You have lots of options to choose from when you’re picking out a knife to keep on your belt, in your back pocket, lashed to your pack, or among your other gear. You will have no shortage of choices, but you will have a shortage of space. Whether you’re just taking a walk in the woods and aren't carrying a pack or you’re on a several day excursion with a 40-pound pack on your back, the amount of space you can fill up is limited. You’ll have to make choices to pick out the best suited and most useful gear for your trips, so you may as well pick some of the best options you can.

It’s always wise to carry more than one knife when you’re in the field camping, hunting, hiking, or just enjoying the outdoors. Most backpackers or hunters carry a fixed blade as their companion knife and then a few other folders to serve as backups. As important of a concern as weight is to people that spend their time bushwhacking and traveling overland, it’s important to have a good knife on you in the woods, and a pretty good idea to have a few backups. Especially considering the fact that different knives are suited to bushcraft tasks according to their attributes, carrying a few alternatives for the different trials you might come up against is well advised.

All that being said, there are a few contenders for the place of a secondary utility knife to carry in your pack or pocket or EDC or when you go out in the field. One of the time tested and well-respected options is a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife. There are many reasons for the high repute of the brand, as you’re about to find out. With that in mind, here are three great reasons to carry a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife.

Unrivaled Versatility
A Victorinox Swiss Army Knife is not a huge camp knife or a big bushcraft knife. Folding knives, in general, lack the absolute structural integrity of fixed blades. They do have limitations. But the unbelievable versatility of a Swiss Army knives just can’t be underscored enough. Especially in situations where weight and size really are at a premium, a Swiss Army pocket knives pack so much versatility into such a compact and ergonomic platform that it has to be felt and experienced to be fully understood.

A knife alone offers the user so much ability that even without the wisdom of additional indispensable tools it’s invaluable on its own. Manufacturers will advise against anything but cutting, and there are risks involved with the usage of any tool, but capable campers and bushcrafters know that a knife, in addition to being a knife, can be a bottle opener, a shovel, a pick, a screwdriver, a wedge, a scraper, and many other things.

A Swiss Army knife is more than just a knife. It incorporates many other tools into one sleek frame to help outdoorsmen and other people who just need a handle multi-tool in their day to day lives tackle the odd challenges that arise. With your Swiss Army Knife, you don’t just get a knife, you usually get several blades. One can be kept razor-sharp for applications required surgical precision, while you might want to put your own ax grind on the other for tougher work that won’t require you to do such frequent resharpening. Beyond the blades that come with a Swiss Army Knife, you’ll have access to a fleet of other tools depending on the model you carry.

You could just one of their multi-tools that offers the user the benefits and leverage of needlenose pliers and wire cutters. Someone who works with their hands-on machinery or electrical applications might be well pleased to have the added use of this in a pinch. Sure, the little blade of a Swiss Army Knife can serve as a wire stripper, even cut through copper when it comes down to it - but a multi-tool would do a much better job.

And yes, you can use a little knife to chip carve or beaver tooth cut a branch in half. A saw will do that in a tenth of the time and give you flat faces on the ends of the branch to boot, but a knife isn’t a saw. A Swiss Army Knife, however, will oftentimes include the utility of one or more saw blades.

Even so, a Swiss Army Knife tool often includes more than just blades and pliers and a saw or two. More often than not a Swiss Army Knife will incorporate not just one but many screwdrivers into its design. They often include nail files, awls, bottle and can openers and picks. You will often get the added utility of a pick and tweezers in a Swiss Army Knife along with add ons like scissors and corkscrews. To that end, you really end up getting ten or twenty tools in one when you add a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife to your collection of trail gear or EDC accessories. It’s really quite impressive that their designers have managed to pack so much usability into such a small, still useful package without sacrificing ergonomics or adding excessive bulk, which brings us to our next point.

Great Design
On top of the fact that Swiss Army Knives pack so many useful tools into one small, convenient package is the nature of how they do it. Look at a Swiss Army Knife - it doesn’t particularly matter which model - take a look here at all of ours. Part of what’s great about a Swiss Army Knife is the genius incorporation of those tools into such a simple package. They don’t appear bulky, they aren’t uncomfortable or ungainly in the hand, and even the most adequately apparelled options don’t appear ridiculous, which is saying something. Many ‘tools’ designed for outdoorsmen elicit laughter due to the sheer absurdity of their attempts to include so many useful tools into one package. The truth is most outdoorsmen will make do with a knife, an ax, and maybe a saw. They don’t need a 100-decibel whistle with a screwdriver and a magnifying glass built into the back of a lighter, but things like that definitely exist somewhere out there.

