Benchmade’s Stunning New EDC Knife Is a High-Functioning Fever Dream

The limited-edition Mini Barrage Purple Haze seamlessly blends eye-popping style, precise design and premium materials.

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By Steve Mazzucchi

Published January 16, 2025

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Updated January 16, 2025

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“Purple haze all in my brain / Lately, things just don’t seem the same…”

So begins Jimi Hendrix’s 1967 psychedelically supersonic sensation, “Purple Haze.”

Nearly 60 years later, something else doesn’t seem the same: Benchmade’s moniker-sharing edition of the Mini Barrage, a premium pocket knife the likes of which we have never laid eyes on before.

benchmade-mini-barrage-gold-2025-gear-patrol-3 — Behold the Purple Haze in all its fully deployed glory.

The Mini Barrage Purple Haze has more to recommend it than brain-bending aesthetics, however. Its design and materials are, to borrow another Hendrix song title, fire.

A barrage of quality

Only a small percentage of Benchmade’s blades get sorted into its Gold Class category. This new Mini Barrage, which is limited to 3,500 individually numbered pieces, is one.

What makes it so special? First off, little expense is spare when it comes to materials. The 2.91-inch drop-point blade boasts not only a fierce DLC Battlewash finish but super steel in the form of CPM-S90V.

benchmade-mini-barrage-gold-2025-gear-patrol-4 — The slide lock enables swift and seamless retraction of the nearly 3-inch S90V super steel blade.

That means excellent wear and corrosion resistance, not to mention the chops to tackle everyday jobs around the homestead or out in the field.

Complementing that beautiful blade is a set of handle scales you do not see everyday. Constructed by the pros at Lithuania-based Fatcarbon, they are festooned with the undulating black and purple pattern that gives this knife its name.

benchmade mini barrage purple detail — The handle’s mind-bending oasis of black and purple is accented by the PVD-coated pocket clip and thumb studs.

Weighing at 3.85 ounces, the knife measures 6.91 inches open and 4 inches closed.

Rounding out the features are AXIS assist, which enables satisfyingly snappy semi-automatic deployment via thumb studs and easy one-handed retraction using the slide lock.

benchmade mini barrage folded plus box and certificate — Each unit is individually inscribed by hand with the number (out of 3,500) and date of completion.

Abyss PVD-coated hardware and a reversible split arrow-style pocket clip to ensure it stays securely on your person and doesn’t go tumbling to the ground.

Because hey, as trippy as this knife is, you don’t wanna go tripping over it, do you?