Aegis vs griptilian and endura

K

Kdp86

Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
7
Ok, so take two of the most well loved folding tactical knife companies, and then take their two best selling knives and put them up against a newcomer that is from a company of questionable quality sometimes. What do you get? Well in my case, a broken endura on my dresser, a sold benchmade, and a sog aegis in my pocket. Why? The story begins with the endura, I bought it new and used it every day for a year and a half. It was my edc, and I liked it. I never really loved it though. Why? I find the blade hard to sharpen, mostly because of the grind, I never did like the spyderco hole over a regular thumb stud, and it is pretty darn ugly iMO overall. So I save up some scratch and buy a griptilian 551 Cabelas edition in D2. Nice knife for the most part, overall I like it better, but have some complaints. Even harder to sharpen, ( I now am starting to realize that I am becoming a fan if softer steels) thick feeling in pocket, kinda cheap feeling handle, and an overall lack of attraction to it, I dunno I always found it a little boring. So, I sell it to a buddy that likes it and go back to my endura for a few weeks. Until the unthinkable happens, and the lock starts slipping, badly. No it's not from lint, it's legitimately worn out, and it damn near cost me a finger. So I start looking around for something else, something new and different than the standard folders I've had. Enter the Aegis. I was poking around online and found nutnfancys review and thought it was worth a look, always being sceptical of overly positive reviews. But to my surprise 2 months later, I absolutely love this knife! It's the lightest and most comfortable to carry of the three, the easiest to keep sharp, and toughest ( obviously not in edge retention, but in resistance to chipping) and fastest to deploy. I love the shape of the blade, I find it very useful for everyday tasks including food prep. The only thing to keep in mind with this knife is what it was made for, because it's so good at what's it's made for, but probably not at what it wasn't. It is a medium duty folding knife. I wouldn't be sure if it would stand up to any batoning through wood or use as a crow bar, but let's be honest. You would never buy this knife with those uses in mind anyway, those aren't reasonable functions of this knife. I say, enjoy it for what it's really good at! It's way fast, discreet in pocket, easy to keep sharp, and has a very useful all purpose blade shape. So, in summary, as long as you aren't stuck in the woods with this as your only tool ( though I do think if used somewhat gingerly you could perform those earlier stated tasks. ) I find it to be a great edc blade. Thanks for reading, sorry my first post was so long, I have been lurking around here for a while.
 
kdp86 welcome to the forum. we certainly all have preferances in folders. i have folders in all of the afore mentioned & never had any problems. my b.m. 710 & 2 of the enduras were bought years back when introduced. no problems with any of the knives but other than salt water fishing & daily work on carpet have'nt put them to arduous tasks like heavy woodwork. my sogs are a year old & have to say i love their vg10 heattreat. not brittle & gets so sharp with minor effort. my i suggest you purchase some diamond hones since more & more higher end folders may be produced in the tougher alloys. learning the use of diamond hones will allow you to explore exotic alloys.
dennis
 
Big welcome too.

Honestly, I'm seriously wanting that knife because of the features you mentioned as well (blade shape good for slicing, AO, good lock). The not-so-consistent build quality is what's keeping me from getting one.
 
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Thanks for the welcome guys. I also bought a sog Vulcan because I was so impressed by the Aegis. So far I'm not sold on it though. I've gotten so used to a light edc with assisted open that the Vulcan feels like a tank. Almost like a folder that's trying to be fixed blade tough, which is cool, but i have a fixed blade! I'm not decoded on keeping it, though it is nice.
 
Welcome to Blade Forums "kdp86 " Nice review and great 1st post. Everyone has different tastes and we're lucky to be living in these times. I think there are more choices and availability of knives than any other time.
I think its a little unfair to compare a folder you used every day for 1.5 yrs to one used for 2 months. I'm guessing you did'nt have a flat grind Endura which is probably better at cutting than the regular one. The flat grind one should be similar to the Aegis and VG10 steel should'nt be much harder to sharpen than AUS8A. The Spyderco hole is'nt for everyone but for a lot of people its a lot more functional than thumb studs.
I don't have the Aegis but I've got a SOG Visionary. There are a lot of things I like about it- the handle shape, pocket clip, blade steel, the lock. Unfortunately the quality was'nt that great especially for the price and when I sent it back to be fixed, SOG returned it with the same problem. After that I decided no more SOG folders. Anyway I'm glad you got a folder you like & have the best of luck with it.
 
