McNees’ FX MUK levels up the chore knife.

The EDC market is booming with folks searching for a tool they can use every day and hardly notice it on their side. They also want knives to step up a few notches when it comes to performance. No stranger to this end of the market, McNees Knives has tailored blades ready to tackle daily chores. And one of the company’s newest knives—the FX MUK—does so in a high-performance, fixed-blade package. Jonathan McNees outdid himself with this design. Let’s see how the FX MUK performs when pitted against cutting tasks.

I began with my usual out-of-the-box edge test, 20-pound bond paper. The McNees FX MUK sliced very smoothly, aggressively and audibly. It’s cool to hear every cut you make. Its handle geometry made it easy to space the cuts evenly while taking my time. I didn’t want to nick my finger on the first medium. On to single-walled cardboard the EDC knife didn’t slow down a bit. It sliced fast with aggressive-sounding cuts and the handle control continued to be great. This knife was making me look for stuff to cut.

Getting A Handle

I grabbed a piece of 8-ounce leather to skive. The FX MUK ate into the leather with a resounding crunches as fast as I could feed it. I continued to marvel at the feel of this knife well into my tests—not a hot spot to be found. Using a ¾-inch dowel, I did some whittling and the FX MUK gave me great curly cues. It was easy to control the depth of each cut, given the knife’s ergonomics. I used the thumb notches on the deeper cuts and found they were a little sharp. It’s an easy fix if you need to soften them.

I figured I’d up the game a bit to include some wood splitting. Starting with an 8-inch two-by-four, I smacked the FX MUK through with a dead-blow hammer. I gave it one hit per split, then split the shards again. There were no problems whatsoever with this task, and the lack of edge or blade damage proved McNees had great heat treatment in the build.

Now on to my favorite test material, ½-inch sisal rope. I stopped after 200 crunching cuts with the FX MUK showing no signs of slowing down. I would wear my arm out before the edge stopped cutting. The handle continued to feel comfortable throughout the cuts, with no detectable pain points that are typically exposed from extended work. McNees did a great job on the handle shape. To finish it all off, I went back to paper slices for the final test. The knife was just as sharp as when I started, producing no snags and remaining just as loud as when I took it out of the box.

Overall Take

The FX MUK is a high-performance EDC knife that will handle everything except chopping down a tree. Great to have close to you every day. The only changes I would make, soften the thumb notches just a bit. Other than that, leave it alone.

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