Benchmade HK Ally - Good?

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missin_hobo

Joined
Aug 9, 2007
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I saw this knife on Benchmade's website not too long ago; the press release sounded nice, and I could use a knife with a glass punch. I recently found my way into handling one at my local dealer, and it feels surprisingly good for such an ugly brute. Also being a USP fan, I'm attracted to the idea of owning a knife with the H&K moniker.
But I wanted to throw it out here first, to see what people think about it. Having used VG-10 and S30V for so long, I'm wary of going back to AUS8; I haven't used an AUS8 knife with any degree of seriousness since I was a teenager. Still, BM is supposedly making this one much harder than the norm, Hrc 60 or something, so maybe I won't notice.
Has anybody owned this knife, or used one? They look reasonably tough for a knife of their size, but I'm wondering if the knut community has any suggestions or comments? Good? Bad? Whaddya think?
 
I have one, and despite it being an inexpensive "made in Taiwan" knife, i find myself EDCing this quite a bit more than my other knives. It's a good knife in my opinion!
 
I have it and like it. It is a smaller knife so it works well with tighter clothes or dress clothes. As to the AUS8 and HRC I wouldn't expect to be using it for supertough jobs but it handles smaller daily stuff just fine.
 
Thanks for the input guys; I was on my way to buy one (after reading your posts) but at the same store I came across an all-black mini-griptillian for just a few dollars more, and I'm ashamed to say that bargain got the best of me. Hopefully I'll never encounter a situation where a glass punch is all that important...
 
I picked up one of these for 25 bucks, wanted to see what it was about.

Designed by Bob Lum, I believe.

As a knife, well, it's pretty good.
Good fit and finish, locks up nicely.
Only bothersome thing is a rivet head here and there where I'd prefer to see a Torx screw head.

But - what's real interesting about it is that the glass punch is really sharp as all get out,
and the knife - being a slim framelock - fits nicely inside your closed fist.

And so you've got this "glass breaker" protruding out the side of your fist - very, very nasty. And IMO very, very clever.

So for a quarter you've got a pretty well put together AUS8 framelock, very easy to open
because of the giant hole, and a great closed fist impact device. Glass breaker? Maybe
stealth skull cracker.
 
I've got big knuckles; I don't really need a skull cracker. If I need an impact weapon (or a glass breaker, for that matter) I've always got the Sebenza, which (when closed) would do quite nicely.
And that hole in the ally's blade gave me a bit of a start as well. It can't be good for blade strength, though I imagine it'd still be a great knife to keep on a bungie cord under your steering wheel. Might come in handy there.
No less, I'm glad I opted for the mini-grip. A few extra bucks for an axis lock and 154CM, which I've never used in a knife before. (I must say I'm impressed) Few regrets here.
BTW - has anyone ever actually *used* the ally's glass punch? The little thing doesn't look terribly effective.
 
I tried it out in a junkyard one day along with my Mark I's glass breaker to see how they handle. The MOD worked right away, with very little effort prob because of the Mark I's mass (it is a beast). The Ally took a bit more effort but broke the glass pretty well. I would prefer the MOD's breaker over the ally's but it is functional. Since the point of glass breakers as I see them, really is just to bring all the force exerted on the breaker by you in the swinging motion to a point. Thereby giving you enough PSI to break the glass.
 
missin_hobo said:
No less, I'm glad I opted for the mini-grip. A few extra bucks for an axis lock and 154CM, which I've never used in a knife before. (I must say I'm impressed) Few regrets here.
BTW - has anyone ever actually *used* the ally's glass punch? The little thing doesn't look terribly effective.
Click to expand...

Oh, for certain the Mini Grip is a better knife. By far.

I didn't mean to imply otherwise.
 
It's a nice little knife, but it's little, and it tends to poke my palm if I don't grip it properly. I could do without the glass breaker because it prevents me from palming the knife, which I like to do with small handles.

The glass breaker would be excellent for keying someone's paint job or "engraving" a windshield.

I think it's worth the money.
 
I actually have 2 of these knives...The first one i won was actually a prototype that a knife collector pick up at a knife show...has the date on it...then i got another one for 20 bucks so i had to get it..its a great beater knife!!!
 
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