Medford Praetorian Stiff

lonewolf411

lonewolf411

Joined
Oct 10, 2014
Messages
147
I have looked through many different sites and really couldn't find an answer so maybe someone with a little more experience on Medford could help. I just received a praetorian G and it is a tank of a knife. Fit and finish are great on it but I have one HUGE (to me) complaint/concern about it. It is absolutely impossible to open one handed. I like to flick out my knives with one thumb or hand movement but you need two hands and a decent amount of force. This seems extremely impractical for any type of knife. Do these need time to break in? Any chance of me opening this in the future with one thumb movement. Thanks!
 
They do have a break in period, it should take a couple weeks with decent use. As far as opening one handed, you need to grip it with your fingers around the pocket clip, put your thumb at the bottom of the fuller and push out. Once it breaks the detent slide your thumb up the fuller until it is open. It's hard to get used to and takes some practice.
 
I had a Micro Praetorian that started off smooth, but after about a day it got really gritty and stiff. But then, after about 4 days or so, it was smoother than ever. So yeah, just open and close it a bunch, it should break in.
 
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe this "tank of a knife" isn't meant to be casually wrist flicked open. Also, maybe
the pivot is a little tight on it. It it doesn't loosen up in a little while maybe you might have to send it in to have it looked at, since it seems
it requires special tools to open the pivot. If you have the tools to loosen the pivot, try that, and set it to your liking. While you are at it you
might see if there is any gunk in the pivot area and in between the washers and give it a good cleaning/lubrication, that should make it smoother,
but I'm betting the pivot is just a little too tight.
Best of luck.
 
Medford's YouTube channel explains opening a Praetorian very well. I have small hands and really cannot open a nicely broken in Praetorian T with one hand, in one smooth motion. I have to hold it low toward the glass breaker, then slide my hand up toward the pivot to complete pushing the blade to locked position. That's sloppy, so I just use two hands as Greg Medford recommended. Also if you develop any squeak during the break in period, just blow out the pivot area with "canned air". Do not oil it and believe me it will break in butter smooth.
 
Just open and close it alot and it will be smooth as butter. Mine was perfect after a couple weeks. Dont oil it or anything like that. It starts out with super tight tolerences and breaks in perfect.... Like a Les Baer 1911.
Gregs knives are designed as 2 hand open and close knives.
 
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I can open the T one handed. But by G cannot be opened with one hand. The blade flexes against the Ti side, causing it to not want to open. I typically move it off the detent with my index finger and thumb, then finish the opening motion with just my thumb. Make sense?

It will break on very nice though. It took mine about two weeks to get really smooth.
 
Give it some time, don't mess with it. Greg Medford actually intends for his knives to be two hand open, two hand close, but I can open my TFF1 with one hand just fine.
 
Thanks everyone for the help! I will definitely not take it apart as I read that is an automatic warranty voider lol I will give it some time to break in and see how it goes.
 
jim skelton touched on this in one of his videos. The story he got from greg (totally paraphrasing here) is that his knives are intentionally tight so that the parts as they wear in will be the exact tolerances they need to be. Its recommended that no adjustments be made and that the user just use the knife and everything will fall into place. Every maker has a different way of making knives. Some like slip fit incase something is out of spec it can be adjusted. Some like a friction fit so everything goes together exactly the same way each time you assemble it. And others make things intentionally tight so that when the parts where its simply perfection without the need for tweaking. Nothing wrong with any way. Just different.
 
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