Benchmade Woes

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mds694

Joined
Jan 3, 2015
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Purchased a new “custom” Mini Crooked River 10 days ago. Beautiful knife IMO, great ergonomics, love the classic blade shape, 20CV steel with jade G10 scales. One of the best looking and feeling knives I’ve handled.

That’s where the good ends. Action was awful to begin with. Needed 2 hands to open. It’s better now except I cannot get rid of side to side blade play. In addition all the screws keep backing out, which has now resulted in one being stripped to the point of no return. Not sure how I’m gonna fix that. And to top it off, BOTH omega springs snapped in half. All in 10 days of owning. Absolute garbage construction for a $250 knife.
 
Send it back.
Let them know your expectations.
They’ll replace the omega springs and the screws under warranty.

Hopefully they can do something about the rest.

Thanks for posting.
 
Damn sorry to hear about that. Have you called Benchmade? I would imagine they would fix it. Ive only had to send back a couple knives out of all that I've owned. Both had excellent customer service and fast turn around times. Hopefully you can get it sorted out. If not you can always sell it but then you're taking a bath on something that you should have been excited about.

I also understand discontinuing business with a company due to a bad experience. I had a bad experience at blade a couple years ago with a company and will not buy there knives at all. Keep us in the loop, id like to know what happens.
 
You may not realize it, but there's a Benchmade forum here...with a Benchmade representative.
That said, is it possible that the knife was tightened down to make it through the border inspection? It would have been worth an email or phone call upon receipt, before you started messing with things.
 
hhmoore said:
You may not realize it, but there's a Benchmade forum here...with a Benchmade representative.
That said, is it possible that the knife was tightened down to make it through the border inspection? It would have been worth an email or phone call upon receipt, before you started messing with things.
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Certainly could have been tightened down, yet there was blade play even when it was that stiff. Poor tolerances. I talked to the dealer when it first arrived. Was given the go ahead to adjust pivot. Other screws were tightened by necessity as the scales, thumb studs, and stop pin were all loose/mobile at some point. Not sure I wanted to send a new knife back just to have screws adjusted?? Also, how does that explain not one but TWO broken springs??
 
Moving to the Benchmade sub forum, they have a company rep that is fairly active there.
 
I just started purchasing knives a few months ago, and I purchased a bm grizzly ridge from an authorized dealer. I'm not really picky as they are all users, but the blade play on the grizzly was baaaaaad. B.M. took care of me and were great actually. If I see another bm I like and I have the funds, I'll def have no hesitation grabbing another one. They'll help you, brother
 
I have only had to send one BM model back for repair. That's my 585 Mini Barrage. It has had blade play since day one and the assist spring has fallen out of place at least 3 times. They always put the spring back no questions asked but have never been able to fully fix the blade play.
 
hhmoore said:
Thanks Boru13 Boru13

Now that we're here, might as well page Benchmade Benchmade
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If the knife was shipped to Canada it would have a tight pivot. That being said, it shouldn't of had blade play unless the pivot was loosened too much. Also, the screws shouldn't be backing out if they have proper loctite. Both omega springs breaking so quickly seems very odd. At this point I would say call customer service and they will take care of you. Sorry to hear about this.
 
Benchmade said:
If the knife was shipped to Canada it would have a tight pivot. That being said, it shouldn't of had blade play unless the pivot was loosened too much. Also, the screws shouldn't be backing out if they have proper loctite. Both omega springs breaking so quickly seems very odd. At this point I would say call customer service and they will take care of you. Sorry to hear about this.
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Poor Jimmy.
 
New to acquiring knives, lived with 1 Spydy Endura for 30yrs. Past few months re-discovered the beauty & utiltarian nature of knives. Purchased several the past few months including benchmade 940, 940-2, and Bugout 535 in ranger green. Perfect centering & action on all if them. Couldn't decide on scales for 940,aluminum or G-10 intending to return one. Keeping both & lusting for 940-1. Have read about omega spring issues but have only been fidgeting a month. Hoping what I read about negative quality control issues at BM is the exception not the rule.
 
