evilgreg
Why so serious?
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2012
- Messages
- 4,092
I wasn't trying to hurt my relationship with my ZT 0801 when I bought a Kizer ki4423, but somehow things just happened:
I bought the knife because my other Kizers have been fantastic, and the chance to get a flipper on bearings with titanium slabs on both sides and a big, reverse-tanto-ey sort of CPM-S35VN blade for ~$150 was too hard to pass up.
Long story short, it's a fantastic knife. Mine is amazingly smooth, it flips incredibly well and has great fit and finish. The blade is centered, there is no play, and the blade falls closed under its own weight if lifted to the vertical and released.
It has so many general characteristics in common with the 0801 it's hard not to compare them. They're about the same size, about the same weight (the Kizer is about a half ounce lighter), both are bearing flippers with ~3.5" blades, both are full titanium (though the clip is also titanium on the Kizer) and so forth.
I love my 0801--it's one of the worst performing knives I own for cutting things (just geometry holding it back, I've thinned it down and it's hair-popping sharp and convexed to boot) and I still carry it all the time (it's my around home, yard work beater knife).
This thing has kicked it to the curb, though, at least for now. It carries better, has better handle ergos, I like the blade shape better and it cuts better thanks to the hollow grind (though it's still too thick to cut really well). I've only had it for a few days, so maybe I just need to spend more time with it and find some flaw that will send me back to the arms of my heavily-used 0801 . . .
Here's a gallery of early snapshots of the thing, incidentally.
I bought the knife because my other Kizers have been fantastic, and the chance to get a flipper on bearings with titanium slabs on both sides and a big, reverse-tanto-ey sort of CPM-S35VN blade for ~$150 was too hard to pass up.
Long story short, it's a fantastic knife. Mine is amazingly smooth, it flips incredibly well and has great fit and finish. The blade is centered, there is no play, and the blade falls closed under its own weight if lifted to the vertical and released.
It has so many general characteristics in common with the 0801 it's hard not to compare them. They're about the same size, about the same weight (the Kizer is about a half ounce lighter), both are bearing flippers with ~3.5" blades, both are full titanium (though the clip is also titanium on the Kizer) and so forth.
I love my 0801--it's one of the worst performing knives I own for cutting things (just geometry holding it back, I've thinned it down and it's hair-popping sharp and convexed to boot) and I still carry it all the time (it's my around home, yard work beater knife).
This thing has kicked it to the curb, though, at least for now. It carries better, has better handle ergos, I like the blade shape better and it cuts better thanks to the hollow grind (though it's still too thick to cut really well). I've only had it for a few days, so maybe I just need to spend more time with it and find some flaw that will send me back to the arms of my heavily-used 0801 . . .
Here's a gallery of early snapshots of the thing, incidentally.
