anyone else have a "speed safe" type system?

Z

Zamfir

Joined
Jun 20, 2014
Messages
17
Dunno why, but I am addicted to the speedsafe finger push and flip out of the blade on the leek etc.

I also love how thin it is for EDC.

But variety is the spice of life. Are there other brands of knives that have a similar deployment system? I am just not into the thumb stud flip or the big arse hole on the spydercos. I have tried them and just prefer the assisted style better.

Any others I should be looking at that have something similar?

Thanks!
 
Welcome to the forums! There are a lot of Kershaw knives that have the speed safe, such as the Cryo, Blur, Clash, and many others. Zero Tolerance (Which is a branch off of Kershaw) also have a lot of speed safe knives, but they are a little bit more high-end.
When I was new to knives I really liked the assisted ones, but nowadays I find myself de-assisting all of them. Just a matter of opinion. Good luck!
 
Lots of kershaws and ZT's have it. Ontario just came out with an assisted RAT 1. There are tons of models out there.
 
The Benchmade Barrage series of knives (Barrage, Volli, and Mini-Barrage) are all assisted. The mechanism is different than Speed Safe (torsion bar vs. pivot spring) but the action is the same.
 
Several manufacturers have assisted-opening knives, but I think Kershaw/ZT is the only one that has assisted-opening flippers. All the other ones that come to mind are thumb stud opening. To the best of my knowledge, Spyderco does not make any assisted-openers, although they do have some automatics.

If you are open to thumb stud assisted-openers, I highly recommend trying out a Kershaw Blur. Of all my AO knives, I like the feel and action of the assisted opening on the Blur more than any other. If you're looking specifically for other flippers, any of the Onion series (Chive, Scallion, Leek, Shallot) are good. The more recent Hinderers (Cryo, Cryo II, Thermite) are also nice. Over on the ZT side, you've got the totally bad*** 0301 and it's smaller sibling, the 0350. The 0566 is another of the Hinderer collaborations and makes for a great, beefy EDC without being bulky. The 0770CF is a more recent offering that is very compact and lightweight, yet sports a deceptively large blade (how it fits into the handle almost seems like an optical illusion).
 
Some of SOGs newer knives have a new assisted opening system that they claim to be the "fastest assisted opening system" on the market. You might want to check them out.
 
Oh yeah... SOG Twitch is another assisted-opening flipper. Forgot about that one...

As for "fastest" assisted-opener, that's really more marketing gimmick. Short of using a high speed camera (Mythbusters style) and doing a frame by frame to calculate opening time, there really is no practical difference in opening speed. The main thing is having the AO mechanism consistently open the blade all the way and into the locked position. A secondary attribute might be helping to reduce accidental closure (ie. spring/torsion bar will stop the blade from closing back into the handle unless force is applied to do so).
 
I personally love assisted opening knives. There very fun to play with and i think they are very practical. I prefer knives with a flipper, ZT knives have the speedsafe system and most of them have the flipper on them. Benchmade has the axis-assist which is pretty top notch in my opinion.
 
Keep in mind that the spring will eventually wear. I wore out a spring on a Kershaw in a couple of weeks or months by just occasionally flipping it --- might have had a weak spring, though.

Kershaw sent me a couple of new springs for free, though, all the way to Norway.
 
+1 for the Kershaw blur, the angled thumstuds were a little tricky but the blur is really smooth and faster then my zt o350, but of course the 350 has a heavier blade.
 
The OP is looking for an assisted flipper, and kershaw/zt is the only company I know of that makes such a thing (that I know of). Even though they are not assisted, my ZT0801 and Brous Bionic flip out easily as fast as any assisted knives I've used. I've used Kershaw/ZT, SOG and Benchmade assisted knives.
 
I prefer AO knives and own/have owned a few including BM mini-Barrage, ZT350, ZT566 and a ZT770cf on the way.
I've never had problems with any of them.
I've tried less expensive non AO type folders and haven't liked them...other than my trusty Victorinox Super Tinker.
I'd love to try out some of the better folders that use bearing systems but I have not had the opportunity. Perhaps I'd prefer some of them to my current AO's.
 
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