Very true that I didnt have the flat ground endura, I probably would have enjoyed it more as far as sharpening and slicing goes. I mainly don't carry the endura any more because the lock failed and continues to every time I force it. Once a lock type fails on me I have a hard time trusting it any more, and I've never had an axis style lock fail or even budge. So for now I'm gonna carry the Vulcan for a few months and see how that goes, maybe I'll have another glowing review, maybe not.
 
You should contact Spyderco about sending the Endura to them for repairs. The lock failing just ain't right.
 
The Aegis is a good knife for what it is. I had another plastic handed, piston-locking SOG awhile back - the very similar Flash II - and it was far sturdier than I expected it to be. The cryo'd 8A blade held up well and was easy to sharpen, and the AO mechanism was crisp and authoritative.
While I actually broke this knife by batoning it through firewood, it held up to torqing and prying far better than you'd think would be reasonabe for a knife of that design.

A good buy.

(and welcome to the forum!)
 
Welcome.

Sog makes some good stuff, theres a lot of Sog haters here so be warned. I've EDC'd a Flash 1 for the past 4ish years use it to pry, stab, bend, throw, and all the other things that make people here tremble. Never broke.

Its on its last leg now, lock and pivot are heavily worn and the handle is cracked. When it goes in another year, I won't hesitate to buy another one.

I don't see an EDC knive as a long term investment as some seem to, so Sogs a good choice for me.
 
I've never been impressed with S.O.G. I've had a few over the years and all of them developed major blade play. Customer service told me it was normal, no need to send it in. I like their styling and they do a good HT on AUS8 which was easy to sharpen to ridiculously sharp levels though.
 
I had an Aegis, and it was a decent knife for the price. I would love to have a custom version made, with nicer materials on that same pattern. That knife felt great in hand, and the blade shape was excellent. The steel didn't hold an edge forever, but was surprisingly tough and easy to sharpen. A sturdier handle with nicer steel, and no assisted opening would be one hell of a knife.
 
SOG has had some really great knives, and some real dogs over the years. The old Seki made carbon steel ( SK-5) knives ( Tigershark, SOG Bowie, etc) were amazing knives. The Tomcat series ( also Seki made) was getter and better each time. Always sturdy as hell.

Then there were some not so good.

Every now and then they still come up with some really nice stuff. The Tomcat 3.0 is great. I love mine. Likewise my Team leader in 20CV.

My tigershark was one knife I'll always regret selling.
 
Hey guys thanks for the replies. Ive been carrying my Vulcan for the last few days now and getting more used to it. Man it's beefy compared to the Aegis. Theyre both really great and well thought out designs in my opinion. It's loosened up a lot in the deployment too over the last week, which is nice since I'm uses to the assisted open. Not getting rid of that Aegis though, it's a great knife.
 
i had the aegis in satin for a short time. a few months. fast opening, easy to sharpen yes soft steel. oddly enough i bought an endura and stopped using the sog altogether. i use a spyderco sharpmaker and a set of diamond hones for reprofiling. got tired of sharpening the sog on a daily basis compared to the weekly or 2 for the endura, and my enduras lock is just as tight as when it was new. unlike the sog , it started to loosen up from the git go. it is adjustable though. as is the endura, if the thing broke on you spyderco will fix it if you sent it in.
 
bada61265 said:
i had the aegis in satin for a short time. a few months. fast opening, easy to sharpen yes soft steel. oddly enough i bought an endura and stopped using the sog altogether. i use a spyderco sharpmaker and a set of diamond hones for reprofiling. got tired of sharpening the sog on a daily basis compared to the weekly or 2 for the endura, and my enduras lock is just as tight as when it was new. unlike the sog , it started to loosen up from the git go. it is adjustable though. as is the endura, if the thing broke on you spyderco will fix it if you sent it in.
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Sharpening the Sog on a daily basis vs sharping an Endura ever week or so.

