Gerber Decree folding knife review

Gerber Decree in the wild

Gerber Decree with Brook Trout

Gerber Decree folded

A good reliable pocket knife is one of the more essential tools in my regular routine. I have owned and carried the Gerber decree for over a year now, I use it as my everyday carry knife and it has been on several outdoor adventures with me. Although it has been one of my favorite knives, it is not without its flaws.

Lets get some basic info out of the way before I dive into my review.

• Blade Length: 3.7 in.

• Open Length: 8.7 in.

• Closed Length: 5.1 in.

• Weight: 4.8 oz

Cost:

The Gerber website has price listed as $109, but Gerber has it listed on Amazon for considerably less.

Materials:

The blade is made from S30V, a premium stainless steel material that has improved sharpness and toughness, although this means the blade holds its edge longer, when it is time to sharpen the bade it is a bit more difficult to do. A black ceramic coating provides extra corrosion resistance.

The Handle is made of a glass filled nylon with an over molded rubber grip. The glass filled nylon is an incredibly durable hard plastic giving the handle a great rigid and strong feel while the over molded rubber gives it a good grip that will last a very long time.

Additional features:

The Decree features a glass break point on the butt of the knife, a great feature for an EDC knife, and a clip that is mountable in two different positions. Gerber also offers a lifetime warranty on their products and the system for getting items taken care of is pretty good through their website.

Now that you know the basics of this knife, here is what my experience has been with it. When I received it, it came razor sharp right out of the box and held that sharpness for an impressive amount of time. The assembly did feel a bit stiff at first but it quickly broke in and works very smoothly now. I have seen others reviews saying that the finger tab for opening is a bit too small, but I have not had any issues with it and open it one handed every time with the finger tab and a little wrist movement. The blade does also have a stud on each side of the blade for thumb opening, which I have also used with ease to open the knife in a more controlled manner. This knife uses a liner lock that must be pulled open to close the knife. One handed operation is easy once you are familiar with it. The liner lock does have some serration texture to provide grip that I have heard some people say that they dislike, but honestly it never bothered me and it actually adds to the grip of the handle when the knife is deployed. The rubber grip feels great and the knife is very comfortable to work with. The finer texture in the rubber provides very good grip even when wet. Ok well this knife has had a pretty good review so far, but I do have at least one major paint point with this knife, the belt clip. The clip is held in to the hard plastic handle with two small screws that use a star screwdriver that is smaller than what comes in most tool sets. The screws do not thread into the handle far enough and eventually become loose and or strip out. I sent the knife back to gerber since it has a Lifetime warranty and they replaced the loose screw with one with larger threads, this held for a while but eventually had the same issue. I ended up replacing the screw with some regular philips head screws and some JB weld, and it has held together pretty well.

Overall I would give this Knife a thumbs up, but watch out for that belt clip. I would advise a little JB weld on the screws before they loosen and definitely make sure not to over tighten the screws putting them back in or they will strip out the plastic.

The Gerber decree can be purchased on Amazon by clicking HERE

Thanks for reading!