Just got my first Benchmade today.

H

High King

Joined
Jan 4, 2013
Messages
235
710.

All I can say is, WOW. The AXIS lock is incredible. It opens like an assisted opener; I just need to flick it lightly, and it flies into a locked position. Absolutely no regrets. Gorgeous knife.
 
congrats! i just got a 710 too this week. not my first benchmade, and def won't be my last. i knew to expect a long blade but was still surprised when i actually saw it. you can look at pictures and videos all day on the internet but it's not til you actually get it that you really know.
 
I got my 710 a couple of weeks ago as well! A red line knife beat it to me by a few days, or it would have been my first Benchmade too.

Amazing how well it carries isn't it? With almost three quarters of an inch longer blade, about twice as broad as the one on the Nagara I also like, it carries even easier. Wild how that works.
 
After a closer inspection, I noticed that the spacers are slightly smaller than the knife, and there's some black stuff on the AXIS lock studs. It looked like torn cloth (or paper), so I tried scratching them out, but they wouldn't come off. It's the Satin version of the knife, not the black coated one.
 
It's a new mechanical device, keep working it and just clean off whatever manufacturing detritus works its way out, it'll be fine. Mine had a small amount of some black material around the Axis cutouts as well, but it doesn't seem to affect things and will almost certainly stop showing up after x number of openings and closings.

The spacers I'm not sure about though, photos would help.
 
I like the 710 series, favorites in my collection:

P1010001-1.jpg
 
Dabakr said:
hmmm. pic?
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NG VI said:
It's a new mechanical device, keep working it and just clean off whatever manufacturing detritus works its way out, it'll be fine. Mine had a small amount of some black material around the Axis cutouts as well, but it doesn't seem to affect things and will almost certainly stop showing up after x number of openings and closings.

The spacers I'm not sure about though, photos would help.
Click to expand...

Oh, the spacers really aren't a problem. For a $120 knife, I'm not going to complain that the F&F isn't perfect or on par with something I paid half grand for. Was just an observation.

As for the AXIS cutouts though, what were those black things on yours?
 
I have to chime in here as both a new poster and someone new to the higher-end knife scene. First-I should say I am a professional woodworker who is very familiar with expensive Japanese/Swiss and a few hand made American blade and steel edge tools. I have always loved pocket knifes but never spent much more then $30 on any except maybe my 10yr old 'Leek'. However-i find your attitude that you don't really expect that much perfection from a 'mere' $120 pocket knife to be pretty cavalier. Maybe your independently wealthy or maybe-I just have NO CLUE what a $500+ knife looks and feels like? But I have to say that if I am spending more then $75 on ANY blade tool that isn't attached to an electric motor I darn well WOULD expect it to be perfect out of the box. $30? Okay-I can see not getting too worked up about that-even though my crkt and kershaw are perfect-if ordinary. But even if there are incredible $500 knives out there I still think $120 is a good chunk of change to spend on a production line blade. Sorry if I sound harsh but I guess I'm just a little shocked at what I should expect from a $500 knife if I shouldnt expect perfect f&f from a $120 knife. I am REALLY going to have to go and actually handle some of these expensive blades so I know what guys like you are talking about. Or am I out of line? Is it really considered 'no big deal' if a $120 BM to have f&f and/or slight adj. issues when new? I am very interested in the answer as I would like to know BEFORE I actually catch the 'addiction' to a brand like BM or the other top 2 mass-production makers

Since I am about to purchase my first +$100 blade and I think its going to be a BM I am pretty concerned if I am not going to get a pretty perfect piece of steel for that money. (And I do have a large collection of vintage mid to high-end watches and vintage dupont and dunhill lighters so its not like I can't appreciate quality. But a $175 Dupont lighter is guaranteed to have a perfect f&f as is an old Omega or Rolex.
 
I think you are viewing the price difference between knives like your Kershaw and most of Benchmade's lineup as more significant than it really is. You're paying something like twenty to sixty dollars more for specific designs and mechanisms, like the 940 and Axis, for example, that you can't get elsewhere, using materials that range from pretty good to outstanding, with a great warranty on top of that.

If you're deciding on a knife you are going to buy and live with, the difference in price between a sixty dollar knife that's ok and a hundred dollar knife that blows you away just isn't as big a deal to many of us.
 
but aren't you saying that op's $120 bm 'should' be blowing him away and not having issues with either spacers or f&f? I was really commenting on op 'not sweating' small details like this on a $120 knife since its doesn't approach the quality of a $500+ knive. For me-the difference between a $50 'okay' knife and a $120 Benchmade would not be in the basic f&f but would be in how much more AMAZING the $120 BM would (or should) feel to handle, use, and abuse even. I would expect the materials to be top of the line and expect every single part on the knife that is working to work flawlessly. On a $50 knife I would expect ALL of the same except I may not expect to be blown away by anything in particular about it. On a $500 and up knife I would expect ALL of the aforementioned PLUS I would expect unique qualities like hand made or hand built and limited production runs if not extremely small or even one off production with EXTREME attention to minute detail. But your right in that I am surprised if there is a general consensus here that knifes in the $120 range might have initial 'set-up' or minor detail issues that are just 'par-for-the-course' in the blade fanatic world.
 
