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The Joker Bushcrafter looks like a mid-sized bushcraft knife should look. It is free of any tactical incumbrancers that plague more than a few modern fixed blades. The Bushcrafter is sleek, barebones and all business.
After several months of use I have found myself recommending the Joker Bushcrafter more than any other bushcraft knife in the $100 price range including the Mora Garberg. I know that’s blasphemous, but this really is a great all-around mid-size bushcraft knife. OK that enough talk. Let’s get on to the specs and then the photos.
The Bushcrafter looks right at home in the woods, and it should. This knife handled pretty much everything I threw at it over the last few months. The Bushcrafter ships with a leather dangler style sheath that feels and looks like a high-quality sheath. It has help up well through the rigors of a few backpacking and camping trips. I will update this review if the sheath fails in anyway after more time has passed. I did notice a bit more movement in this sheath than a few of my other dangler style sheaths which was a bit annoying. I think this is due to the fact that the bottom leather loop is attached using a rivet rather than stitching. Fortunately, the thick leather worked well as a thumb ramp which made one handed draw quick and easy. The Bushcrafter ships with a paracord lanyard which was a nice surprise considering the relatively low cost of the knife. The Micarta handle sports a neutral shape that makes it comfortable in a variety of grips. The best word I can think of to describe the Bushcrafter is “nimble” It handles detail work like a smaller lighter knife, but it is tougher enough for more hard-use tasks. We carved tent stakes, crude wooden utensils and sharpened a few hotdog sticks around the campsite. The Bushcrafte has a relatively thin blade for a bushcraft knife which was knife for carving, but it did impede its batoning ability a bit. The relatively thin spine thickness (3.7mm) and gradual taper of the blade prevented the Bushcrafter from claiming the moniker of an effortless splitter, but it did get the job done with a few more whacks than normal We managed to slightly roll the blade when batoning Oak, but it handled Pine with ease.The handle of the Bushcrafter was just long enough to make the knife a decent chopper. The blade handled hacking a variety of limbs apart without any rolling or chipping. It fell short of the chopping abilities of the Mora Black, but it was in the ballpark.It’s a helluva camping knife, and it looked right at home by the campfire.The Bohler N695 steel blade is not a stainless steel, but I did get the Bushcrafter wet regularly without an issue. After months of use there is no sign of corrosion. I always dried and oiled the knife after an outdoor excursion, but the knife was returned to its sheath wet on several occasions without any immediate spotting. The red handle scale liners that match the red threading of the lanyard is a nice touch is aesthetics is something you care about. I spend a lot of time photographing knives, so I appreciated the added flair. The Bushcrafter offers a lot of value at its current price point. I have a hard time believing anyone would feel any type of buyers remorse after spending some time in the forest with this fixed blade. I am trying to make this article sound more like a review and less like an advertisement, but I don’t want to nitpick for the sake of making myself sound like a real reviewer. You are just here for the pictures anyway, so I will sum things up by saying the Joker Bushcrafter is one of the best $100 bushcraft knives I have ever used.
Ben started a twenty year commercial photography career after a blurry stint in the navy. He spent a lot of time losing and breaking knives and other EDC gear on location shoots before starting Nothing But Knives. He has reviewed and tested hundreds of both outdoor and kitchen knives over the course of the last six years, and he was mostly sober while testing and reviewing.
