Benchmade 635 or Buck Mayo TNT

DavidZ

DavidZ

Gold Member
Joined
Oct 30, 2004
Messages
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Who has both of these? I love the look of them both, but need the help of my forumites to help me choose. Can anyone recommend one over the other, and share with us why? I seem to have a need for a titanium frame lock. :D I just knew you all would understand. I tried the search function, but came up with a blank screen.
Thanks all.
 
Honestly, I'd go for the benchmade. They're both great knives though; I would recommend handling both before making a decision. You might not like the radiused opening hole and REALLLY strong detent on the 635; they're kinda hard to open at first.
 
Buck Mayo - Lighter, slimmer, better blade profile for cutting, plus a Paul Bos heat treat.
635 - Heavier build, heavier blade, a lot of blade for the handle size.

Will this be a hard use knife or a general purpose EDC? Hard use would favor the more robust 635, and the Buck Mayo is better suited for EDC. I find the 635 to be difficult to open due to the chamfered opening hole. And this one also suffers from the blade hitting the backspacer if you close it hard (the nick in the blade is just now getting worked out). Overall, I like the Mayo better.
Knives12-8-07021.jpg
 
i gotta agree with ambertiana. if it is more of a worker ur gonna be taken outdoors or use hard go for the 635. if tis jsut gonna be general EDC go for the TNT, great knife imho. gonna get one for myself soon;)
 
The Buck 172 is a great EDC. It is light, smooth, handles well, cuts well, disappears in your pocket, and is big enough and strong enough to handle 99% of what I personally need day-to-day. Cleans up easy too. If that's your purpose, that's my choice.
 
I don’t have the Buck, but I recently purchased the 635 after using the larger 630 from one of the passarounds. Quality wise the knife is the equal of the other 10 Benchmades I have. Fit and finish is as good as any knife I have had, the blade is centered and evenly ground, no issues in this regards. The handle feels to be slightly short, but is very comfortable to use, with the exception of difficult cutting, for example, making fuzz sticks from oak or hickory. In that case the handle is on the thin side when being used for an extended period of time. This same thinness, however, makes it nearly unnoticeable in your pocket at the end of the day.

What I don’t like is (as has been mentioned) the chamfered opening hole. While it looks very nice and works reasonably well on the 630, it makes for inconsistent opening on this one. What I have thought about is opening the hole up to remove the chamfer, which would make it easier to open. The other this I don’t like is were the handle comes down to form an integral guard, on the obverse (non clip side) of the knife it gets in the way of the opening hole, making it that much more difficult to open the blade easily. Again, I have thought about changing this by removing some of the titanium, but haven’t done it yet.

Other than those two exceptions, it is a really nice knife with a very useful blade shape. The points I made about the full size 630 in my review apply to this one as well. Good Luck.
 
Thanks all for your input. I am leaning toward the Mayo. It would be an EDC. Lambertiana - Thanks for the pics. Would you have one of the backsides as well??
Dave.
 
Another Buck Mayo TNT fan here. I've had mine for a couple of years now, and I hope to pick up the Waimea before too long.
 
lambertiana said:
Buck Mayo - Lighter, slimmer, better blade profile for cutting, plus a Paul Bos heat treat.
635 - Heavier build, heavier blade, a lot of blade for the handle size.

Will this be a hard use knife or a general purpose EDC? Hard use would favor the more robust 635, and the Buck Mayo is better suited for EDC. I find the 635 to be difficult to open due to the chamfered opening hole. And this one also suffers from the blade hitting the backspacer if you close it hard (the nick in the blade is just now getting worked out). Overall, I like the Mayo better.
Knives12-8-07021.jpg
Click to expand...

Nice knives :thumbup:
 
I pulled the trigger on the Mayo today, based on the comments here. It looks like it will be a great EDC. Thanks to all, but I would love to hear more.
Thanks,
Dave.
 
I'm going to be in the market for a Ti framelock very shortly too, a X-mas gift for myself, and wouldn't mind seeing where a Pro Rockstar fits in this group...size wise, and a comparison photo's with one of the knives shown would be great.:)

thanks
Dave
 
DavidZ said:
I pulled the trigger on the Mayo today, based on the comments here. It looks like it will be a great EDC. Thanks to all, but I would love to hear more.
Thanks,
Dave.
Click to expand...

Great choice. I've been buying knives for nearly 40 years and the TNT is one of the nicest production knives I've ever owned. It's a great slicer and makes an outstanding, lightweight EDC. (Since getting a Waimea and TNT I've actually been carrying them more than I have my ironwood inlaid Sebenza)
 
DavidZ said:
I pulled the trigger on the Mayo today, based on the comments here. It looks like it will be a great EDC. Thanks to all, but I would love to hear more.
Thanks,
Dave.
Click to expand...

Awesome man, this is my dream knife right now.:) Let us know how it works out. :thumbup:
 
DavidZ said:
Thanks all for your input. I am leaning toward the Mayo. It would be an EDC. Lambertiana - Thanks for the pics. Would you have one of the backsides as well??
Dave.
Click to expand...

This pic is too late for your decision-making process, but here it is anyway:
Knives12-8-07024.jpg
 
i'd love to get the mayo, but for a lefty,i dont think it will work too well....
 
This is a remarkably deceptive knife. It seems relatively small and you'd think the all metal handle would be slippery - It's not.
Your gonna enjoy this tool.
 
I think the TNT is a wonderful knife. I prefer the smaller version, though. (I can't remember the name....getting old...)
 
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