Is "flinging" a folder open with inertia abusing it?

J

jlh2600

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Mar 22, 2006
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I'd never thought of it like this before, but the blade on this benchmade 610 is SO massive, I feel like I'm slamming a door when I fling it open/closed. I'd be surprised if BM didn't frown upon this practice, but I just wanted to get the forum's thoughts on how much more wear and tear I'd be putting it through with the extra impact (it's not like I'm opening it any faster than fractions of a second anyways, but I much prefer flinging it vs using the stud when closing it).
 
Knife makers have told me that flicking a folder is abuse. Sooner or later, somethings going to give.
 
It's definitely an abuse.
But effect of this abuse strongly depends on construction and quality of materials.
I've seen byrd raven turn into rubbish by interia opening - damaged stoppin, center axis and linerlock.
In crkt knives it seems to abuse mostly linerlock - other parts dont show any signs of fatigue, and they have heavy blades.
I've also seen 20 years old s. police that was used and opened with flick, and it doesen't show much bladeplay.
 
My uneducated guess would be that the problem wouldn't be a blade issue, no matter how beefy it is, but it would be more like a locking mechanism failure.
 
I'm thinking some knives were meant to withstand the forces of inertia opening; assisted openers and autos. That said, perhaps there is a difference in the way various forces act upon knives when contrasting the effects of "flinging" vs auto and/or assisted opening.
all da best,
rats...
 
If you beat steel against steel often enough there is going to be peening of the metal or loosing of the joint, just simply fact. how long it will take for that effect to cause damage is determined by the quality of the knife, the type of steel, and the weight of the parts hitting each other.
 
Yeah...generally hard on the knife. Steel, even the hard stuff, is not really all that hard to hurt.


Inertial openings can be way, *way* harder on the knife than any auto or assisted opening. The stored energy potential of even the very strong springs used to fire some autos are paltry compared to the power you can put into an inertial opening. When you think of it, you can apply the power and weight of the wrist, forearm, upper arm, maybe even the shoulder...and gravity.

Golly...the knife doesn't stand a chance against prolonged exposure to kind of power.
 
I think the axis lock knives are among the few knives that wouldn't suffer much damage from inertial opening. The pivot may eventually have some problems, and the stop pin may flatten a bit over time, but the lock will adjust, causing the problem to technically exist, but not be noticeable.

Closing the knife with inertia on the other hand will have little to no affect, since the lock rolls onto the blade and stops it. Again, over time maybe you'll have some flattening of the lock, but only TECHNICAL damage.

As for other systems, you could definitely damage them, but for a quality knife I think that abuse will have to be sustained for a long time.
 
With an axis lock pulled back, the blade can be flipped open very gently, with significantly less impact than a simple thumb flick. I doubt this would cause any real fatigue.
 
happened to just talk to a maker about this last night - his opinion was that this kind of thing was most likely to lead to the hole in the liner that the stop pin fits thru in most designs eventually begening(spl much?) to go egg shaped.
Mainly this seems like a real flashy way to put your knife to work - I much prefer to open -cut or pry and close - with not a lot of extra flourish to my activity.'Course some ya'll clearly enjoy flaunting it. YMMV
 
It's probably hard on the knife...but it will definately separate the men from the boys!!
 
It does seem logical and expected that knives opened hard would naturally wear to the point of degrading its integrity. Any personal experiences of this? Which knives can take it and which can't? How about locks or blade/stop pin steels? It sounds like an idea for another Cold Steel video

Speaking of which, the knife I own that seems to lend itself to and almost begs to be opened this way is a cold steel grande vaquero. No damage detected yet on mine in 8+ years.
 
just depends on the knife, the old REKAT sifus w/a rolling lock were just killed by inertia opening, others like the axis, compression, frame lock, doesnt seem to bother them, EKI's too, its no harder on them then waving them, most quality liner locks (ie BM, MT, MOD, spyderco, ) dont seem to mind it either.

some smiths say its abuse (ie cris reeves) and some say its not (ie darrel ralph).

it most certainly doesnt hurt axis, compression or most frame locks.

ya probably shouldnt get obssesive/compulsive about it & do it 50 times a day, but imho occasionally doing it isnt gonna hurt most quality knives a bit imho.
 
bobofish said:
I think the axis lock knives are among the few knives that wouldn't suffer much damage from inertial opening.
Click to expand...

I am sure that Benchmade uses the same materials & assembling tehniques for both the auto-axis knives and the regulat ones (like 615 vs. 6150) and I would say that flicking a knife open 'by thumb' is pretty much the same as using a compressed spring
 
Of the all the axis locks I've played with, inertial openings don't seem to do too much. However, if you use anything, it will break down over time. And if you do something harder rather than softer, it'll break down faster. If I get a <$80-$120 knife and it lasts 4-5 years of regular use, I'm happy with the purchase. I think most Spydercos and BMs could easily handle that.
 
I find that the BM Autos open fairly soft.

In regards to the question, I do feel that flicking a knife open is abusive. I don&#8217;t see the point in opening a knife with that type of action/force. I&#8217;m not going to say it is wrong and shouldn&#8217;t be done but I will state that I see no benefit to it. No function. Maybe it is the fun/cool/do because you can factor.
 
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