BUCK 303 bladeplay. And 301s too.

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bladeboss

Joined
Mar 6, 2012
Messages
3,530
Howdy folks.

I've been on a "made in USA" kick lately.
I decided yesterday to throw the 303 in my pocket.
There isn't really anything wrong with it, besides the fact that the main blade has play.
I don't mean "blowing in the wind" kind of play, but it is noticeable.
A month or so back, I went to the army-navy store to look at knives.
They mostly sell Spyderco and Benchmade, but I knew they had the 301 which is why I stopped.
The first one I checked had lazy springs.
The second had the blades hitting.
And the third had really bad blade rub.
But out of the 3, the only one without play was the one with bad walk-and-talk.

Is it not totally un-common for the 30x series to have play?
Would you carry it anyways?
I hear about people carrying a 30x for many many years (looking at you jackknife). Did it have play?
Or better yet...
Did you care?

I never see much discussion on this forum about bladeplay. Maybe you folks don't stress about it as much as the "general" crowd does.
Thanks for the replies in advance. :)
 
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I can't comment on the 303, since I've never owned one, and as far as I can remember, have never handled one.
I have a 301, which is part of my EDC trio. Mine has no blade play on any of the blades, open or closed.
I would rate the pull at ... I dunno ... a 5? It's easy to open, and has good "walk 'n talk", at least in my opinion.

Worst case, you can send it in to Buck, for a tuneup/repair.
 
bladeboss said:
Is it not totally un-common for the 30x series to have play?
Would you carry it anyways?
I hear about people carrying a 30x for many many years (looking at you jackknife). Did it have play?
Or better yet...
Did you care?

I never see much discussion on this forum about bladeplay. Maybe you folks don't stress about it as much as the "general" crowd does.
Thanks for the replies in advance. :)
Click to expand...

I bought my 301 at a very cheap price in an army PX, and sinceI bought it as a working tool serving in the army engineers, I used the holy crappola out ofit. After a while a long while, yes, it did have blade play. No, I didn't care. Most of my knives after a who;e have some blade play. On a slip joint that I'm using everyday, I don't really care about a little blade play. In the course of about 25 years, that Buck 301 had sand, mud, industrial grit, and biological stuff like fish slime and guts, small game blood, in it. It got rinsed off in the the Atlantic ocean, the Mediterranean sea, the Pacific ocean, the Gulf Of Mexico, a few nameless stream in Vietnam, as well as the Potomac river here in Maryland. Of course it got cleaned up with proper hot water and Dawn dish soap and some Hoppes gun oil on a semi regular basis.

Not only did I not mind the blade play, but if I thought about it, I actually prefer to have a bit. I view it as the old army issue 1911, .45 rattling a bit when you shake it. Leaves room for dirt, and makes it easier to flush out the thing in a creek. Many times I washed my 301 out in a creek since there was nothing else on hand at the time. Working the knife blade back and forth under water did a very nice job flushing out grit from the joints. Also makes it easier for the drop or two of oil to flow where it needs to.

Too many folks worry about a bit of blade play. The sheep foot blade of the 301 ended up looking a bit swaybacked after 20 years, and spring on the clip was a little weak, and all blades had some play. But that UPS box or twine that it was cutting never knew. The knife still cut just fine.
 
My Buck 301 had very slight play. All it took to fix was a very light tap with a mallet on the pivot.
That being said, while my knife nuttiness and machinist training always prefer tighter tolerances, it just isn't as essential as many make it out to be.

I own an old Klein TL 29 remake that has a moderate amount of blade play with the driver having even more so. Regardless, it is a well made and formidable tool in my opinion.

I do draw the line at any rattleling, however.
 
My 301 had some side play, I squeezed the pivot slightly in a vise (protecting the bolster with a towel) and most the of play is gone now. Of course if the play becomes too bad you can always utilize Buck's Forever Warrantly and send it in to them.
 
I have an old Camillus 303 and a flat-ground Buck 303, so also pretty old. No blade play on them, but the Buck has softer springs than I like.
The guys in the Buck sub-forum would be more current on what to expect from a 303.
 
Hmm. Prompted by this thread, I checked my traditional folders for blade play:

Case Sodbuster, newish, felt and visible blade blay
Case Sodbuster Jr, newish, felt and visible blade blay
Loewen Hippekniep, 45 yrs old, very tight spring, felt and visible blade play.
Old Timer Stockman, 15 years old, felt and visible blade play
Case medium stockman, new, slight felt play, but not visible.
Puma SGB serpentine jack, newish, no discernible play
Henckels SAK pattern, felt play, not visible.
Four Victorinox SAK, one GAK, no discernible play
New RR marlinspike, no discernible play on the spike or the blade
New RR camp knife, no discernible play
Opinel No 8, No 10, Mam Douro, MAM Tipica, no play
Buck canoe, no play

The play on the newer Case sodbusters was surprising and a bit disappointing, I guess, but not enough to affect the utility of the knives. They both felt exactly like my old Loewen, which leads me to wonder if the pattern has something to do with it.
 
