Gerber River Shorty

Terrible dive knife.

I am an avid snorkel and scuba diver. I love to lobster, harvest muscles, scallops, spear fish, and just about any underwater sport there is, I do! I find myself in need of a good dive knife on some of my more random adventures.

I could not believe the lack of quality when it came to such a knife from Gerber. I have many other fine Gerber blades, and generally love their commitment to a higher standard. However, this was not the case with the River Runner.

I bought this as my dive knife, having lost a few in the past due to poor sheath designs. I was initially drawn to this knife because of the sheath. The sheath is a tension sheath, in which the blade clicks in and out of, it is very sturdy and one that I wish other companies would copy. The knife fits in either way also, which is a plus.

The sharpness of the blade out of the box was not lacking, I did feel the need to give it a good once over on a stone. On my first dive with the Shorty, I used it to pry some mollusks, kill an octopus that I caught, and even cut some fishing line I found wrapped around my leg at one point. It performed wonderfully!

However when I got to the surface I noticed some rust on the blade by the hilt. Nothing a little steel wool/lemon juice couldn't take care of, but rust nontheless. I rinsed it with fresh water, then proceeded to treat as mentioned above. The rust came off, but the next day when I awoke, I actually found the blade had rusted even more just sitting in the humid air.

I was told it was stainless steel, what type I still don't know to this day. I have had other 440 type stainless steel fishing and diving knives in the past, but none have ever rusted like this rust bucket. I would go through the aforementioned process after every dive it seemed, and enough was enough in the end. I sold it.

Still to this day I am not sure if I had a defective knife, or what, but I can say that I never saw it without rust after that first dive.

When I started guiding ten years ago this is the knife I bought. I've lost it, broken it (it's hard to do), cooked with it, used it as a box cutter and saved my own life with it. I've bought 5 of them when I heard it was discontinued and I'm down to two. Simply put the most useful knife I've had.

I don't know about rust, I've never seen any. But I heard that it's coated and if the coating goes away it can rust. Don't know if that's malarkey but so far it's never let me down. Ever. 

Like all Gerber knifes, this is an excellent product. I keep it attached to my PFD when I canoe. It has a thick, strong blade that is very sharp. I usually don't like serrated blades but this one will go through a rope very easily. The blunt tip is a good safety feature while on the water and makes a good pry/digging tool.

It can be difficult to sheath and unsheath with one hand but overall a very nice and durable knife. Mine is 15 years old and is still in great condition.