Assisted openers - really needed for EDC?

Assisted openers - really needed for EDC?

What does this mean? EDC is Every Day Carry, and I tend to rotate my knives. One thing they have in common is that I enjoy using them. A flipper or assisted opener is fun. I'd carry an auto if it weren't illegal. My knives are "working jewelry" and they are my toys. So yes, I "need" them for EDC.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Assisted openers - really needed for EDC?

What does this mean? EDC is Every Day Carry, and I tend to rotate my knives. One thing they have in common is that I enjoy using them. A flipper or assisted opener is fun. I'd carry an auto if it weren't illegal. My knives are "working jewelry" and they are my toys. So yes, I "need" them for EDC.
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Me to. There's at least one in here. Gotta have at least one. Like Nacho Libre says, "It's for fun".
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Why would you question the need for this type of knife? Where you are from are there laws that prohibit this type of knife? Do you believe they are more dangerous? Do they have a certain look about them that might scare some people?
Very often when I need my knife I am working. It is handy to not have to stop what I am doing and free up both hands just to open my little 3" blade pocket knife.
If you give away a type of knife that some people my be uncomfortable with they will not stop with that. Who really needs a knife at all? Military, police, EMT.....you?
In am originally from Memphis, Tn. The number one weapon of choice in Memphis is a screw driver. Were do we go with this?
If you don't like it, don't buy it. It is really not a good conversation to be ready to give a style of knife away.
 
Not a fan of assisted openers personally. For me, speed is more a measure of how fast and easily I can draw the knife, use it, and put it away, not a measure of how fast the blade goes from closed to open. The downside to assisted knives is that in order to close them, you must overcome the spring tension, making them harder to close quickly with one hand. A manual folder with a axis or compression lock on the other hand can be opened nearly as fast as an assisted knife, and can be closed much quicker and more safely with one hand. For me, this means an axis lock (or similar) manual knife is actually much faster from the pocket back into the pocket for me. I think in general, assisted knives are something many people think are cool when they just get into knives. Most people seem to outgrown them...
 
I will say that I can close my Spec Bump quite safely and quickly due to the stud lock, but I agree it is the exception not the rule.
 
I don't seek out assisted only. It just so happens some of my favorite knives are A/O's though. I buy them because I like the shape of the blade or overall knife. If it happens to have an A/O then so be it. I still edc them eitherway, I like both the same.
 
I don't care how it gets open, so long as it does it reliably, quickly, and smoothly (and be legal).

That being said, I have fewer assisted knives than I do non-assisted........but that's just by chance.
 
I like them, I think they interesting and somewhat useful but for most people I think they are 90% gimmick. I can open some knives quickly with or without a spring, and a few tiny fractions of a second don't matter to me anyway, so spring or no spring is not a consideration when I am knife shopping.

I have a CRKT Delegate, Kershaw Leek, Kershaw Blur, Benchmade Stryker and Benchmade Barrage. I will buy other Benchmades given the opportunity. I have some contemporary Spydercos and some older Benchmades too.

I find that some assisted knives are easier to open than others, and some manuals are easier to open than others. My Blur and Paramilitary2 are the fastest to open, the 581 Barrage is close behind. The Stryker is about the same as my older manual thumbstud Benchmades, my manual thumbhole benchmades are a bit faster. My slowest knives to open are my Leek and my CRKT Delegate.

For the most part speed of opening is a function of how big and easy to get to the opening mechanism is. The Blur has a big thumbstud that sticks out a lot, the Paramilitary2 has a big thumbhole that is easy to hit with your thumb. It is easy to hit the device and easy to put in enough force to open the blade. All of the other knives listed above have less effective opening devices meaning they are harder to hit and harder to push on with your thumb to overcome the detent.
 
Some of my favorite knives as AO. And for me the AO can be handy and sometimes I need it when Im holding on to a ladder and might be in an awkward spot were opening a knife can be difficult.

Otherwise it is just fun, I never had an issue and I use my knives hard.

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Still fires open. In the pic I was taking her apart for a little cleaning.



One of my favorite and easiest to use AO's is the Kershaw speedbump with the stud lock. Easy to open and close with one hand. Non Knife people cant figure out how I close it because the movement is so fluid. I tell them you have to tap the back of the blade 3 times with your finger and it closes, then I show them. They say "Oh... Ok, I think I get it."
 
Hello,

I didnt like assisted knives at all for the longest time but up until that point I never actually owned one. I used one my buddy had at a BBQ a few times and it wasn't my thing, he had a Leek. When I really started getting into knives one of my favorite looking blades was the zt300 and I had to get it. With in the first 10 minutes of owning it I fell in love with the assisted opening. On a large blade like the zt300 it makes a lot of sense. Its probably the easiest way of deploying a blade for me. I never get a half open blade like I would sometimes get with a knife that had thumb studs, even with gloves on a well designed AO knife always opens. Plus its fun to play with and it adds a little extra cool factor. If for some reason you dont like it you can always remove it. Do I need it? No. Do I like having it? Yes!

