When the good folks over a Noble Outfitters approached me about reviewing one of the their products i couldn’t have been more thrilled as i secretly had been spying their site and products for a while. They have a nice line of equestrian clothes, bags, footwear and accessories. After looking over the catalog of items I decided I wanted to give one of their barn knives a go and put it though its barn knife paces. Having just moved to self care for my two OTTB mares I am finding theres a lot of little things I need to make my every day care possible and a barn knife is definitely one of those things. The Viper was selected and I was pretty happy when it showed up and the handle was in zebra print!
Pros: It’s a nice sized knife and fits in my hand really nicely. I wear a size 8 glove so this was almost a perfect fit for me. The construction was sturdy, this knife feels substantial and not like the flimsy pocket knives we all had in Girl Scouts. The handle construction is of a molded plastic that feels strong and tough. It has a really great matte finish to it which also helps to keep the knife in place in your hand while you’re using it. Slippage was not anything I was worried about. Also it’s sharp as all get out. I was able to cut my hay bale twine with ease, sliced right though what I wanted it to… like butter.
Cons: I had some trouble figuring out how to close the knife. I keep looking around for a button or some mechanism so that I could easily fold it without cutting one of my fingers off. I would totally be that person. I did eventually figure out that there a bar on the inside where the blade sets that you have to push then the knife closes very easily. Maybe i’m knife stupid but this feature being a little more obvious would have saved me a little frustration.
Lowdown: Over all The Viper by Noble Outfitters is a really great little barn knife. The price point is affordable at $22.99, it feels really good in your hand and for barn chores its a great choice for a knife. I’m definitely keeping this thing handy, it has a clip so keeping close is easy peasy, its so much better then trying to run down a pair of scissors (yanno the pair you can never find) or using that one left over half dull steak knife of doom that you have laying around the barn and have to use like a saw to get bailing twine off hay.