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Maybe it really isn't a huge deal. I'm really enjoying having it with me, even though I didn't use it today.
 
I looked over my 301s and none of them have any blade play. I even had one of the 1966 Buck 301s that were made by Schrade with the Swinden key construction and it didn't have any blade wobble.

BUT it's not uncommon for a knife with pinned blades to develop some play with use. It happens to expensive knives made by GEC and other manufacturers as well. GEC even had a warning for some of their caplifter knives that they should only be used for light prying. Applying torque to the blades will likely loosen them up. A little wobble isn't going to be much of a problem but you can give them a squeeze and peen the pins to tighten them up. Or send them and have Buck fix/replace the knife.

By design, the new Buck 301 will have blade rub. Complaining about it would be like complaining that bread is fattening. ;) If you look at how the knives are made and how they are constructed, its clearly not a flaw. It's just how it's made.
 
supratentorial said:
... By design, the new Buck 301 will have blade rub. Complaining about it would be like complaining that bread is fattening. ;) If you look at how the knives are made and how they are constructed, its clearly not a flaw. It's just how it's made.
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I just checked my 301 (2015 date stamp) and 371 (2014 date stamp). The blades are close but don't come into contact with each other, on either one.

My 371's pull is a little stiffer than the 301's, but like I said in my post earlier, the 301's "walk 'n talk" is sufficiently "snappy". I don't have to worry about it opening on its own while in my pocket, and unless I do something stupid while using it, I don't have to worry about it closing on my fingers.
 
afishhunter, I don't have the 371 but on my recent 301s there are no center cut scales ("liners") and the blade flats (the part near the spine that isn't ground) is nearly the full width of the spring. That is why I say by design. I don't think it's a problem. The older knives with 2 springs (instead of 3) were constructed differently.
 
supratentorial said:
afishhunter, I don't have the 371 but on my recent 301s there are no center cut scales ("liners") and the blade flats (the part near the spine that isn't ground) is nearly the full width of the spring. That is why I say by design. I don't think it's a problem. The older knives with 2 springs (instead of 3) were constructed differently.
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That being said, I regret not buying that one I looked at. It was flawless other than the blade rub. Pretty much all 3 blades touched each other.
But in the 5-10 minutes I was fiddling with them, it already showed shiny "snail trails" where they hit.
The one blade would actually get caught on the other blade when closing it slow. I had to push it closed.
I find that this isn't normal, or designed this way.
A big name brand like BUCK wouldn't do that on purpose. But when you pump out thousands of knives a day, finding a perfect one is darn near impossible.
Even these minor flaws aside, I still find BUCK to be a high-end respected brand. I don't see a whole lot of quality changes from them over the years.
 
bladeboss, You're certainly right that the blades catching and needing to be pushed down is definitely not acceptable. And not all blade rub is the same. There are degrees. I just mean that with this design, some amount of blade rub and scratching is going to be common.
 
supratentorial said:
bladeboss, You're certainly right that the blades catching and needing to be pushed down is definitely not acceptable. And not all blade rub is the same. There are degrees. I just mean that with this design, some amount of blade rub and scratching is going to be common.
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That clarification makes sense.
The blades ARE thick for a Stockman, and are close together.
 
I have a camillus made 301 and it has no play with great w&t, it doesnt have quite the mileage on it as jackknife's but I got it with some mileage already and put some on it since. All 3 of my current production 301's have a tiny amount of side to side, one of them also has lazy blades (And I have been lazy to sent it to buck). Its a little strange to me that they have play because the area where the tang and backsprings meet are machined very smooth on all my examples so you would think there'd be no play. It doesnt bother me though considering how cleanly everything is machined on the 301's and I really like the triple backsprings setup, especially for the price.
 
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my 303 developed some play after being used, or abused, like i would never use my other traditionals.
i put that one in the work knife role, and it did all i asked from it.
and loaning it to others on the spot put even more stress on it, and eventually, it developed some very little blade play.
it was also used applying lateral pressure..not by me, but hey.
being like i am regarding these things, had to resolve it, so a little squeeze on a vise, and some light hammer tapping fixed that.
it's a work knife, and a tough one.
 
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