Buck's 112 Crossbar Ranger Brings MagnaCut to the Classic

The Buck 112 has been the smaller half of America's folding-hunter pair since 1972, and it has survived every attempt to modernize it because the brass frame and wood scales are the whole point. Buck's new 112 Crossbar Lock Folding Ranger, model 14517, tries a different route: keep the silhouette, keep the Macassar ebony, swap brass for blasted aluminum, and add a crossbar lock and a 3-inch MagnaCut blade. It weighs 3.1 ounces and costs $240.

That weight is the headline. A standard 112 with brass bolsters and wood scales runs about 5.6 ounces, so the aluminum-bolstered crossbar version is roughly 45 percent lighter while looking almost identical from across a room. Overall length is 7.25 inches with a 4.25-inch handle, and the blade is CPM-MagnaCut at a satin finish with Buck's signature hollow grind.

MagnaCut is the right steel for this knife. It gives you near-stainless corrosion resistance, better toughness than S30V, and edge retention that sits comfortably above 420HC, which is what the traditional 112 uses. Buck's hollow grind leaves a thin edge geometry that slices well in the way the old 110 and 112 always have. The trade is that MagnaCut at Buck's hardness will not hold an edge as long as a harder M390, but it will survive being dropped on concrete.

The crossbar lock changes the character of the knife more than the steel does. It makes the 112 a one-handed, fully ambidextrous folder with an exposed thumb stud and a deep-carry clip, which means it goes from a belt-sheath classic to a pocket knife. Traditionalists will object that the 112 without a sheath is not a 112. They are right, and that is precisely why this version exists.

Verdict: the best modern interpretation of Buck's smaller hunter yet, and the version to buy if you want the look without the weight. At $240 it is not cheap, but it is a US-made MagnaCut folder with a crossbar lock and a wood handle, and nothing else in the market quite matches that combination.