Gerber Exo Mod Drop Point: lightweight and affordable

In issue 88 of Australian Hunter, I reviewed the Gerber Spine. It was an emergency purchase of a knife that I would have normally overlooked. While it will never be my favourite knife, I continue to use it. This motivated me to research other affordable and widely available knives out there. The knife had to have a fixed blade design, be compact, widely available and on the lower end of the price scale.

One, a bit to my surprise, was another knife by Gerber. It is the ‘Exo Mod’. The knife is similar in length to the ‘Spine’ but has a much narrower grip. The Exo Mod is sold as a hunting knife and forms part of a three-model range. The review knife is listed as the ‘Drop Point’, the other models being a ‘Caper’ and ‘Pack Saw’.

The condensed background on Gerber is that they produce a wide range of knives and other products, many of which are affordable. The company was founded in 1939 and operates from Portland, Oregon, in the United States. Gerber offer a 25-year limited warranty in Australia.

While Gerber may proudly list the US as its centre of operations, the Exo Mod is made in China. There is nothing wrong with this, but it is worth mentioning. The knife itself is a full tang fixed blade knife with a bright orange skeletonised handle. There is a black version too. The Exo Mod weighs a mere 76g and its overall length is 217mm. The blade, as the name suggests, is a drop point design. It is 97mm long and 2.8mm wide. The steel used is 7Cr17MoV and the grind is a flat V-grind at a standard 20-degree angle. The steel is a mid-range Chinese stainless steel which is basically a modified version of standard 440A steel. It has added vanadium for strength and sufficiently high levels of carbon and chromium to provide an adequate resistance to corrosion. There is no mention of a hardness for the blade of the Exo Mod, but 7Cr17MoV is generally hardened to around 60 HRC. It may be a bit softer, but not by too much. The sheath provided with the Exo Mod is a polymer (plastic) snap-together one.

The Exo Mod is sold as a hunting knife, so I took it out into the field to put it through its paces. The knife is compact and because of the narrow handle it packs and wears flat. The sheath is equally narrow, which makes it easy to pack the knife in a small bag or even in a large pocket in case you wear cargo pants or a jacket.

The grip, while slender, is quite comfortable and will be fine for most hunters, including those with larger hands. That said, the rubber-ish feeling material of the grip left something to be desired when doing heavier and more greasy work with the knife. Perhaps it is because of the material itself, or maybe because of its skeletonised design. The lack of more contact area, by default, reduces the amount of grip. That said, I never felt that there was a safety issue. The somewhat odd-looking knurling on the bottom side of the grip, combined with a pronounced finger guard as well as knurling on the spine, make up for the slender and open grip. While the open grip reduces weight, it is harder to clean once you get blood and other muck in the cut-outs. Fortunately, all edges in the holes are well finished and not too narrow. This allows you to pass a patch, rag or a length of paracord through them to clean.

The sheath has two integrated loops, which you pass your belt through. After you do this, there is little play and the sheath sits close to your body or whatever you attach it to. A feature, which I have not tested, is that the sheath is stackable. The other two models in the range come in similar sheaths and they click together, allowing you to carry the knife and saw (or both knives and the saw) as a compact single unit. Not a bad idea and I may get one of the other models to test it. Either way, it explains the narrow design of the knife and sheath. Even stacked, it would hardly be bulkier than a regular knife in its sheath.

While putting it through its paces, I found that the narrow grip design saw me frequently using the knife as a general camp knife. It’s handy in the camp kitchen. While I like a flat carry as much as anyone else, I found the inability to get the knife off my belt without pulling it out through the loops tedious. As a result, I mostly carry it in a pack or pocket, which is comfortable due to its low weight and flat profile. The blade shape begs for skinning use, which is what I like to use it for. Here you do run into the issue with blood and tissue getting into the holes in the grip though. For heavier work like boning out large(r) quantities of meat, the narrow grip can be slightly uncomfortable as it presses into your palm a bit. The same observation rings true for prolonged use. For quick and dexterous work on birds and small game, the narrow profile is fine, and the Exo Mod makes short work of it. I’ve had zero issues with chipping or oxidation, which is great. With a regular touch up on a stone, the knife is always sharp.

The Exo Mod is probably not a true hunting knife. It would benefit from a beefier grip without cut-outs, a slightly higher premium steel and a more modular sheath that is easy to get on and off your belt. But it is a great option if you are looking for something that packs flat, weighs little and does not break the bank. I find myself throwing it in my bag more often than expected. Not for use as a primary knife on overnight or longer trips, but as a back-up knife and for use in and around camp. The orange grip makes it easy to find and I know it can be counted on to do some skinning or to process some small game or fish for the pot. The idea of something modular with sheaths that clip together is also appealing. Having a knife for general use as well as a compact bone saw in a package that weighs little more than one of my regular knives is something to explore when chasing a spiker or a pig away from camp. The Exo Mod is readily available from stores and gerber.com.au for around $70.