What is it?

The 535-3 Bugout is an ultra-lightweight, premium folding pocketknife. The 535-3 is the latest iteration in Bugout series featuring an upgraded S90V ‘Super Steel” blade and milled carbon fiber handle.

Hardware specs

• BLADE LENGTH – 3.24” | 8.23cm
• BLADE THICKNESS – 0.09” | 2.286mm
• BLADE STEEL – CPM-S90V (59-61 HRC)
• BLADE STYLE – Drop-point
• LENGTH OPEN – 7.46” | 18.95cm
• LENGTH CLOSED – 4.22” | 10.72cm
• WEIGHT – 2.02oz | 57.27g
• HANDLE THICKNESS – 0.41” | 10.46mm
• HANDLE MATERIAL – Carbon Fiber

Design and features

The Bugout series is designed to be the ideal EDC knife…tough yet lightweight, not too big but large enough for most day warrior tasks, extremely reliable yet tech-gorgeous, etc. You get my point 😉 . And I have to say, the 535-3 Bugout checks all of those boxes. 

In design and functionally, the 535-3 is a modern pocketknife in every way. With an open/total length of 7.44 inches and weighing just 2 ounces, this Bugout variant would fit nicely into almost any gear bag. 

Material quality is what truly sets this version apart from the rest of the Bugout series (and many other knives). The 535-3 Bugout features a premium CPM-S90V stainless (super) steel blade. At 3.24″ (82mm) inches, the drop-point blade is a good length, very sharp, and extremely pointy as you would expect. The S90V “super steel” has a 59-61 HRC hardness rating, engineered to hold its edge and sharpness. 

As you can see, the blade is well centered between the scales (sides of the handles). 

The handle is very nicely finished, well-sized, and feels great to hold. The handle is 4.22 inches long and approximately an inch wide. 

The handle is made from a milled carbon fiber held together with blackened steel bolts. The carbon fiber has a satin finish and chamfered edges giving the handle a smooth grip in the hand. The belt clip has a “Mini Deep-Carry” style with a “Reversible Tip-Up” orientation. The clip is ambidextrous and can be attached to either side of the handle. 

The handle is 0.41 inches thick with both aluminum and steel spacers. They has used their signature blue as accent coloring on the thumbstuds and aluminum lanyard hard-point. The Blue definitely goes well with the matte carbon fiber handle and stainless steel blade.

The carbon fiber scales are very stiff with little to no flex in them (aka rock-solid). 

The Bugout series has AXIS assisted locking technology engineered into the handle.

This lock mechanism works very well and definitely ensures the blade locks into the open position and helps keep the blade closed when not in use. 

The AXIS lock mechanism secures the blade into the open position with zero blade movement and almost no chance of the blade accidentally closing. Initially, to close the blade, it took two hands though the action loosens up as the pivot assembly breaks in. To release the blade, you must pull back the release bar with one hand and either reverse flip or manually rotate the blade into the handle/closed position. Both movements are smooth and easy to do once you get used to the motion. 

In addition to the belt clip, the non-business end of the Bugout has a lanyard hard-point for attaching whatever you wish to the knife. This aluminum backspacer/connection point is an upgrade from previous Bugouts, that have the lanyard hole machined into the handle itself. 

Performance

In addition to being very well engineered and made from premium materials, the 535-3 Bugout makes for an excellent general purpose cutting tool and addition to your EDC gear. As I mentioned above, this lightweight pocketknife weighs in at a mere 2 ounces, adding little burden to your gear bag. 

In addition to the pivot assembly needing to break-in a little, the thumb-stud flip motion itself took me a bit to get used to as well. Over the past few weeks of use, both have gotten easier as I have been using the 535-3 as (more or less) a fidget spinner, opening and closing it as I sit thru my daily conference calls. I know some of you are questioning why I just didn’t loosen the pivot point bolt. Point blank, I didn’t want to, hoping that with time the knife would develop the perfect resistance on its own. In the end, it has…

The knife works as you would expect. The blade is wickedly sharp and the knife as a whole is built to last many years/decades, if not a lifetime.