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I'm just twice bitten, thrice shy. Never had an unlocked knife close on my fingers (though I have nightmares about it) but I've been poked and cut by wayward blades. Yes the wrist snap will finish the job but when I'm tied up by evil henchmen and only have a couple inches of wiggle room to get my knife and cut the ropes, every little motion counts.
An automatic knife should open and lock every time you hit the button. Between your knife and other posts about Kershaw Launch issues, I get the impression that they are more finicky than they should be.
Even if you stop the blade, an auto should finish opening and lock up when you remove the obstruction.
I have been trying to find a knife that will beat this thing for pocket comfort, blade geometry and overall greatness and I can't. Nothing sits as well in my pocket and gives me as much confidence in performance.This is one of the many reasons the Benchmade Vector (both 495 and 496) is my favorite and most carried knife model. It opens every time, even if the blade hits an obstruction. The "bias toward closure" inherent in assisted knives also makes it easier than an auto to close one handed.
Overall I think Benchmade makes the best assist mechanism on the market. Whoever said there's no such thing as a high quality assisted knife has clearly never held a Benchmade Vector.
I definitely prefer flippers.I wish the auto 110s weren't so much more expensive than their manual brethren! Still not a huge amount of money, but the autos are nearly triple that of the manuals (last time I looked.) I don't see the added costs that warrant the significantly higher pricing.The only thing better than a Buck 110 with a thumb stud is a Buck 110 with a happy switch!
Lock bounce would mean it's failing to "finish opening and lock up." I'm very skeptical that lock bounce is an issue with the spring for the blade being too strong rather than the spring for the button lock being too weak. My ProTech has no issues locking whether I open it normally or if I stop the blade and release it from any point between fully closed and fully open - in either case, it will reliably lock under its own power. If an auto isn't capable of that, something is wrong.
That is exactly what lock-bounce is: the blade bouncing off the stop because it failed to lock open. On a button lock, the cause is more likely to be the spring under the button rather than the spring that runs the action. If the blade is bouncing off the stop instead of locking, the lock spring isn't forcing the button into the tang fast enough. You can compensate either by making the blade move slower (weaker main spring) or the lock move faster (stronger button/lock spring). If you have to lower the strength of the blade spring to the point where deployment doesn't continue when you remove an obstruction, that's the wrong solution. Both springs should be strong enough to reliably do their jobs.
If you haven't already, you might want to try lubing the sides of the button where it rubs the walls of the cavity the spring sits in. It's possible that excess friction is keeping the lock from popping into place.
