AFCK II, I'm very pleased. 1st impressions out of the box.

[Dirk]

I had some credit at a local gun shop and wanted to burn it up today. I saw they had a new AFCK II in the case, so I played with it for a while. I will say I haven't been pleased with Benchmades quality recently, so I was a little surprised to find this knife.

Here are some of the improvements I have found so far. The blade is razor sharp out of the box. No flex to the handle, no flex in the pivot area and no blade rub on opening. The blade grind is very even and symetrical. Scales mate well with the liners, no overhang that I can find. Lock up is very solid, lock held after spine whack. Although I never had a problem with that in the recent AFCKs. All of the shortcomings of the recent AFCKs have been remedied. This knife reminds me of the first AFCK I had, a solid dependable knife. It has again moved up on my list of favorites.

I'm a happy camper. Now, if they would just start putting the Axis lock on the AFCK....

 

[The Magician]

Can you still do the "Spyderco drop" opening with the new AFCK? I did not know if the oval hole would work and if they are tip down? Thanks.

 

[Dirk]

The drop is still doable. The oval makes it less smooth than the round. As with everything, a little practice

I can't say for sure, but it looks as if the liners are a bit thicker than older models. Since I got rid of my other AFCK's, I have no way to check this. It also looks like they have used a larger bushing on one side of the pivot, which would help with the blade rub and no flex in the pivot area. I also noticed the steel is now 154CM. I read they were going to switch and I also heard it would remain ATS-34. I know the two are basically the same. It will be interesting to see what the RC is on the new steel. Hopefully it isn't as brittle as the ATS-34 was.

Now all I need to do is relieve the scales a bit by the finger notch and I think this knife will be almost perfect.