In previous instances where we’ve covered GRITR’s products, I was proud to introduce the company as one that successfully caters to the needs of shooters and lovers of the outdoors because those are exactly the kinds of people it employs. This shouldn’t be a surprise, but it’s less commonly encountered than one would expect in this industry. In fact, GRITR’s company headquarters is literally attached to a shooting range.
As GRITR has expanded, much of its attention has been focused on bringing affordable (not cheap) gear to the market that they’d feel comfortable putting into the hands of their shooters and instructors. Often, these are the same people who serve as an informal test crew before GRITR’s products reach the rest of us.
The other thing I’ve noticed about GRITR’s line of gear is that they keep their number of SKUs small within any particular category. They don’t have nine pairs of GRITR-branded electronic earmuffs: they have one model. We previously tested GRITR’s compact weapon light (you can see the author’s TL1C Compact Weapon Light review), and it’s the only weapon light they currently offer. It’s clear they took time to get the details right.
The GRITR “Stealth” folding knife — unsurprisingly, the only folding knife they offer — is undoubtedly an outgrowth of this larger company ethos. Let’s see how it stacks up in a crowded market.
The Features
Priced at $44.99, the GRITR Stealth mates 4.7” of handle with a 3.5” blade for a total unfolded length of 8.2”. Though it’s a hand-filling and full-sized pocketknife, skeletonized stainless steel liners and G10 scales keep the weight down to a light 4.2 ounces. The knife features a pass-through construction, with spacers separating the two halves; if grit gets into the action, this makes it really easy to blow or hose things out.
The knife deploys either via ambidextrous thumb studs or by the generous flipper tab, and the blade rides on ceramic ball bearings, so deployment is extremely smooth and fast. Lockup is accomplished via a steel liner, and the knife features a deep carry clip, making for a very unassuming and discrete profile in the pocket. The clip is also free of any branding or lettering, which I appreciated. “Stealth” indeed.
Onto the blade details. The GRITR Stealth is partially serrated; the serrations are chisel-ground to give the base of the blade a little more bite when sawing through fibrous materials. Additionally, the blade is saber-ground with a drop-point design, featuring prominent jimping along the spine and a swedge as it narrows to its terminal point.
The blade material is D2. If you’re not familiar with the compound, it’s an extremely hard-wearing tool steel with excellent edge retention — you can find steels that are more abrasion-resistant, but you really need to start shelling out money to get better cutting performance. The only real knock to D2 is that it’s not a true “stainless” compound and is more prone to rusting. That said, the GRITR Stealth features a coated finish on the blade to keep corrosion in check.
Where It Counts
So those are the “Joe Friday”-esque facts. Now, let me put them together for you.
First, this feature set makes perfect sense for a single folding knife offered by the brand. This is a “jack of all trades” tool if there ever was one. With the drop point and swedge construction, the knife has strength at the tip for piercing material, but the blade thins out well enough to make it a good slicer — and both of the Stealths sent to me for review were shaving sharp right out of the gate. The jimping allows users to really bear down on this to cut or saw through difficult material, but there’s enough point and belly here to perform more precise cutting tasks.
There are bigger knives than the GRITR Stealth, and smaller ones, too — that 3.5” blade length places this very solidly in “medium” territory, as far as feel goes. Similarly, there are beefier folders with even more reinforcement near the tip, knives with extremely thin blades that are better for slicing, and wharncliffe style blades that particularly excel when making draw cuts. The GRITR Stealth is not what I would reach for to stab through an oil drum or dig out a splinter. However, it is designed in such a way to make it a solid choice for about 95% of the tasks a person needs a knife for.
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Let’s also return to the serrations. Turn over your nearest rock, and you’ll find a “knife guy” who will vociferously announce he’d never buy a partially serrated knife. The two most usual criticisms are that a person usually isn’t doing much rope cutting on the regular, and that serrations are hard to sharpen. Here, however, I think the partially serrated edge makes a great deal of sense. First, your Average Joe probably will cut through something fibrous several times a year and probably would appreciate the functionality. Second, and to paraphrase knife expert Lynn C. Thompson, serrations do seem to always have “one more cut in them” even when dulled. It’s hard to make them razor sharp, but they remain “work sharp” for a very long time.
Put all of this together, and I think the Stealth is consistent with GRITR’s mission of offering just one good product that will meet the needs of most people at an affordable price.
The Finer Details
All of the preceding being said, the GRITR Stealth did absolutely not have to be as good of a knife as it did. Frankly, I think your Average Joe is not going to notice many of the things I thought were outstanding for a $45 knife.
First, the action: I did not expect a knife from a fairly new market entrant to be “drop-shut.” By that, I mean that once the knife is unlocked, there’s so little friction around the pivot of the knife, that the blade can be very gently and smoothly shaken closed. Knives like these also prove the point that the value of automatic knives is obviated for most users by a good flipper system, which rockets the blade out just as decisively and fumble-free as a push button.
On top of that, there were several quality hallmarks I liked. Each of the Stealth models sent to me had near-perfect blade centering, very consistent grinds on both sides of the blade, and a liner lockup that was neither sticky nor loose; the liner steel fell at almost exactly the halfway point of the engagement surface on the base of the blade. I also liked that the flipper tab, when deployed, allows the index finger to really lock into the handle, and all but precludes the blade ever shutting on one’s digits. All of that translates to excellent security and peace of mind, which is often where many “budget” designs fall short.
Another small detail that many will overlook: the G10 grips are very subtly and thoughtfully dehorned so that the scales are rounded over rather than flat on the underside. More than once, I’ve had the unfortunate experience of reaching into my pocket for a knife and cutting myself not on the blade, but as the base of my thumb rides over a sharp handle edge — I did not have to take an emery board to the scales on the Stealth.
The Wrap-Up
Though it’s unlikely we cutlery nuts would ever downsize to a single knife, it nevertheless remains an interesting thought experiment. With the Stealth, I can’t help but imagine GRITR took this as a design challenge: what would a knife look like if one were trying to make the tool as versatile as possible for as many people as possible?
As a result, I think this would make for a great “first real knife” — you know, the kind you gift to a friend who owns and carries around a $10 knife he bought from a gas station. Across all fronts, from build quality to edge retention, the GRITR stealth is going to distinguish itself quickly to someone who isn’t a collector. In my opinion, it’s also going to make for an excellent “car knife;” it’s where my Stealth lives now, giving me peace of mind that I’ve got an excellent backup cutting tool. Last but not least, the Stealth is just cheap enough where you won’t mind actually using it — it’s still hard for me to employ my top-dollar, semi-custom knives for household tasks, or to utilize them for various camping jobs.
Long story short, the GRITR Stealth is very solidly built and designed; it will impress newcomers to the world of pocket folders, and even the experts are bound to smile at many of the last-mile refinements that give this knife a personality of its own. Retailing at $44.99, and backed by a lifetime warranty, I think it would be hard to go wrong with it.
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