Flipper - ease of presentation?

T

Trailer_Ape

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Jun 22, 2017
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I have started to look at hard at a knife that is a flipper. I have munkeed around with a friends but not much and never pocketed it.

When I present a knife, with thumb studs, there is small adjustment I have to make between opening the knife and achieving the grip I want "hammer". For those of you that carry a flipper, on a regular - is the adjustment any more or less difficult with the the flipper compared to (good) thumb studs?

I really like the way a good flipper opens but am a little concerned that switching from having my index on the back of the handle to having both it and my thumb wrapped around the handle would not be as easy a transition as compared to where my thumb and finger are when opening a knife with thumb studs.

Have any of you noticed a real difference in achieving grip, from the draw, with a flipper compared to thumb studs?

I realize a wave would be the best but am just not crazy about most of them.

Thanks!
 
I don't notice a significant difference. In practice all folders have your fingers on the side and back of the blade, even if slightly, and require a small readjust to grip the handle.
 
Yeah, all knives require some readjustment of you hand. With some fidgeting you get used to the knife and it becomes automatic. It kind of sounds like you're trying to trim milliseconds off your deployment, which is just worrying about it too much.
 
Most people can become proficient with pretty much any deployment method out there with a bit of practice.

There doesn't seem do be much difference in deployment between a flipper and a more traditional opening knife in my experience.
 
Like everyone else said, this is something that you'll have to deal with no matter what knife or deployment style you carry. Even the fixed blades that I carry require a bit of grip adjustment from drawing the knife to getting it in whatever grip I'm using for that task. I think the real concern is that you buy a knife with the kind of handle ergos that work for you... a knife that you can manipulate safely.

I'll give you a personal example. I'm 72. I've carried knives since I was 5 YO. That's 67 years of toting, opening, using, and closing. I used to be able to handle anything from an SMF to a Peanut pretty dependably. But now, as an old guy with much less tactile feeling in my hands and more than a touch of arthritis, I have to pay more attention to holding and manipulating the knife than I used to pay. I drop things now!

My point is, make sure that the knife handle works as well for you as the deployment system and blade do. Then just practice... commit the opening to muscle memory.
 
Not really an issue in my experience. The only time I've seen a flipper become a problem is when I was servicing a friend's Kershaw. He worked construction and used it to cut bags of cement open, needless to say that stuff has a unique way of making its way into things. The knife was an assisted opener and even though the spring was fine it was so dirty it was pretty much a manual at that point. It was one of those rare situations where disassembly was necessary, there was no other way of getting that mess out. In a grit free environment flippers are fine and can be a lot of fun, but when the wrong kind of particulate works into the pivot the brakes get put on pretty fast. While they don't snap open a fast, a manual can be forced open without further hand adjustment.

If you are thinking self defense consider a fixed blade. Flippers are fast to open and convenient to carry on a daily basis, but they still require some manual dexterity to operate under stress.
 
I don't like flippers. I don't even like thumb studs. I find the easiest deployment method of all (aside from the "wave") is the opening hole, as it requires the least fiddling or grip changing.
 
xylum said:
(snip) It kind of sounds like you're trying to trim milliseconds off your deployment, which is just worrying about it too much.
Click to expand...

No I am not trying to shave milliseconds. What I am trying to do is spend as little time as possible with a less than secure grip on the handle, during a stress situation.

I understand that every knife will require a "mating" period. I have drawn my current carry (knife) hundreds of time. I have managed to smooth out my presentation BUT there are still aspects of the knife that do not lend themselves to a guaranteed opening. I have found this to be true in holsters, as well. There is a holster that comes in 3 different configurations. One has a lever that has to be depressed and pushed AWAY from the pistol. One has a separate lever that has to be pulled TOWARDS the butt (like sweeping the safety of a 1911). One has BOTH. I have been issued all three and there is a distinct difference. The one that (only) has the lever that is swept down is far more intuitive as that is the direction you thumb is moving while establishing grip instead of moving in the opposite direction.

Yes, I can familiarize myself with whatever opener I need to BUT some are simply better suited for transitioning from draw to grip.

I prefer a fixed blade most of the time. Mine is set up in such a way that i can establish a full grip before it is ever drawn. However, there are times I do not want try to conceal it OR draw too much attention by OC'n it.

So the general opinion is - deploying a flipper, then establishing grip, is not really any more difficult that doing so with a thumb stud? Copy that.

David Mary - appreciate the input and will try to take a closer look at thumb holes (have never used them much) before going to big on a flipper.

Thank you all!
 
T Trailer_Ape you're welcome. And of the opening hole knives, those with liner locks (and Spydercos compression lock) are, in my opinion, the best: least time spent with an unsecured grip, because they deploy faster than something with a stronger self close like back locks or the ball bearing lock. Not that the self close and detent on liner or compression locks is weak (generally, but avoid certain Spyderco Taichung models if you want a strong detent), but the amount of surface area, or length of travel during which the self close effect is present is longer on back locks and the BBL, meaning your initial force applied by the thumb in deployment needs to be greater to overcome that self close. With a liner lock (the Resilience is a great example), you have a very minimal self close length travel, only as long as the detent ball, to overcome.

Let me show you a deployment of my Resilience, carried tip down in the back right pocket:

 
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