Bradley - The Honeymoon is over !

A

analoghog

Gold Member
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Feb 26, 2021
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Yep! The honeymoon is long over and it’s still on the top of my daily choices. My number one is labeled Bradley, but it was made by Benchmade, and feels like a Benchmade. To me it’s a Bradley in name only. I have plenty of daily choices, mostly CRK’s and Benchmade’s but I grab this one most often. It feels good in the hand and has some wicked smooth action. It has a sexy swedge with very comfortable rounded edges that makes it fit in my hand, kinda like when you put on an old pair of shoes. Just had to share. Any Bradley love out there ???

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Hey there! I don't see many Bradley Alias owners around here.

Mine was my work folder for several years and saw a lot of use. It's also the only framelock I've ever owned. I switched out the thumb stud and pocket clip, and I ground away the jimping on the back of the blade (I worked sweaty jobs, and the rough surface between the jimping would rust a little).

I'm retired now, and haven't carried it in years, but I don't plan to part with it.

Did you change the clip on yours? Mine came with a clip shaped kinda like an arrow.


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Nice knife. I guess they couldn't call it a Benchmade because it's a liner lock instead of Axis Lock.
 
Bradley Cutlery was/is an independent company that contracted Benchmade to make their knives for them.
 
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killgar said:
Did you change the clip on yours? Mine came with a clip shaped kinda like an arrow.
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It did come with the original “arrow” shaped clip, which was not bad, I just like the deep MXG clip better.

Thanks for sharing. Nice knife you have there.
 
That's awesome, by the way. To have an old and familiar knife and be able to admit it's your favorite.

Does it stop you from buying new ones or is it just a challenge to find a new one that you'll like better? 😁
 
I’ll always regret not picking one up when they were available. I’d be afraid to see what people are asking for them on the secondary now.
 
Smaug said:
That's awesome, by the way. To have an old and familiar knife and be able to admit it's your favorite.

Does it stop you from buying new ones or is it just a challenge to find a new one that you'll like better? 😁
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Ha! Being on this forum, it’s not hard to find challengers for the number one spot. Yes, I have been buying things along the way, I need time to thin the herd. It’s so much easier buying then selling. I like most of the things I buy and enjoy the decision of what to carry each day, depending on what I’m doing that day. I have other favorites for sure, but this one is “The” favorite.
 
I remember wanting an Alias back when they were being made, but I ended up bypassing it. I still have my original Bradley Kimura 3 with the long cutouts in the handle. I'm not as thrilled with it now that there are more balisong options out there, but at the time it was by far the least expensive way I could get a quality bali and I'm thankful to them for bringing that to market.

Smaug said:
Nice knife. I guess they couldn't call it a Benchmade because it's a liner lock instead of Axis Lock.
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I could have sworn that Benchmade made a titanium framelock that was very similar to the Alias at around the same time (probably why Bradley used them), but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Anyway, as I recall, both that knife and the Alias were being touted as the poor man's Sebenza since they had a similar look and construction. Back then, there weren't a lot of grail knives out there, so the Sebenza was on everyone's mind. And titanium framelocks were a real rarity, so there weren't a lot of alternatives.
 
Tsujigiri Tsujigiri There was the 760 LFTI that you might be thinking of. It was the Lum tanto design with titanium framelock and M4. And then the classic Skirmish also. I think there were a couple other BM Ti framelocks from that era, but that's what I can think of off the top of my head.
Edit: OH ye, and the Monochrome as well as the Lerch Subrosa.

The Bradley Alias was my first Ti framelock and will always be near to my heart. It has a nice, pretty thin flat grind also if I remember correctly. I too bought it as the "poor man's Sebenza" because I couldn't afford a CRK, however the Alias wasn't cheap at all either. Damn good knife.
 
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Tsujigiri said:
I could have sworn that Benchmade made a titanium framelock that was very similar to the Alias at around the same time (probably why Bradley used them), but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Anyway, as I recall, both that knife and the Alias were being touted as the poor man's Sebenza since they had a similar look and construction. Back then, there weren't a lot of grail knives out there, so the Sebenza was on everyone's mind. And titanium framelocks were a real rarity, so there weren't a lot of alternatives.
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They made the 750 Pinnacle many moons ago, it checks those boxes.
 
LimpCroissant said:
Tsujigiri Tsujigiri There was the 760 LFTI that you might be thinking of. It was the Lum tanto design with titanium framelock and M4. And then the classic Skirmish also. I think there were a couple other BM Ti framelocks from that era, but that's what I can think of off the top of my head.
Edit: OH ye, and the Monochrome as well as the Lerch Subrosa.

The Bradley Alias was my first Ti framelock and will always be near to my heart. It has a nice, pretty thin flat grind also if I remember correctly. I too bought it as the "poor man's Sebenza" because I couldn't afford a CRK, however the Alias wasn't cheap at all either. Damn good knife.
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BJE said:
They made the 750 Pinnacle many moons ago, it checks those boxes.
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I think the Pinnacle was the one I had in mind, those others are a trip down memory lane, though! The Alias probably was the closest to the Sebenza of all of those stylistically; they got that minimalist functionality down.
 
Tsujigiri said:
I think the Pinnacle was the one I had in mind, those others are a trip down memory lane, though! The Alias probably was the closest to the Sebenza of all of those stylistically; they got that minimalist functionality down.
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Hell yeah man, those were the good ol', more simple days when Ti framelocks were still kind of in their infancy. Sometimes I miss only having a couple handfuls of options. Now days there's so much titanium in the knife market you'd think they just found an enormous mountain of the stuff. It is nice that pretty much all the quality companies have lock geometries down to a T now though and generally have smoother actions. The one thing that got me on the Alias was the kind of "shelf" thing on the lockface that they put on to keep it from traveling to the opposite scale over time. Eventually they figured out that that's unnecessary and Ti lockfaces don't ever really wear down anyway unless somebodies doing something crazy with them. Anyways... Cheers to the good ol' days! 🍻
 
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