A VG-10 Endura does not hold its edge 7-14 times better then Sogs Aus-8. While I don't have either specific models, I have examples of both company's steels in a Stretch and a Flash. If what you said is true, you royally messed up the edge on the Sog.
 
More and more of the same about Aegis: a great design that was poorly executed in production. I hope SOG can read this as on the whole it does seem to have a lot of potential for a very useful EDC.
 
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mat_890 said:
Sharpening the Sog on a daily basis vs sharping an Endura ever week or so.

A VG-10 Endura does not hold its edge 7-14 times better then Sogs Aus-8. While I don't have either specific models, I have examples of both company's steels in a Stretch and a Flash. If what you said is true, you royally messed up the edge on the Sog.
Click to expand...
well maybe some exaggeration, more often than not the sog didnt hold its edge after a day or two of regular use. this isnt my sharpening skills, it came razor sharp but lost its edge almost immedialtly under light edc use. i could get the edge back to hair popping sharp again but it would loose it just as quick. compared to the endura which may show edge loss over several days of regular use, it could still manage to shave a little hair or slice threw some paper.. could be mine had a bad heat treat and its not common for a sog to be on the soft side in the aus8 knives.
ive had good luck with cold steel in aus8 . and my tenacious fairs pretty well in a comparable steel.
 
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Just a quick update, the aegis is back in my pocket again. I handed it to a friend who needed it a week or so ago and he dropped it when he opened it and it landed edge down obviously messing up the edge pretty good, though it didn't chip, it just dented. I had to flatten that back to smooth and reprofile and resharpen it, which took all of a half hour, and it's back to hair splitting sharp and in my pocket. I still like the Vulcan and will keep it, but I predict the aegis will get more edc time because the blade shape and speed of deployment. I did subject it to a pretty hefty spine whack test which it passed while my broken endura failed every time. I still need to send that back in as spydercos repair policy I've heard is excellent. The purpose of this review was not to slam either the endura or griptilian, those are two excellent knives with more prestige than I could ever tarnish. The point was to provide my opinion which is that for edc tasks, I find the aegis to be more fun and useful than either of those. Put me in the woods where I have to baton it through a log and I may feel differently, but if that were the basis we all bought our knives on then we would all carry kabar mules right? In a perfect world it would be steel lined at least in my opinion, but I love the AO, lock, and flat grind. Those with a decent sharpening system should love it too as it is very quick to make razor sharp, though it dulls quick enough (I touch it up every week or two, because I love a very sharp blade) that I wouldn't recommend owning one without at least a hone. Has anyone here had any hard use experience with this knife or a similar one like a flash 2? Just wondering how it held up, though I think I might be able to guess.
 
I have found that SOG doesn't meet the same quality standards set by other leading production knife manufacturers. There are a lot of SOG knives I love but I think that if you really want a knife you can count on, buy Spyderco or Benchmade. I think most will agree that the quality and design standards of these companies surpasses SOG. For the price points they set on their products you will always find something else that is a better overall buy. Simply put, I think they charge a bit too much for products that are closer to mediocre, compared to other companies, IMO.
 
Ok so I need to update this a little. I sold the aegis and am back to the griptilian. I stand by my assessment of the aegis as being a good knife, especially for the $50 you can get them for online, with assisted open and without a liner lock (had a benchmade mini Stryker close on me years ago and won't touch one again, just not a fan). But the thing that has me selling both of my sogs is their build quality. It really is sub par I must agree. Vertical blade play plagued both the Aegis and Vulcan, and when I called sog, though they were friendly and helpful, they said it would be at least a month turnover. Na, sorry, my Benchmades and Spydercos never have those issues except for the endura I tortured, not new out of the box! I desperately wanted to believe that SOG was as good as BM and Spydie, but they really aren't. I mean their materials are good IMO, I love vg10 and axis style
 
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