"Hard Use Knife" -Again

[Ankerson]

I admit, I crashed and burned: my intention was to see if there was a simple answer to the question of "what hard use folder...", by putting in some specifications which seemed acceptable for those who had to put their knife through some abuse.

As Marcinek and others pointed out, it's pretty much impossible, given the wide variety of opinions represented here. The concensus seems more or less to be the CS Lawman, or the mini AK, which has the advantage of already being the right blade length.

If you want a folder that can take some abuse while still having very good cutting ability then yes the CS Lawman or AK-47 would be the choices, you want to cut stuff too right?

There are other choices, but one would have to have 50% of the blade ground away for them to be decent cutters.

There are a lot of heavy duty folders on the market, but a lot of them just plain suck at cutting stuff when compared to other options, they are also heavy, some are expensive ($400+).

 

[Presumed_Lost]

Convinced myself to check out the mini-AK47.. one of the eBay vendors put it on sale last weekend. It arrived Friday (sometime), played with it a bit, and yesterday morning I took it down, examined it in some detail, stripped the coating off the lock bar and blade (I left it on the pommel and thumb plate). Oddly, the finish underneath looks "stone washed", not blasted.

In general I was impressed, certainly for the price point. The lock is interesting... the lock bar pivots on a large, ovaled hole, so that's no longer contributing strength, it's all on the pin it locks up around (the pivot and lock pins fit in the same size holes in the scales, but the lock pin is larger in the center, the lock won't work right if they're swapped). Seems to me the lock pin could be made larger, but maybe I'm missing something.

I also took down the sharpness of the G10 texture a couple of notches, and especially sanded right under where the clip bears (by using the pressure of the clip itself) so that it won't tend to tear up pockets.

All in all good. I'm not really certain that it's any stronger than the mini-Griptilian (especially the Ritter version). A lot of people don't realize the mini-Grips have full length and almost full-width steel liners (it's about half on the full size version), and of course the Axis lock is pretty strong as well.. but the mini-AK is lighter, has more handle, the area of overlap between the blade and handle is MUCH larger, and street price is about half of that of the mini-Grip.

Pretty sure a Ritter mini-Grip with Wilkins scales would have a comfortable edge over the mini-AK in most ways... but that rig will cost about as much as five mini-AKs, and what with the TSA now showing up randomly and searching people in subway stations, bus stations and ferryboat landings, we seem to be entering a time where confiscation is increasingly likely and investing a lot of money in an EDC knife is starting to seem pretty foolish if there's ANY chance of having to use public transportation.

 

[Jonsa]

benchmade doug ritter griptilian

 

[sunnyd]

Seriously...isn't there a more appropriate tool for the job you are planning on doing? You want the knife to make cappuccino and take the kids to school, too?

At the very least, get yourself a fixed blade.

Well now, I sure didn't have to read very far into this thread to find a fellow member whom I wholeheartedly agree with..

A sheath knife - fixed blade, indeed!