I’ve Never Seen a Knife This Tiny With a Lock This Rare

From the liner to the frame to the button and so many more, there are a ton of different knife locks out there. 

It is such a rich category that my colleague Sean Tirman wrote an excellent breakdown of the most common types last spring.

Midgards Messer USA

However, in all our collective years of collecting and writing about knives, neither of us has encountered a mechanism quite like the one appearing on the Midgards Messer Bragi Mini Folder. 

This tiny knife’s unusual name, functionality and mystery compel me to explore every little aspect of it, so let’s go.

Don’t stop the Beets

Like many knife enthusiasts, I love a tiny knife, with WESN’s Micro Blade, The James Brand’s Elko and Gerber’s LST Mini being among my favorites.

But while those three carry pretty straightforward locking mechanisms (a frame lock, slip joint and lockback, respectively), the Bragi is bringing something different. 

Named for the Nordic god of poetry, it employs what Midgards Messer calls a pin lock, which appears somewhat similar to a slide lock (aka crossbar lock).

But seeing that this knife is designed by Bud Beets, I dug a little deeper and learned this is in fact a unique lock design Beets patented in 2021. 

Midgards Messer USA

Called the Triple”B”S (Bud Beets Ball Slide), it appears on a few knives Beets has designed, with the Bragi being the latest. 

The lock is functionally pretty similar to slide locks, where you have a tensioned piece of metal that, when the knife is deployed, slots into place below the blade to prevent it from closing.  

Midgards-Messer USA

The difference with the Bragi, however, is that the tab used to release the lock only appears on one side, rather than the traditional two seen on such knives as the Benchmade Bugout, Kansept Dako and basically almost every other knife in this category.

What remains the same, meanwhile, is that with a pull of the tab and the help of gravity — or a light flick of the wrist — you can retract the blade using just one hand.

Throw in the fact that I’ve never seen a tiny knife with any kind of slide lock, and I can only categorize the Bragi as quite rare.

Tiny but mighty

As obsessed as I am with this funky little mechanism, the rest of the Bragi is pretty unique as well.

Weighing just 3.25 ounces and measuring 3.54 inches when deployed, it really is a tiny one, but that doesn’t mean it can’t tackle everyday jobs like box cutting and cord slicing with ease.

BladesIIB

The business end is a 1.4-inch straight-back blade made of 14C28N steel, emerging from a titanium handle with a mesmerizing, lightning-like blue-and-silver pattern.

Helping you deploy it is a discreet but grippy front flipper, and helping you keep track of it is a tip-up pocket clip, also made of titanium. 

On a less tangible level, the Bragi carries one more connection to its namesake. The Norse god is also associated with eloquence, a trait you’d better have when toting a conversation-starting knife like this one.

Availability and pricing

The Bragi Mini Folder is out of stock on Midgards Messer USA’s site but available from Beets’ own, BladesIIB, for $158.

BladesIIB

Midgards Messer Bragi Mini Folder

• $158 at BladesIIB

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