Liveliner said:
New to acquiring knives, lived with 1 Spydy Endura for 30yrs. Past few months re-discovered the beauty & utiltarian nature of knives. Purchased several the past few months including benchmade 940, 940-2, and Bugout 535 in ranger green. Perfect centering & action on all if them. Couldn't decide on scales for 940,aluminum or G-10 intending to return one. Keeping both & lusting for 940-1. Have read about omega spring issues but have only been fidgeting a month. Hoping what I read about negative quality control issues at BM is the exception not the rule.
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I could be in the minority but I have never had any issues really with any of my BM knives or seen any indications that QC slipped. I own in excess of 10 Benchmades. Some, if you look back in other threads, are well over 10 years old. I have never had an omega spring break on any of them. BM quality has always been top notch for me. Only one problem in almost 20 years of BM knives and they have fixed it with mo questions asked.

My only issues have been design issues. Like the weak pocket clip on my 615 or the bad sheath design on my 151.
 
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I own three Mini-Grips, a Grip, the new Bugout, and have a Mini-Presidio II coming today. I had an issue with one of the Mini-Grips which I've owned probably 10 years and has been my EDC. I noticed the blade began rattling around when closed but locked up fine when open. I've usually adjusted the pivot screw slightly on all of my Benchmades but this was bizarre. Lindsay from BM customer service explained what caused that and how to fix it. Took maybe 3 minutes to get it back to perfect open and close with no rattle when closed.

The op never returned to say what happened with his knife. Too bad.
 
I have owned three customs (mini CR, regular CR, and barrage) and all came to me perfect. I had the expectation that the price tag meant I would get top notch fit and tuning and I did. So in my experience this isn’t the norm... for the CUSTOM shop anyway.
 
Awaiting a reply from Benchmade customer service. I’m sure they’ll address the issue, that was never my concern. Just disappointed that I can’t use this knife because I really do enjoy it. Surprised it doesn’t get more love to be honest as far as EDC goes. The springs that broke do seem a lot thinner so to speak than those on my mini grip. Will update once issue addressed.
 
mds694 said:
Awaiting a reply from Benchmade customer service. I’m sure they’ll address the issue, that was never my concern. Just disappointed that I can’t use this knife because I really do enjoy it. Surprised it doesn’t get more love to be honest as far as EDC goes. The springs that broke do seem a lot thinner so to speak than those on my mini grip. Will update once issue addressed.
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I have to apologize for thinking this thread was from 2015. I see now that 2015 was when you joined and this topic was created just two days ago.
 
This seems like:
A) incredibly bad luck

OR

B) not true

We all know BM has had a lot of quality issues (hell I had not buy my 940-1 once bc all 4 had major issues), but for all these things to go wrong and so fast just seems really improbable. They have also seemed to be getting their act together recently with grinds and heat treats (exchanging soft 3V blades etc).
 
John_0917 said:
This seems like:
A) incredibly bad luck

OR

B) not true

We all know BM has had a lot of quality issues (hell I had not buy my 940-1 once bc all 4 had major issues), but for all these things to go wrong and so fast just seems really improbable. They have also seemed to be getting their act together recently with grinds and heat treats (exchanging soft 3V blades etc).
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I agree. Regardless, the last time I sent a knife in to CS for service it took almost a month to come back so it might be quite some time before we hear what the resolution is. With all the listed problems I doubt the same knife will come back.
 
I’ve owned 8 different Benchmade knives over the past 20 years. I still have 5 of them. For the others, I lost one and soldier other two.

I’ve never had an issue with centering, blade play or omega spring failures. I have had a tight pivot occasionally, but a fraction of a turn with a T10 driver and it’s usually good to go.

Hopefully Benchmade can get your knife sorted out.
 
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