EZ- Outs

M

MtnMan

Joined
Nov 28, 1999
Messages
13
Hello to all. I just found this site and so far I'm glad I did. There seems to be a well of knowledge to tap into here. I have been a collector for about 25 years. I don't collect anything special just blades that i like and catch my eye, mostly bowies and boot knives and throwers.
I have been reading through some of the discussions and found a knife that seems to have been left out, the Gerber EZ Out.
I have been through 2 of them in the last 4 years. The first was loaned to the wrong person and was abused.(I won't go into that)
The replacement has served me well for the last 3 years. It is inexpensive,light and easy to carry and deploy. With all the kife lovers on this site its hard to believe I am the only to discover this treasure.

Any comments are welcome and thanks for you time. I look forward to more discussions.
 
Mtn Man:
Hi. I agree the EZ-Outs are good, inexpensive knives. There has been some discussion that the EZ-Outs often fail the "spine whack" tests; i.e., the locks can be defeated a bit too easily. Nevertheless, if you're just using it as a using knife, IMO it has very good edge geometry, and the handle is very light and comfortable.

I had 2...a regular sized and a Jr. sized. I gave the Jr. to my mother who carries and uses it every day for various pocketknife tasks. I rarely carry my regular size at the moment, mainly because I have so many other knives I use. But it will do any reasonable cutting task asked of most good work knives out there.
Jim
 
I have one.Boy are they hard to sharpen.I know 440c is fairly easy to sharpen,but that 450c stuff is really hard.Is it just me or is it really hard stuff.The best knife ive seen yet for $25.I think we should have a $50 knife shoot out.What do you think?Members can send in there best cheapos and see which ones the champion.Knives under $50....folders only.straight edges....no serations.ILL participate.
Take care

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Jay
Life is like a box of chocolates,never know what your gona git!
 
Jay:
I resharpened my mom's EZ-Out Jr. and it took me longer than I expected to get it sharp to my standards. I used my Spyderco Sharpmaker 203.

I asked Dennis Wright about this. He told me that the difficulty of sharpening some of the Gerbers had to do with the relative softness of the steel (425M, I think). He said the best bet is to gradually lighten the sharpening strokes, each stroke being lighter.

It's also good to not allow it to get too dull between sharpenings.
Jim
 
James,
Thats the same system I use..."203".
It doesn`t touch this metal....I SWEAR!You know the metal sleaves they give you in the 203 system?Thats the only thing I have that will touch this metal.Im gona buy the lansky diamond system and see what that does.


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Jay
Life is like a box of chocolates,never know what your gona git!

[This message has been edited by STIHL (edited 28 November 1999).]
 
I bought an ATS-34 model that was on sale for almost 1/2 price, mainly to try out the steel. It sharpened up fine with carborundum and Arkansas stones, but took longer than usual to hone a good edge with leather. I had read here that some of them don't do well on the spine whack test but this one was ok. It's light for being a slightly bigger folder, the slot in the blade works well for one hand opening, and while the clip kind of gets in the way it's spends almost all of it's time in my pack in a cordura sheath so it's not a big deal. Seems like a decent utility knife, especially for the price.
 
I don't have an Ez out but I'm on my second Gerber multi pliar. I think they use the same steel for the blades in both. Anyhow, it seems to me that your better off polishing the edge as sharp as you can. And then going back over it with a few light passes of a coarse stone or diamond file. That gives the blade microscopic serrations so it has a lot more bight.At least on mine it doesn't seem like you really can polish it down to a razor edge.
I would like to see how the lock on the EZ outs perform under a constant load. It doesn't seem like the spine wack test really tests how the knife will perform when your using it.I can understand that you might hit the blade on something at some point and then you would be in trouble if the lock gave out. but I think that in the course of every day use your more likely to put constant pressure against the back of the blade by using the point to puncture something and things like that.Thats just my opinion.

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Fix it right the first time, use Baling Wire !
 
I have an old E-Z Out, with the crappy 425M steel, or whatever it was. Don't have the ATS-34.

I have likes and dislikes about this knife. I love the blade shape. I like the jellybean-shaped hole. I totally love the handle. This knife would be a definite contender for my fave lightweight inexpensive folder, but for two reasons. First, the edge came too thick, and it was hard to sharpen [sounds like that hasn't changed with the ATS-34 version, or was everyone else in this string also talking about the 425M version?]. Second and more importantly, the backspring is so loose, this thing is practically a gravity knife. I'm not surprised it's failing spine-whacking tests, also would be surprised about easy failure with steady-pressure on the spine. The other thing I didn't like was that the clip was bare metal and not blackened, but I used a bake-on enamel coating to black it.

Given an E-Z Out with a good backspring -- and I've heard some of 'em have good backsprings, you just gotta look -- this is an excellent knife.

Joe
 
For those of you above who were guessing as to the steel type used in the non-ATS34 EZ-Outs, this knife has always and only been advertised with 440A (not 440C, 425 modified, or anything else). It was reported that the first batch of blades may have been a little soft few problems since then. Sharpening is a matter of tools and technique. Half the time we blame the blade for "our" inabilities to sharpen it.

Bruce Woodbury
 
Although I'm not a big fan of Gerber, I get the opportunity to sharpen a lot of knives and a friend here has one of the ATS-34 EZ-Outs and that took a very good edge. The handle is comfortable with the two types of material combined for the scales, you could do a lot worse? Another fellow in our engineering, a Canadian that dropped down to work for us a while, had the 420 version blade and while it was a little softer I was surprised at the edge it attained as well, so I guess I have to re-think my bias against Gerber.

(long story short, had a Gerber Paul Knife that would never seem to take an edge, sent it back and they replaced the blade and that also seemed to never come up to snuff, so I sold it, nice mechanism but the steel put me off)

G2

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My mind is made up,
So don't confuse me with the facts!

www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Cabin/7306/blades.html

Gillett PA
 
Bruce, my blade has 450 stamped in it.Is this a serial #,model #,or the type of steel.I can bring you pictures if you like.Im just a little confused.
Till next time

------------------
Jay
Life is like a box of chocolates,never know what your gona git!
 
Whatever it is that's stamped into the blade -- and I do remember my old model having "450" or something like that -- was the model number. I don't remember Gerber ever advertising this knife as anything other than 425M -- do you have any old advertisements around that you can verify on, Bruce? It doesn't really matter, but now I'm curious. It could very well be 440A

Joe
 
In the 1995 and 1996 Gerber catlog they list it as 400 series stainless steal.bet it is 420.I have one of the ats34 e-z-out knives no problems sharpening it,used a 204.holds a good edge,but I never let it get dull.for the price its a good litle knife.
Tony Paulos
 
I believe the 450 on the blade refers to the
model # and I also always thought the steel was 425M.
 
The EZ-Out ATS-34 was my first knife. Now that I have some "nicer" knives, I don't carry it as often. The EZ-Out is an excellent value. The only thing that I find difficult about is it is hard to sharpen (for me anyway)...but maybe I'm just not doing it right.
My EZ-Out is quite a little treasure and I don't think I'll ever get rid of it!

~Mitch
 
I found an old Cutlery Shoppe catalog which lists the E-Z Out as having "440" steel, which lends credence to bruce's claim that it was 440-A and not 425M. Many of Gerber's other blades were listed as 425M.

Joe
 
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