agony said:
What about a Benchmade 635 mini-Skirmish? Lightweight, frame lock, Ti frame, S30V, wicked recurve blade, and enough bling to give it character without going overboard.
Agony,
Is the mini-Skirmish BM635 ground from thinner stock? Are the grinds more acute?
The Skirmish is a well built knife, I am suprised by the precision that Benchmade was able to get, fit and finish is excellent on mine. The lock up is tight, opens very smooth. It is a very attractive knife. The only downsides are that it is really too big for me to carry and it does not cut very well.
Mine has edge angle of about 22 degrees per side, it is a saber flat ground to over .030" behind the edge (~.030-.035" along the length of the blade).
As well, there have been reports of problematic heat treat.
Having a poor blade profile for utility work (I am not qualified to speak on its usefulness as a weapon as that does not interest me at all) shows not only in its actual cutting performance, but also in areas like edge holding.
Despite being made of a fairly strong and hard steel with good wear resistance, it is not equal to a simple Swiss Army knife in edge holding on cardboard. The SAK, properly sharpened, will cut just as much cardbaord if not more before becoming functionally dulled (not able to make cuts smoothly, has to be powered through).
How can this be? A SAK has cheap steel, not known for edge retention, right?
The answer lies in its blade and edge profile. It starts out cutting much better, so it takes much longer before it is functionally dull. Here is an analogy: My 20 year old Toyota is pretty slow. But it will outrace a Corvette in a 1/4 mile race if you give it a far enough head start (like 1200 feet!).
The SAK blade is .010" or so behind the edge and is running under 15 degrees per side (it was sharpened at 10 degrees per side a while back, but has since been sharpened quite a bit at 15 degrees and the microbeve, has climbed up the edge so to speak, thickening it.)
It takes far less pressure to cut through the carbaord with a thin sharp blade, so it has to make several runs through the material just to be where the Skirmish is starting out at.
Hold on now, the Skirmish has a different scope of work than the SAK, right? Yeah, that is true, so lets look at a knife that has a similiar scope of inended work from the Same company, the 710 in M2 steel. A knife near and dear to my heart.
The 710 has a blade of harder, more wear resistant, yet tougher steel. I say it is tougher, despite the claims of Crucible because I hear about S30V chipping all the time, and I have used the heck out of my M2 blades without trouble, and this is with much thinner edges than seen on most S30V blades.
My 710, over the course of a half dozen years, has cut hundreds of yards of cardboard, carpet, drywall, plastic tubing and pipe, thin metals, tons of wood and fiberglass insulation. It has scraped old gaskets off a cylinder head, deburred aluminum, copper and brass, and just in general been put to hard use.
The edge has been reset many times, especially after runs of carpet and insulation. It was at ~.025 bhind the 30 degree edge, now it is starting to creep past the .030" mark. This is after years of hard use.
It still easily out cuts the Skirmish and stays sharper much longer.
The handle is more secure and ergonomis. It can be used in more grips comfortably than the Skirmish, and the G10 is much easier to hang on to with wet hands than the slick Ti on the Skirmish.
The clip design is far better, it is easier to carry and far less obtrusive.
The Axis lock can be operated with either hand, indeed the whole knife can be switched for left or right hand carry. As well, soem people have reported problems with frame locks and torque failures. See Cliff Stamp's post on the subject.
The more subtle recurve is better suited to most tasks, and the point offers much better penetration.
The Skirmish is probably a better looking knife though, especially compared to my beat up old 710.
So, what knife did I carry before I started using the 710? A Sebenza, of course.
That is just my opinion though, based on my observations.
