Yes the lock up on all of the ones I've seen and even the older Delicas has always been very good. I know a lot of guys using D4s pretty hard too and they love that knife. I think its a historic best seller model for Spyderco for good reason. Many much larger competitor knives that have been tried and true much loved knives for folks don't have as good a lock up as the smaller D4 does.
Some of the other mid locking knives I've seen the insides of like the Native, Endura both the E3 and 4 models, Pacific and Atlantic Salt/93mm Rescue, as well as some of the other medium duty knives by Spyderco most often have what I'd call some very assuring looking lock ups too. Not that they don't have issues now and then with a few but based on the number I've seen and done surgery on at this point I'd say their % of doing it right is higher by far than the few bad ones that slip out.
I think many folks believe that I love Spyderco so much because of the way the Spydie crowd supports me but the truth is I was carrying and using Spydercos long before I did my first rebuild of one. But after seeing the insides of more than I can count for folks sending them to me to put custom handles on I know it was the right choice. You can trust their locks more often than not. That is how I judge them now and for the most part how I judge other company knives, by seeing them intimate like on the insides. Comparing the Spyderco and Cold Steel lockback to other lockbacks changed my idea of what was a good lock up vs what would get by to be honest with you. Thanks to their knives I like to think that I moved the bar up a notch or two when I make one of my own lockback folders.
I should say this also speaking of the lockback type folder since someone brought it up with me privately after that "Good Lock Thread." It is true that I have not taken apart as many competitor knives as I have Spydercos and Cold Steel knives but at some point I have had all the other major and some minor brands apart enough to see more than one example of their knives for the same models as well as some that repeatedly show up here for jobs that require me to break them down. Once apart I can then see what was going on inside it naturally.
What is funny about this is that in my mind the competitors lockbacks more often than not have a higher % chance of not really impressing me all that much with their folder's lock up and yet I've taken fewer of them apart. In their defense though, this does not mean that their locks don't work. Obviously they do and with little trouble in normal use for many folks. The question I ask myself when I see one vs the other is simply which I would trust more for those times when it isn't normal uses you are stressing the lock with and also which lock I'd trust more with my fingers in the path of the blade should it close accidentally during one of those abnormal times. To me its a no brainer. I stick with the odds in my favor knowing what I know.
STR
