Kershaw knockout M390 thoughts

First time posting, but long time lurking here. Love the look of the Knockout M390 and after seeing everyone here getting one I had to order mine. I'm looking forward to receiving it, and seeing how it compares to my Link in M390.

Also, @whitty, your presence here is a part of the reason why I decided to purchase from USA Made Blade and go with the Knockout M390 exclusive. It's nice to see a Distributor that's active in the online community.
 
I received my Knockout M390 today, and it's a beauty. Love the look of the knife, the weight and size, the blue aluminum scales with American flag, stonewashed blade, and the deep carry clip. This is the 6th Kershaw I've purchased in the past 4 months, and the 2nd in M390 steel (I also have the Link M390). Unfortunately, as others have experienced, my knife didn't come very sharp out of the box either. It took 3 tries for me to even get it to bite into a piece of computer paper. Once it did it sliced and then tore, unable to consistently slice the paper. I stropped it with a little success, but that wasn't enough. I did spend about an hour sharpening it, and now it's slicing paper consistently and is hair shaving sharp. The only other thing I have noticed is that the blade is not centered perfectly. I'd say it's about 55/45 or so off center, not enough to worry about and nothing that can't be easily adjusted. However, this is the first time I've noticed these issues with the 6 knives I've purchased from Kershaw.

Compared to the Link, the Knockout is slightly larger in length and blade size, but is thinner and lighter. I like the weight of the knife in my pocket. Overall, I really like the knife, and think it is well worth the money paid for M390 steel.
 
My blade just barely shaved my hair, so it is perfectly sharp. Blade was centered perfectly and frame lock was exactly at 50%. But the back spacer wasn't aligned perfectly so I had to fix that.
 
M390 is a really tough material i would bet you could do a little sharpening, with a good stone yourself and have it nice and sharp.
 
Bad Rattle said:
The knife doesn't have a detent hole. Not something you'd want to de-assist. I swapped in Shallot standoffs on mine tho:D
Click to expand...
I see that my knife has detent ball on frame lock. Which means you could drill hole in blade to make detent work, so you could theoretically de-assist the knife.
I am actually thinking of making very small detent hole in blade to increase detent. I would use it together with my torsion bar.
 
Wow my torsion bar just broke. I was playing with it - closing and opening it. And it just snapped. I don't think I have opened it more than 300 times altogether. Time to test this famous customer service
 
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