If you see the images of this, and you think it is a supped up Bugout, then you get partial credit. Benchmade claims they used the Bugout for inspiration to make the Taggedout, which is an ultralight, backcountry hunting knife. There are three versions of this knife:
- Orange Grivory Handle, CPM-154, 2.1oz for $200 MSRP
- OD GReen G10, CPM-S45VN, 2.889oz for $300 MSRP
- Carbon Fiber, CPM-Magnacut, 2.44oz for $375 MSRP
I am reviewing only the Carbon Fiber model, as I am now a Magnacut snob. Unlike many other manufacturers, Benchmade has taken to charging a premium for their Magnacut blades, however they do try to add to the premium-ness with things like Carbon Fiber Scales, paint, and other additions.
There is no getting around the fact that you pay $175 more for a heavier knife with a better steel.
Once you get over that, well, you find that Benchmade has made a really nice knife for hard use in the woods. I picked this up as I wanted something tough, and large for my hikes — that’s exactly what I have in this Taggedout.
Materials and Specs
A quick spec rundown on this:
- CPM-Magnacut at 60-62 HRC with an Orange (slightly textured) Cerakote finish.
- Carbon Fiber scales with Axis Lock
- Oblong Thumb Hole for opening.
- 0.09” blade thickness
- 0.48” handle thickness
- 3.48” blade length
- 8.15” overall length
- Clip-Point Design
In other words this is a large knife. Since Benchmade talks about this being ultralight for hunting, let’s compare to the Bugout and the Bailout (two very closely related blades from Benchmade) and some other popular knives:
- Taggedout (Carbon Fiber): 2.44oz
- Bugout (Carbon Fiber): 2.02oz
- Bailout (Aluminum): 2.7oz
- Crooked River (Aluminum & Wood): 5.41oz
- Spyderco Paramilitary 2 G10: 3.75oz
- Buck 110 (Black Ebony): 7.5oz
The Taggedout isn’t particularly light when compared to the Bugout, but it’s substantiually lighter weight than most hunting blades. Some things need perspective, and when you consider than the Bugout is solely designed to be light, and here the Taggedout weighs only 17% more than the Bugout, with a 7% longer blade. But that’s not the real story here, the Buck 110 is probably the most classic of hunting knives, and the Taggedout is 68% lighter. It’s lighter than the Crooked River, a popular hunting knife from Benchmade and the Paramilitary 2 from Spyderco. It is lightweight and impressively so.
My Taggedout came with the blade centered, and sharp — with a fairly good grind on both sides for a high production knife — I state that as Benchmade is known to have inconsistency here. The action is smooth, and the pocket clip fully reversible. All in all, a good setup from Benchmade and a compelling offering for the size and use.
Use and Carry
This has gone on every hike with me since I got it, and found its way regularly into my pocket to use around the house. It took a lot to get used to the thumb hole design, and overall bigness of the knife, but once I did, I found a knife I have a lot of trust in, which is largely overkill for most tasks I have. But that’s also the point, and thus in reviewing this knife the intended use is intertwined enough with the overall quality and such, that I cannot separate them from each other.
Let’s discuss the point of this knife for me, and for Benchmade’s market. Benchmade can go first: they are trying to design a knife to use in hunting for blood and guts stuff, which is lightweight, durable, and tough. That’s it. I think they accomplished that, but I don’t do the blood and guts stuff, so I’ll trust that a sharp clip-point blade can easily handle that.
The point of this knife for me: I do not want to feel as though I need a fixed blade knife when I hike, but I want the confidence that the knife I do carry with me can handle a wide variety of tasks, and handle them well. So I wanted great steel, large knife, low weight — that’s basically this knife exactly.
The Taggedout offers a very comfortable four finger grip, and the scales are shaped nicely to give you confidence that your hand is not going to slide forward. While light in weight, there’s zero flex in the body of this knife, and that enhances the confidence of this being a knife which can handle large tasks.
The blade shape has proven to be very useful all around, if a bit long to cut open a package delicately. There is a nice bit of jimping at the top base of the blade, and down the end of the handle, which offers a comfortable place to rest your thumb for leverage.
Opening the knife took a bit to get used to, and thumb studs would be welcomed here (the other variants have them). However, the opening is large enough that once you are used to the knife, there’s no issue opening it. Even with lighter work gloves on, I had no issues deploying the blade. A large (maybe a big round) hole would be easier to use here, but the shape as it is keeps the overall blade profile nice and trim when using the knife or when it is stowed in the pocket (unlike something more round would).
I’ve found the coating to be a solid tradeoff. It’s smooth and thin enough that the blade still offers nice slicing abilities. But at the same time pairing that with Magnacut steel means there’s almost no worry of corrosion on the blade at any point. I am certain this isn’t needed for most people and uses, but it is nice.
The orange color is quite a choice. I prefer the blade being orange over the scales. And one thing I do like about this is that it tones down the tactical vibes this knife would otherwise have. It’s not something which looks like some weapon, it’s very loud and bright, and thus very overt — which helps psychologically when you are using this to feel a little less threatening to those who may be near by. The orange-ness of it all also really makes it easy to find the knife if/when you set it down — something I find useful in the woods.
The only downside I see to the orange on this knife is that the backspacer and the blade are both different colors of orange. The backspacer is anodized aluminum, and the blade is cerakote. The blade is a vibrant hunting orange, whereas the backspacer is more subdued. It’s a minor thing, but I would have preferred the backspacer cerakoted to match the blade if I had my choice.
The lock (Axis) and pivot setup is all standard Benchmade. I typically have no issues with these, but after about a week I did notice that the blade had a little play side to side when locked up, I needed to futz with getting the pivot screw set perfectly to resolve — but since that time it has held true to where I set it. Something to keep an eye on, but looks to be a one-off issue.
I’ve found that this knife is mostly too large to comfortably carry at the bottom of my pocket, or in a pocket organizer. It works well when clipped to the top edge of the pocket, but otherwise is rather annoying given how long it is closed. It’s not a small knife, so that’s to be expected, but for me that precludes this knife from being any sort of EDC blade.
It does fill my need. I don’t feel any need to carry a fixed blade knife when I have this knife on me, which is a blessing for keeping weight down when I hike.
True to Magnacut form, and given the rather high hardness this knife has been treated to, I’ve yet to need to sharpen the knife. I hit it with the strop one time, but I am not sure it did anything and I am not sure it even needed it. The knife came plenty sharp out of the box and smoothly slices phone book paper, and it’s more than stayed that way to date. You have to love Magnacut for that.
Overall
I know a lot of people find Benchmade rather annoying, likely for the same reasons I find Spyderco annoying. On these more expensive blades the fit and finish (and sharpening) from Benchmade is drastically better than on the lower end blades. But there’s still the slight play I found, and there’s still the massive premium you are paying for this knife.
If you can get around all of that, or if you pretend that this isn’t a Benchmade knife, then what you have is a really good knife for outdoors. I like the size of this a lot, and it gives you a huge level of reassurance that the entire thing is stout — get to work and forget the rest. That it also only weighs a bit more than the Bugout, I think it’s a better choice when wanting a stout knife in the backwoods, while keeping your kit lighter.
I’m a fan of Benchmade, if for nothing else than the fact that I can buy most of their knives and they are perfectly suited for a lefty like me. And this Taggedout is no exception: I knew what I wanted, and this knife promised to give me that, and then delivered on that promise.
So yes, I highly recommend the Taggedout. Buy here, $375 MSRP.