Have a good one,

Chris
 
Don't care for them myself, but I can see where they could be handy for some.
 
mantzao said:
Hello guys:)

Let me start by saying that i'm not a big fan of assisted opening knives.
I totally respect people who like it but really what's the point?
I understand people in the military that may need it but for us, regular folks, is it really needed for EDC?
I like the flipping aspect on folding knives but i can do it just as fast with my manual ones. I'm sure you can do it too:)
I flip my knives constantly when playing, no, not my CRks:D;), however for EDC it doesn't seem imperative. I mean, i rarely have the chance to use my knives, like some on here i believe, but when i do need it i can open the knife slowly or i can give it a thumb push and it flies right out.
So what's the fuss about? Is it just to play around?
Only once have i bought one. It was a volcan coronado and immediately sold it.
I know that's not the best example of an assisted knife but it gave me the sense of what most are like.
I didn't really liked it!
They are harder to close, make a loud sound when opening and to tell you the truth i consider the spring, torsion bar or whatever, a weak link in the overall construction of the knife.
There have been knives i really liked that have some kind of assisted mech but never bought them because of that, specially Kershaws/ZTs.
I know that there are some that can be removed but doesn't that affect the overall "performance" of the knife?
So, what do you say guys?
Really needed for EDC?

Thanks for looking:)
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In my book your thinking is a slippery slope...the next thing could be why do you need a knife with a blade over 3 inches? ...Do you really need a point on the knife? ...Do you even need to carry a knife if you are not hunting? ...Do you really need to hunt? etc, etc.

Want, not need is the language of free men. To each his own.
 
I don't know about "need", but there can be some benefit to assisted openers. The biggest benefit in my experience is consistent deployment and lockup. Just get the opening motion started, and the rest takes care of itself. No special techniques or practice needed (eg. positioning your thumb just right, getting the right amount of pressure built up for flipping, wrist waves, etc.). Deployment speed really isn't a huge difference, even compared to "slow" controlled opening. You're maybe looking at a 1/2 second difference, assuming you really take your time with the controlled opening.

One of the four blades in my EDC rotation is assisted open (Leek). The others are manual (Skyline, Delica, Mini-Grip). Assisted-open wasn't a requirement or a specific feature I was looking for. I just like the Leek, and it just happened to be assisted. I've had others in my past EDC rotations that were assisted as well (Blur, Flash, Mini-Barrage). Again, the a/o wasn't a specific feature I was looking for. I liked the knife designs, and they just happened to be a/o.
 
Do I NEED an assisted opener most of the time? Of course not. In fact the largest single brand in my collection is Spyderco, who doesn't even make one. On the other hand, I do like a fast single handed deploying knife. Much of my time at work is spent either with my head in the ceiling, or up to my elbows in a file server. There are times when a one handed deploying knife is pretty much a MUST for me, and a reliable assisted knife just makes life easier.

I'm catuious about opening an assisted knife around people who are knife-phobes though. No reason to scare anybody with a fast deploying blade.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Assisted openers - really needed for EDC?

What does this mean? EDC is Every Day Carry, and I tend to rotate my knives. One thing they have in common is that I enjoy using them. A flipper or assisted opener is fun. I'd carry an auto if it weren't illegal. My knives are "working jewelry" and they are my toys. So yes, I "need" them for EDC.
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Sums it up for me as well. And with the price point of alot of the Kershaw SpeedSafe knives, why not own one?
 
I haven't really bothered with AO knives until recently. I like my AO kershaw knives but a regular flipper is just as fast, and both are fun to play with. Not that speed is imperative. Guns are for fighting, knives are for cutting. I do like to carry "tactical" :barf: knives but two guns have to be taken out of the fight before I have to resort to a knife, and at that point I'll probably just be punching a guy in the face with an empty/jammed gun.

I do like the convenience of one-handed opening and closing regardless of how it's done, so while that might not be totally necessary it's a must-have for me. AO is just a plus.
 
Good luck to those who enjoy these knives, but personally I've not been a fan since I left my teens. Having said that, someone gave me one for my 50th birthday, but I had little use for it, and it quickly broke. My grandfather on the other hand, brought one home from WW2 and owned it til he died!
 
For a while I liked assisted knives but now I am more of a fan of ball bearings like KVT and IKBS.

Oh and I do not really like assisted knives with thumbstuds, I prefer them on flippers but still not a deal breaker for me.
 
Generally I carry manual openers. However, there are some advantages to assisted openers.

I like framelocks for some applications, and in a frame or liner lock, I see most assisted opening mechanisms as a safety feature not unlike a half-stop on a slipjoint. Most assisted mechanisms apply tension from the closed position to the half open position, so if the knife does somehow come unlocked, it will hit the spring before swinging all the way closed.

Nicely, flippers serve a similar function in that they provide an unsharpened piece of metal that hits the finger before the edge if the knife is closing. So, I see an assisted flipper framelock as having two safety features which help keep the blade from accidentally cigar-cutting a finger.
 
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