Well the results are in and I must admit I am quite surpised at the results.
I will go in order of how the tests were performed.
First the arm shaving test.
Spyderco Endura Pass (Nice)
Benchmade Ascent Pass (Good)
Junglee Marshall Pass (humm)
Gerber E-Z Pass (Not bad)
Cold Steel Pass (Nice)
Taiwan POS Fail (
)
The Cardboard test.
I tested these knives by cutting a 25" piece 250 test cardboard. The cardboard was laid on a table and pushed 2" out and a 1" strip was cut off from the full 25" length. I continued cutting until the knife either made the cardboard buckle under or simply became too difficult to pull through without resorting to lots of pressure. This is the test which can come under scrutiny but I tried to be as fair as possible and use the same force.
Spyderco Endura 4.8 (ATS-55)
Benchmade Ascent 5.5 (ATS-34)
Junglee Marshall 1.8 (AUS-10)
Gerber E-Z Pass 5.1 (ATS-34)
Cold Steel Pass 4.2 (AUS-8)
Taiwan POS
Could not even start a cut. (Who the hell knows 420J2 maybe classic Rostfrei)
The numbers are the number of pieces successfully cut. 4.8 means I went through nearly 5 pieces at 25" each and so forth. In this test it appears as though ATS-34 won. Both the Benchmade and the Gerber were ATS-34.
A.T. Barr slap the crap out of the knife test. Now this is where it got interesting! Plus this test can be duplicated by forum members and I would be interested if your results are similar to mine.
Spyderco Endura Pass (Nice)
Benchmade Ascent Fail (and not very hard either)
Junglee Marshall Pass (Only liner lock in the bunch)
Gerber E-Z Fail (the lock looks like they are rounded off or smoothed. Not good for a lock)
Cold Steel Pass (Nice, Damn solid)
Taiwan POS Pass (I was amazed!)
Benchmade fails the Barr test.
Well as you can see the Gerber and Benchmade failed this test. I was very surprised at the Benchmade's failure but expected the Gerber as I have heard this before. We achieved the same results on the second test after the 30Lb lock test so no need to post them again.
Drop test. I held the knives at a 36" height and let the weight of the knife carry it to the floor which was solid concrete.
Spyderco Endura Pass (Nice)
Benchmade Ascent Pass (Good)
Junglee Marshall Pass (humm a very slight bend)
Gerber E-Z Pass (Not bad)
Cold Steel Pass (Nice)
Taiwan POS Fail (
) Tip was badly bent.
Drop was from 36" and simply the weight of the knife was used.
Junglee on floor after test.
After testing, the floor had several chips.
The 30Lbs on the lanyard hole test.
The Gerber did not have a lanyard hole so we could not test it here.
Spyderco Endura Pass (Nice, did not even budge)
Benchmade Ascent Pass (Same as Spyderco which is funny after failing the Barr test)
Junglee Marshall Pass (major stress bending)
Gerber E-Z Could not test
Cold Steel Pass (Nice, and again same as Spydie and BM)
Taiwan POS Pass (Thought it was going to fly apart but it held up although showing major stress)
Pic of the Benchmade. As you can see, after the weight was applied, there is virtually no bending at the blade pivot juncture.
Conclusion:
Well all the knives functioned fairly well. The smooth operator was the Benchmade as far as ease of opening but the Spyderco and Cold Steel were hot on it's heals. The Gerber and the Junglee were pretty good and the POS was not too bad for a $1.95 knife. Afer testing, the POS and the Junglee now exhibit side blade play. Not too bad but you knife nuts would notice it. The other knives held up just fine even though 2 failed the A.T. Barr test.
The overall winner was......
A tie between the Cold Steel and the Spyderco.
After testing was done, Spark and I really whacked the crap out of both of these knives trying to get them to fail the Barr test. Neither showed any signs of wanting to let go of their locks. In fact while whacking the knives, you could actually feel how solid they were. If the Benchmade had not failed the Barr test it would have won hands down.
Well that's it the first test is over so look for them in the "For Sale" board.
The two big things to come out of this (for me) were 1. Man am I ever disappointed in my SOCOMs! Everything else about the knife is top notch, but they fail everytime with the slighest whack. 2. I've decided that this test is valid in the real world (even though I've never had one fail on me). Some of you might already know I'm nuts about having my knives super sharp, and I realized that if one of those blades closed on my fingers I'd have some nasty cuts. If it closed hard, I wouldn't be surprised if it took one of them off. I'm not going to throw out my MTs but I'll only trust certain liner locks for any hard use, and even then...
