Fastest opening spring assisted knives?

The Kershaw Chive's blade flies out pretty fast and kicks pretty hard for its size. I handed it once to my friend and his hand started quivering after he opened it up. It's noticeably stronger than my Leek too. It's why I hesitate to carry it around with me.
 
My Leek ad Cryo are pretty quick, but I think my quickest is my Benchmade Torrent. Notable others are SOG Aegis and Flash 1. I don't have many assisted blades
 
Kershaw makes very fast,strong opening knives. I liked the speed safe, and the sog version... I have gotten to the point where I can really open up all my knives, especially my Spydercos with the flick of my thumb. Also, my crkt m16-04 opns up super fast.really al my kershaw springs have broken on me,all 3 of them have had the spring broke.just practice and you'll be as fast, if not Faster.there a cool design but it wil fail u at some point. I would recommend a flipper over a spring kniv. JMHO. Phil
 
Small Kershaws, Leek, Scallion, Chive, are the fastest I've seen. I have a Titanium Kershaw Bump that has had a lot of weight shaved off by Mr. Tom Krein, and that thing just about jumps out of my hand. I handled a CRKT folding Hissatsu that scared me, it was so fast.

For autos, nothing is faster than Protech's Runt or Stinger series.
 
My Small Folder Collection, ZT300, Benchmade Barrage, Kershaw Leek not showing, though I think it's a different class of interest.

IMHO the Barrage is Extremely fast, I just wish it was G10 and that the SS frame was polished a bit more.

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I don't think its possible for an assisted knife to get any faster than a Benchmade Emissary, whether it be the large or small models.
 
Another plus 1 for the Barrage! I'd say the 586 opens just a hair faster than the 581, just due to the size of the blade. These use a coil spring and are as fast as any good side opening auto. At least compared to a few Protechs. That coil spring really slams the blade open and the 581 has a nice thwack as it his the stop pin. The only downside is that you have to either use your leg or two hands to close it. Honestly, with a little practice, the standard axis lock is just as fast and closes as fast as you can open, one handed.


Here's my pair that I made custom scales for:
 
As others have alluded to, if you like fast opening, don't limit yourself to just assisted openers. My ZT 0801 and 0562CF are both very fast (bearing flippers). Love the Benchmade Axis lock knives for their speed. One of my Kershaw Skylines, a blade-swap model with tan scales and uncoated blade, has the washers and blade pivot area polished and Nano Lubed, and it is very fast AND smooth. Even my old Kershaw Wild Wild Turkey (1431) is quite fast, even with nothing special done to it. A lot of it is technique, though with some knives, the configuration/set-up is just not conducive to speed.

Also, I just want to say that I don't hate assisted knives. I have several. I do have to mention, though, that some are absolutely fantastic de-assisted, like the Kershaw Blur; way smoother, and no less fast in my experience, just more controllable.

Anyway, enjoy!
 
Difficult to objectively measure which is really "fastest" without something like a high speed camera... but to the naked eye, my Chive is the "fastest" of my assisted openers. The "hardest" opening one is probably my 0301. That blade is massive (many times more so than, say, the Chive), but it still rockets open almost as fast and practically slams itself into the locked position. The Barrage and Cryo are some other notable ones that seem to fire fast and hard. The Breakout (an auto) also opens incredibly fast. It is also a thin, light blade, but you can really feel the momentum the blade picks up when flying open. It flies open so fast that I sometimes don't even have a chance to release the button before it's completely open.
 
My SOG Auto seems to have the strongest spring so it would probably be my fastest. Next would be the Benchmade 581 Barrage and then the Kershaw Blur. I have quite a few Benchmade Nitrous Strykers and they open well enough, but the spring action is not nearly as strong as the others so it is easy enough to interrupt the opening if something gets in the way. I have a Leek and a Chive but haven't compared them.

BUT I'm wondering why it matters how fast the spring opens the blade, you should also consider the motions necessary to initiate the opening. The Leek and Chive have small flippers so it takes some care to hit them with our fingertip. Similarly it is hard to situate your thumb just right to open my various Benchmades. OTOH the extra sharp thumb stud on the Kershaw Blur is very easy to hit and open. The SOG Auto is kind of in between since it has a button. It opens fast when you hit the button and the button isn't hard to find. But overall I find that my non-assisted Para 2 and Manix 2 are very fast to open too because it is easy to hit the thumb hole with my thumb and the big thumb hole with a somewhat sharp edge offers a lot of traction.
 
I believe my 581 Barrage is the fastest assisted knife I've owned, but my SOG auto is faster I think because it has a much stronger spring.
 
NJBillK said:
Was this meant to be a text?
If not, this has likely been one of the more peculiar responses used to bump a thread...
Click to expand...
Yes it was a text by mistake, I was reading the forum and got a text at the same time somehow replied in the wrong field lol. I tried to delete but couldn't. (Sorry yall)

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If barrage ain't fast enough drill holes in the blade to lighten it up!


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Gonna throw in the Buck Quickfire and Momentum but I own these and the other brands I've tried were in the store and heavily worn out.
 
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