If a combat knife were to leave for the weekend and meet up with a camp knife in town, the end result might look a lot like the Steadfast from Work Tuff Gear. This isn’t something you’d carry casually, grabbing on your way out the door for a quick stroll. It is a knife you carry with purpose, which is definitely part of its appeal.
Unboxing the Work Tuff Gear Steadfast
It starts with a 0.187-inch-thick cut of K329 steel. From end to end, it stretches 10.5 inches. The blade is 5.5 inches long and about 1.5 inches high. It has a handsome satin finish with a mirror-polished edge, which is a nice touch.
The textured handle scales are black G-10. Correspondingly, the handle is robust, measuring 0.75 inches along the top and bottom and a full inch high on the sides.
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All told, the Steadfast tips the scales at 10.5 ounces. It isn’t any sort of lightweight, but the balance is spot on. So, it handles a lot quicker than you might expect.
It comes with a form-fitted Kydex sheath. The sheath arrives unadorned, but in the box are the fixings for a belt loop that can be easily attached. Alternatively, there are several attachment points so you could affix it to your pack or another location. The sheath’s retention is quite secure, and I have zero qualms about the knife accidentally falling out.
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Does It Make the Cut?
I’ve had the Steadfast for about four or five weeks at this point. I can’t say I’ve used it every single day I’ve owned it, as it just isn’t the sort of knife that lends itself to EDC for the way I live. However, I’ve taken it along on a few hikes as well as beaten the hell out of it in the backyard.
Given that the Steadfast is a heavy-duty knife, it lends itself to chopping. With that in mind, I grabbed a few branches and went to town. I found quick, angled snap cuts to work the best, and it parted the wood quite easily. Each chop dug deep and tossed chunks of wood into the air. It also did very well with delimbing the branches as I went along.
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Out of curiosity more than anything else, I dug up a length of thick rope and began chopping it with the Steadfast. It only took a couple of swings to cut the material. Being that this rope is particularly nasty and abrasive, I was pleasantly surprised at how fast the blade made it through.
The way the blade is shaped, there’s a lot of steel behind the sharp point.
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As the designer, Calvin Richardson, says on the Work Tuff Gear website, “The straight clip creates a fine tip that can be used for drilling or piercing.”
With that in mind, I grabbed an old 2×4 and started twisting the Steadfast’s point into it to make a hole. This maneuver was even easier than I’d have predicted, and it didn’t take much effort to create a substantial divot in the wood. Levering the tip again and again to pry wood out did exactly zero damage to the steel.
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A Steadfast Performer
It wouldn’t be much of a knife if it didn’t cut or slice well, as far as I’m concerned. Checking my box of testing media, I found an old leather belt. The blade did okay, slicing through the leather as it lay flat on a board. When I turned the belt onto its side, though, the blade’s edge was like a laser beam and cut through it like it wasn’t even there.
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The Steadfast also did well with carving shavings from a small branch. This was important for the next round of testing. Something I look for in any outdoor knife is whether it can be used in conjunction with a ferro rod to get a fire going. While I usually keep a devoted striker attached to my ferro rods, it’s nice to know whether the knife’s spine can serve as a backup scraper.
I gathered up a pile of wood shavings and added a bit of Pyro Putty. This is a new-to-me type of store-bought tinder, and I thought this would make a good test for it. I found that the Steadfast’s spine is plenty sharp enough to generate sparks from the ferro rod. Doing so lit the Pyro Putty and the wood shavings easily.
Who Needs the Steadfast?
If you’re on the hunt for an elegantly brutal knife that will go from processing firewood to slicing food for lunch or dinner in camp, the Steadfast might be just the ticket. It’s not a slim, trim EDC option, but it’s certainly up for just about any knife-centric chore you can imagine.
Everything Work Tuff Gear produces is bombproof, and the Steadfast is a great example of that. This is an ideal knife for the bug-out bag, survival kit, or truck kit. When the chips are down, it’ll be your ever-faithful best friend.
Work Tuff Gear Steadfast Specs
| Overall Length | 10.5 inches |
| Blade Length | 5.5 inches |
| Cutting Edge | 5.4 inches |
| Blade Thickness | 0.188 inch |
| Type of grind | Saber grind with micro convex cutting edge |
| Blade Shape | Drop point |
| Blade Steel | Bohler (K329) 58-60 |
| Blade Finish | Satin |
| Handle Material | G10 |
| Knife Weight | 10.5 ounces |
| Weight w/ Sheath | 12.9 ounces |
| Sheath Included | Yes + custom belt loop |
| Sheath Material | Black Kydex |
| MSRP | $169.00 |
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