Fastest opening...

The new Brad Southard flipper seems pretty fast.

 

You should get a shot timer, increase the sensitivity and find out the average open times.

 

Emerson Delica/Endura ought to be up there for fast deployments! Also the most entertaining deployments too!

 

Military (liner not frame) is fastest for me. Spyderco does a good job at making their liner locks seem frictionless.

 

This. The Emersons start to deploy before the knife clears the pocket. Not even automatics do that.

 

Its big but my XL Manix now that its broken in is pretty freaking fast, fast as any other I've seen and its bigger than most spydies out there.

I still want a Yo 2 though.

 

Does your Tenacious have a strong detent?

I've noticed that some of my knives have a stronger detent than others, and by the time you put enough force on the blade to overcome the detent you have a good amount of force involved and the causes the blade to come out fast. Something like my PM2 opens very easily so I don't have time to get a good amount of force built up before it is mostly open. It opens pretty fast even at that.

I have a couple of the really big CRKT knives with flippers. It takes a good amount of force on the flipper to overcome the detent and once that happens the force accelerates the blade to good opening speed pretty fast.

 

Right now I feel like my Vallotton is my fastest. Although I have an Emerson Endura, so if we count the nifty wave feature then it wins.

 

The street beat.

 

Anything waved, followed by anything with a compression lock.

 

The perrin PPT, has a great detent that allows instant thumb flick opening!

 

Yojimbo 2

 

Hands down the P'kal, the larger "wave" has the most consistent opening of any of my waved knives, including Emerson's. Although some don't like the ergos for EDC... I love it.

 

Para 2 is my fastest opening knife.

 

Aside from pivot/detent friction, the rest is a matter of inertia. The human thumb can only exert so much force and only move so fast. In all cases, I've found my lighter/shorter blades to deploy quickest. My Benchmade 840 is super quick with a light blade and a thumb stud relatively close to the pivot. My ZT0560 is relatively slow with its large and heavy blade.

If your concern is a defensive situation, practicing deployment is most crucial. No matter how fast your knife can be, fumbling for the thumb stud or Spydie hole isn't going to get the knife open. A reliable opening is more important than a faster opening that can only be achieved sometimes.

I've played around with a variety of brands and deployment systems. None are infallible. Even waving open an Emerson can be done wrong. I find that knives that fit my hand well while being removed from my pocket are easiest to open quickly.

In terms of Spydies, my Para 2 is quick and the giant hole is hard to miss My ZT flippers are also pretty easy to open quickly.

 

I don't have a lot of Spyderco's but I just got my second one, the Techno and it deploys pretty dang fast.

 

The Chokwe is by far the fastest I've ever handled.

 

I dont get the whole "fastest opening" knife thing... Every single knife I've ever seen or handled opens at about the same speed except for slipjoints and knives with a nail nick.. I mean, some have stiffer detents than others, but the speed difference when opening them is negligible.. We're talking less than miliseconds; infinitesimal amounts not even worth mentioning in my opinion..

I can understand discussing "ease of opening" (due to a nice stiff detent), but speed:jerkit:? They're ALL fast!
Am I missing something here because I sure dont understand