HX Outdoor EDC Gear D-153 Folding Knife Review

The HX Outdoor EDC Gear is an angular, black, interestingly designed folding knife. This one has some nice features. Read on for more photos!

Official Specs

Here’s a link to the HX Outdoor EDC Gear D-153 Folding Knife product page.

Versions

This is the only version I can find, but it would not surprise me at all if there are other handle colors and other blade finishes available. If there were an orange version of this knife, I’d be about that.

Package

The D-153 arrives in a printed cardboard box, with a flip-up lid. It’s actually a very nice box. There are some descriptions on the back, and of course, a GearBest inventory sticker. The printing on the front and back is all in Chinese – I believe this knife is really intended for the Chinese market anyway, not so much for the American market. But a knife’s a knife.

There is no manual, and aside from the means for locking this knife, one really isn’t needed. More on that later.

Look

This could potentially be a bit of an intimidating knife. It’s ‘murdered-out’ and has an aggressive blade shape. However, it’s not really all that large of a knife, so I’ve passed it well in an office setting.

Closed, it looks rather tall, but it’s just 3.5cm, and it carries quite well.

Open / Close / Lock

The D-153 opens easily with one hand. This isn’t a knife you’ll flick open, though. The detent at “half open” and “fully open” is very strong.

Closing the knife just requires pressure on the spine. Not a lot. But the blade is quite secure when open, even though there is no traditional lock.

No lock. Yes, that’s right, there’s no traditional lock. There is, however, an unusual locking mechanism. All of the screws on the knife are Torx screws. In the handle of the knife, there’s a tiny Torx driver. It’s a bit hard to get out – you’ll have to use your coke nail – but this tool can be removed for adjusting the screws, etc. But this tool may also be put into a hole that goes through the body of the knife and through the blade as well, offering an extremely secure lock on the blade. Essentially, as far as you can trust the metal bar to not fall out, this knife “converts” to a fixed-blade knife.

Here you can see the Torx driver in the position that fixes the blade. In order to close the knife from this position, the Torx driver would need to be removed.

And below, you can see where the Torx driver lives in normal usage conditions. It’s a secure place for storage.

Build and Feel

This knife has a great feel in-hand. The scales are G10 and have large cutouts for fingers. It’s true that this isn’t the cheapest knife GearBest has, but at ~$18, it seems to be a great value. The quality is great. Also true is that I haven’t really had a knife like this before, so I don’t have a baseline.

The blade and scales both have jimping to promote grip. The scales being G10 also help a lot with grip.

The blade on my review sample is very well centered. In the second photo, you can see the [probably copper] spacers keeping the blade moving nicely.

Not seen quite as well here, but visible is the …. “wedge”… at the pocket clip end of the light. I’m not sure what in particular this is for, but my guess is two-fold: one, it can be used as a flat head screwdriver (though it’s a bit wide for that). Two, it could be used as a wedge for striking. There are myriad other uses, no doubt.

Size

17cm overall, 6.5cm blade length, 10cm closed, and 3.5cm tall. It’s a small, imposing knife!

Steel / Cut / Oats

The claimed steel is D2. D2 is a good knife steel, based on my reading. I can’t say if it’s D2 or not, but I can say that the knife shipped sharp and has held up to the main task I use blades for: opening boxes.

Retention

A one-screw pocket clip is included and installed. It’s a tip-up clip and is reversible side-to-side. The clip works very well in a pocket, and the knife is thin enough to be very comfortable to carry.

The scales have a cutout to hold the clip in place securely. Below, you can also note the Torx screws and see the Torx driver securely held in its normal holding place. Also, that little wedge cutout in the scales is how the Torx driver is accessed for removal.

Notes

This knife was provided by GearBest.com for review. I was not paid to write this review.
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