liner lock VS lock back is either better???

[the gimp]

I have had plenty of liners locks close on me under heavy use but never a lockback.

 

[SIFU1A]

lockback and liner lock are both good when made correctly, some of the very best fighting folders in the world are liner locks ie pat crawford, ernest emerson, bob T, etc. i dont think anyone would say the liner lock on a BM 800 or spyderco millie is not at least adequate, just to name 2. MT also makes a good liner lock, as does EKI. now a $19.95 CRKT?? another story, sometimes, CRKT does not make the best LL around, thats for sure lol, some are ok though.

i like lockbacks too but i dont like a lot of the lockback knives available, a lot seem to be FRN handled and i dont do FRN any more, but there are some spydies i do like ie the police and manix.

if its made by a quality manufacturer most any lock system is good, be it liner lock/axis lock, lock back/compression lock/frame lock/etc, really the only bad one is the REKAT rolling lock.

 

[moxie]

I guess it's just luck, but somehow I've not found an occasion requiring me to "spine whack" a knife. I think I'd use a different tool. My old scoutmaster would have yanked my "totin chip" if I ever did something like that. I've got both liner lock and lock back knives and never had one fail. I've also got non- locking folders that don't close unless you want them to, provided you don't do something unsafe, such as pull up after a downstroke through material such as cardboard. There are cheap knives out there and crappy expensive knives as well that are either designed poorly or built badly that have poor locking mechanisms of all types. Close inspection prior to purchase will reveal such a condition. Then it's caveat emptor. Safe handling is always the final factor, even with a fixed blade knife. Some of you, like me, may know about this from painful experience.

 

[Vivi]

I have a habit of tapping the spine of my knife on a cutting board or the rim of our kitchen trash can to knock food off of it before I rinse and wipe it. Maybe not the safest thing in the world to do with a folder, but that said any locking folder that can't take a light tap to the spine is a knife I don't want to use.

 

[darthsoaker]

Now for my anecdotes. I find linerlock failure to be more predictable. Generally you can see why they fail, and sometimes predict how and under what circumstances. Lockback failure is more unpredictable, and when it happens, it's usually sudden and surprising..

It almost sounds like you meant that you would expect a liner lock to fail, and not a lockback.

 

[allenC]

It almost sounds like you meant that you would expect a liner lock to fail, and not a lockback.

For myself that is somewhat true...

When I pick up a quality lock-back, I expect the lock to work.
I do a quick spine-whack-test but I really don't expect it to fail.

But when I pick up a quality liner-lock I half-expect it to fail the spine-whack because I've had other liner-locks fail.

 

[shecky]

It almost sounds like you meant that you would expect a liner lock to fail, and not a lockback.

Almost. The way I view locking knives is that they are always folding knives first and foremost, not fixed. I wouldn't trust a lock any more than I'd trust a safety on a firearm. They're backup in case of user failure. However, depending on them instead of one's knife skills is user failure.

In addition, if the average user could actually see the lockup on a lockback (or lack thereof), I suspect there would be less faith in them.

 

[Joe Talmadge]

In my view, lockbacks are inherently better than liner locks. "Better" in what way, you may ask. Better in the sense that the lockback is inherently easier to manufacture in such a way as to perform the core function of the lock, which is to keep the blade open. The liner lock looks simple and elegant, but time and experience have proven that its security is extremely dependent on the tang/lock geometry, that it is very difficult to get that geometry right even under static conditions, and that as the lock wears or the frame flexes in use the geometry changes in a way that can (and often does) compromise the lockup.

I would claim we have seen this over and over. Yes, it's true that a shabbily-made lockback and a shabbily-made liner lock will both be junk. The difference is that even a mediocre manufacturer can make very reliable lockbacks with few defects. Whereas with liner locks, I've seen high rates of failures across all sorts of manufacturers, including the very best custom makers. I'm not claiming every liner locks fails, only that the percentage of those that fail is much much higher than just about any other lock format, even if I just define the samples to include higher-end manufacturers and makers.