc knife like this. G10 is lightweight and tough. Also, since it’s not metal your hand won’t freeze when you pick it up in cold weather. The G10 is layered blue and black. This combination is great to look at and even better when paired with the high gloss finish on the beautiful laser cut S30V blade.
As for quality, It’s a Benchmade, what more needs to be said? Benchmade has a reputation for making some of the highest quality knives in existence. This reputation is only strengthened with the Kulgera. The axis lock and brilliantly positioned thumb stud means that it opens fast with one hand and closes with one hand too. As it is to be expected with a Benchmade the lock up is as tight as the cables on a suspension bridge. When the blade flies open with just the touch of your thumb, it locks up amazingly well. On top of it’s reputation of high quality, Benchmade also has a reputation for being expensive. Unfortunately the Kulgera exemplifies this reputation as well. It’s MSRP is $205 but you can spend more than that for the black coated versions. If you shop around you will find that this knife is normally priced at $179 and can be $140. Although $179 seems like a large amount of money, I can assure you that with it you with it you can get one of the best EDCs ever designed, The Benchmade, Osborne-designed 930 Kulgera.
