Crk ht

[Tsujigiri]

Hi all, I just recently found a deal on a small Sebbie here on the forums, and got my first CRK! I'm really impressed with the quality, tiny details, and in person presence that the pictures really can't capture. But it is a bit small for my tastes, so now I'm taking a closer look at the Umnumzaan. My question has to do with what kind of Umnumzaan I should get, since there seem to be a lot of little changes that have been made to it over the short period it's been around. I know that they changed the lockbar cutout to make access easier, and I know that they plan to add a glued on disc in the near future (although I heard that they have a large stock of discless handles, so this could be a while). Now, I think that disc is horribly ugly and pointless, so I should try to get the knife before they add that. My question has to do with the steel used on the knife. I know they switched to S35VN, but I've heard that CRK's heat treat has been very bad for this steel in some instances, to the point that 154CM performs better. Is this an issue with a particular batch, or with all of the S35VN blades? Is there a chance that CRK will fix it before they install the child safety thing on the lockbar? Thanks...

 

[Haze]

In my view the early or "original" Umnumzaan was the best, I have handled all of the tweaked knives so far (bar the W.C. Umnumzaan with the disk) and still like the original better. All the Umnumzaans I have are from 2009. I only really use 2 of the knives I have but they both perform well. As for S35VN I only have the Nyala with that steel, no folders. I can't say much about it but from the limited use I have had of the Nyala, but it seems to be just as good as S30V to me and I have had no probelms with what could be called "heat treat issues".

 

[socalkid]

Hello,

Im looking to buy a Umnumzaan also. What do you mean by a glued on disk??? Any photos would help me understand.

Thanks,

Chris

 

[Corpus]

Hello,

Im looking to buy a Umnumzaan also. What do you mean by a glued on disk??? Any photos would help me understand.

Thanks,

Chris

Think he's referring to the Hinderer style lock stop they place on the frame overlapping the lock bar to prevent hyper extending the lock bar when disengaging the lock. CR pressure fits the disk to the frame, not glued or screwed. Least that's what I've read from CRK.

Looks like this:

 

[Ankerson]

It seems that CRK's S35VN is on the soft side and S35VN will roll and flatten pretty easy if it's not hard enough, that's from my own testing on a few other knives.

As for the Umnumzaan, I have two, both S30V and they are great.

From the information that I am getting S35VN really needs to be at 60 HRC or higher to be consistent, below that it can be inconsistent.