Gerber Sedulo Review: Excellent Value in Midsize Flipper

Knife enthusiasts will find the Gerber Sedulo folding knife offers a familiar design, but that’s not a bad thing.

Gerber has slowly but steadily improved its game in the high end of the knife market. Beset by recalls, bland designs, and terrible steel, the Gerber of the aughts was a brand depleted of all goodwill from knife knuts.

Its rebirth started with the 39 series, a few very simple knives that were shill site clickbait but lacked the materials needed for modern performance. Then came the Fastball — a midsize flipper available for under $100. It sported S30V steel and a clever design. It was, for the first time, a new Gerber with a design and materials that targeted true knife enthusiasts.

The follow-up to the Fastball is a pair of knives — the Terracraft, a fixed blade, and the Sedulo, a folder. Both are excellent knives and part of the Gerber Reserve line. In particular, the Sedulo is aimed directly at the EDC market. Here are the details:

Gerber Sedulo

The Sedulo is a very familiar design, ringing a lot of the same bells as a Benchmade Griptilian or a Hogue Ritter. The core here is simple and effective — a vaguely oblong handle with curves for fingers, a drop-point blade, and a sliding bar lock. Nothing about this is bad. Maybe the Sedulo and the Hogue lack originality, but there’s no patent on good design.

The Sedulo has some differences — the pocket clip here is a brilliantly simple stamped steel design. The handle texture is subtle and very effective.

The S30V steel is quite good, even though S30V lost its seat at the premium steel knife table a while ago. The lock is especially good, with no stick and zero blade play. Good, straightforward thumb studs help a decent pivot and make the knife very easy to open.

The tolerances on the sliding bar lock here are significantly better than those on my 5-year-old Mini Grip and about on par with those found on the Hogue rendition of this knife lock.

A Few Concerns

There are two issues I have with the Sedulo: a design problem and a finish issue. First, the decision to run full steel liners makes the Sedulo heavier than it needs to be. It also makes the knife thicker, even though they are nested. Second, the edge grind on my review sample was exceptionally coarse.

Gerber Sedulo: Excellent Value

As the cheapest of the three sliding bar midsize knives, the Sedulo is an excellent value. I feel like the upgrade in steel and the thinner blade stock make the Hogue a good choice, but the handle texture and the weak clip are bigger issues for me than the steel upgrade.

If I were choosing among all three of these truly excellent knives, I’d probably grab the Sedulo and a footlong at Subway and be just as happy for the same amount of money.

For a few more bucks, you can get a customized Sedulo from Gerber with thousands of options. But unfortunately, as of March 2021, no steel upgrade is available — not that most people need it. Highly recommended!