Dabakr said:
I have to chime in here as both a new poster and someone new to the higher-end knife scene. First-I should say I am a professional woodworker who is very familiar with expensive Japanese/Swiss and a few hand made American blade and steel edge tools. I have always loved pocket knifes but never spent much more then $30 on any except maybe my 10yr old 'Leek'. However-i find your attitude that you don't really expect that much perfection from a 'mere' $120 pocket knife to be pretty cavalier. Maybe your independently wealthy or maybe-I just have NO CLUE what a $500+ knife looks and feels like? But I have to say that if I am spending more then $75 on ANY blade tool that isn't attached to an electric motor I darn well WOULD expect it to be perfect out of the box. $30? Okay-I can see not getting too worked up about that-even though my crkt and kershaw are perfect-if ordinary. But even if there are incredible $500 knives out there I still think $120 is a good chunk of change to spend on a production line blade. Sorry if I sound harsh but I guess I'm just a little shocked at what I should expect from a $500 knife if I shouldnt expect perfect f&f from a $120 knife. I am REALLY going to have to go and actually handle some of these expensive blades so I know what guys like you are talking about. Or am I out of line? Is it really considered 'no big deal' if a $120 BM to have f&f and/or slight adj. issues when new? I am very interested in the answer as I would like to know BEFORE I actually catch the 'addiction' to a brand like BM or the other top 2 mass-production makers

Since I am about to purchase my first +$100 blade and I think its going to be a BM I am pretty concerned if I am not going to get a pretty perfect piece of steel for that money. (And I do have a large collection of vintage mid to high-end watches and vintage dupont and dunhill lighters so its not like I can't appreciate quality. But a $175 Dupont lighter is guaranteed to have a perfect f&f as is an old Omega or Rolex.
Click to expand...

I've had "The Fever" for a very long time however I could NOT agree with you more. For those who are saying that it's a comparison between price points I say that it's better to measure this in terms of hours.

At $10 per hour, not an unusual salary for countless people, a person would have to work 12 hours. If you're going to ask me to exchange 12 hours OF MY LIFE for a Bench Made, or any other premium knife, it had better be like King Arthur's Excalibur with the lady in the lake included. Reason being that money doesn't grow on trees and if I'm going to give you 12 hours of my life AWAY FROM MY FAMILY then you, as the manufacturer had better deliver and there's no amount of self deception or rationalization that is going to explain imperfections away.

NF VI I'm sorry if this sounds like I singled you out, I assure you that I hadn't and I don't mean anything towards you or anyone else with the words I used in this post.

We, the obsessed, love to rationalize and love to deceive ourselves that this or that is OK when in reality, if we are to look reality in the face, it really isn't OK. A folder pocket knife is not a necessity, it's a bit of a luxury and the people making these knives had better remember that because if they start to depend on our self deceptions and rationalizations too much they are going to wake up one morning without a customer base because eventually we, the obsessed, do wake up.
 
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No worries, it's good to hash out thoughts on these things, I think the 710 I have is the most expensive tool I own, and if I'm too easy on the manufacturers I should figure that out.

I just bought the same knife, it does blow me away. But my expectation is that I receive a mechanically and functionally perfect knife, not that they have someone sit there for two days and break it in for me.

It's 12 hours. No Benchmade is worth that amount of labor, 120 hours, I definitely agree with you guys there. What I mean when I say it's a price point difference, is that a production knife is not going to receive the same aftercare that a custom knife will. The difference in cost between a typical Benchmade and the typical CRKT or Kershaw their price is being compared against just isn't as large as it's being made out to be. Forty bucks is to me absolutely worth it to get the specific materials and designs of the Benchmades I would decide to spend money on.

It's still a production knife though, the Axis and G10 combination probably needs to be worked in a little bit, and that's a more than acceptable compromise to me. What you get in return is a better fitted knife than you could otherwise have with the same amount of finishing work, and less cost than you'd have to pay if the factory were to work the action a few hundred times for you to break it in.

I just don't see the cause for unhappiness over particles of either G10 scrapings or manufacturing residue. They don't affect the function at all, are easy to wipe off or dislodge, and stop showing up quickly. I do wish the backspacer on mine was more flush with the liners and scales, it's really the single place on the entire knife that feels less than satisfactory. The rest is great though.
 
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I think we actually have pretty similar expectations, I'm just giving mine a more gradual slope. I plan on asking Benchmade if they can get it flush whenever I send it in for warranty work, but it isn't significant enough to notice unless I'm looking for it.
 
Just like everything else in the world; for a premium product you're gonna pay a premium price. Seriously everything, if you go to the top of the line, is ridiculously priced. Pens? you bet. Watches? Of course, Rolexs. Mountain bikes, fishing reels, ice skates, hockey sticks, shoes, metal detectors, you get what I mean. It's just the nature of things. We all just happen to choose knives.
 
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