A Swiss Army Knife is wonderfully simple. Most models are stereotypically small, unassuming and lozenge-shaped. They packed all those great tools into a compact package that doesn’t border on the ridiculous even though it offers so much indispensable utility. It’s not just that they are not unpleasant to look at, they’re also comfortable in the hand. The classic lozenge shape presents a comfortable grip closed or open that is very easy to manipulate. Additionally, the designs of most if not all models lack sharp corners and edges. The result isn’t just that the grip is comfortable, there’s nothing to catch on your hands or cause discomfort. As if that weren’t enough, the number of designs out there makes it easy for you to get exactly the variant or pattern you’re looking for. This could be quite valuable for some outdoorsmen as high visibility gear is more difficult to lose in the field.

They’re Discreet and Easy to Carry
Piggybacking off of the fact that the design is great in the hand and comfortable to use is the fact that the design makes it easy to carry them as well. The lack of sharp corners and edges that were explored in the previous section also means that there’s nothing to catch on the edge or inside of a pocket or storage compartment. As such, they are not only easy to drop into a pocket but to withdraw from one quickly and easily. That makes them great whether you keep them in your pocket or your pack - they don’t get tangled up easily and are also readily visible to you when you need them.

The same traits that make them easy to carry in a pocket make them comfortable as well. You won’t be dealing with an uncomfortable design with a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife. In fact, they’re some of the most comfortable knives to carry in a pocket. Other, heavier pocket knives usually feature a clip but don’t lay too nicely when free-floating in a pocket. You won't have that problem with a Swiss Army Knife. That makes them discreet too. You’ll forget they’re there till you need them, and that’s a great trait to have in a field tool.

Victorinox Has A Proven History Of Creating Great Products
There are three great reasons to carry a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife, even if it’s only as a backup or accessory to another knife. We only offered three at the outset of this article but here’s a bonus fourth reason that a Victorinox tool is a great piece of equipment - they’ve been producing these tools for over a hundred years very successfully. Ever since the Original Swiss Army Knife was created in Ibach, Switzerland by Karl Elsener in 1897, Victorinox has been creating tools in patterns that outdoorsmen and handy people have used, all achieving great results. So, from the fact that they offer so much utility in a great design to the fact that they are easy and comfortable to carry, a Swiss Army Knife is a solid choice in a tool. Without further ado, here are a couple of great options from Victorinox that you might want to consider adding to your collection.

Some Selections
Perhaps the most classic (no pun intended) option for you to choose in a Swiss Army Knife is the Victorinox Classic SD Swiss Army Knife, which comes in a variety of different colors. It comes with a small blade, scissors, a file that can double as a flathead screwdriver, a toothpick, and tweezers. That all comes in a small design that weighs less than an ounce and is under three inches long. It’s a pretty handle little tool and is just the right thing to stash in your front pocket or in the extra space in a briefcase or a backpack as a backup or accessory to your other tools.

Another great twist on the classic look is the Victorinox Fieldmaster Swiss Army Knife with a plain edge, which is a much more capable and larger variant of the smaller classic model. This tool is just shy of four inches closed and offers two knife blades, a can opener, bottle opener, several screwdrivers, scissors, a saw, and several more features into its incredibly handy and compact design. It may be small, but you’ll be impressed by the number of tasks this little thing can take on with confidence.

If you are really looking for a multi-tool that brings you a load of capability even if it steps away from the classic design of an old school Swiss Army Knife, look no further than the Swiss Army Tool Spirit XC Plus Ratchet Multitool. This tool offers 36 different functions in its design, including but not limited to knives, saws, files, pliers, screwdrivers, scissors and even a ratcheting wrench that accepts multiple different bits. It might just be the most functional seven and a half-ounce tool out there, and it sure packs a lot of utility into a tiny little package.

White Mountain Knives Is Your Source for Victorinox Tools
So there you have some solid reasons to add a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife or another Victorinox tool to your repertoire and some good options to choose from. Whether you liked any of these suggestions or you want to find a different model to suit your unique needs a little bit better, you’ll find many options from Victorinox right here at White Mountain Knives. As always, all orders ship free from White Mountain Knives. Additionally, if you’re looking for something specific that you don’t see on our Victorinox page listed above, feel free to reach out to us at WhiteMountainKnives@gmail.com to see if we can find it for you.