mid-sized EDC suggestions?

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Patrisage

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New to the Forums (hi ya'll!) and hoping for some advice. I'm looking for a midsized EDC with the following characteristics:

blade 3.5-4"
<4oz
fairly flat profile (certainly <1/2")
tip-up carry
liner-, frame-, or axis-lock
G10 scales preferably.
nice hard steel (D2, S30V etc) or damascus
half-serrated blade
<$150

I love my Kershaw Chill but it's a tad small and doesn't hold an edge quite as I'd like. Recently bought a BM 710D2; nearly perfect but just a but big and heavy for my EDC preferences. Current leading candidate is a BM 943 but before I spend all that $ I thought I'd ask for other suggestions....
So: what do you'll like that fits the above?
Thanks!!
 
Hmm. SOG Pentagon Elite comes to mind. Its VG-10. I'd recommend the Benchmade 530 as its very light and thin, but its only 3.25." I'll think on this. 943 is nice too.
 
Half serrated liner/frame/axis lock narrows your options. Lots of spydercos are either plain edge only, or back locks. Benchmade has lots of half serrated axis locks, but most of the midsized knives are quite hefty.

BM 943 is a great bet. lots of fans of that style
spyderco caly 3.5 is nice. I don't own one, but I have a cf/zdp caly 3 and its very nice. super slim and lightweight (misses on a couple of your criteria tho)
spyderco endura in vg10 or zdp (back lock) would meet most requirements. frn in very lightweight
Kershaw blur in carbon fiber and cpm154 would be sweet. very nice knife
BM 950 rift is sweet. tried one for a bit. lots of knife for the money.
BM 580 Barrage is light for its size. good buy too.
Kershaw Rake/JYD cb in D2 would be a great choice if you favor kershaw

Hope this helps
 
Spyderco Caly 3.5 would be my pick the only one of your criteria it misses is that its a back lock.

3.5 inch blade
Spydercos VG10 is normally right around 60 hrc
FFG
Tip up carry
lovely G10 scales they are not to rough but good enough for nice traction
weighs in at a shade over 3 ozs (amazingly light for 3.5 inch blade and G10 scales)

Unless you are going to be doing a lot of rope cutting you might want to reconsider the half serrated and go with a plain edge.
 
Thanks for all the advice! Like the 950 but I think the Osborne 943 is still leading the pack. Now to try and find one I can afford!
:)
 
I love the chill too. Have you checked out the BM 940 Osborne. The Manix 2 by Spyderco is very lightweight for its size. Endura 4 too.
 
For some reason Spyderco lines have never really appealed to me; like something a little more linear I guess...
 
I think even a standard Blur would work; The S30v Blur is a great knife and if this were for heavyish use I'd recommend that one no doubt. If you use it for what I use it for (cutting string, cable sheathing, the occasional ziptie, myself) a standard issue Blur would work nicely and you could save a few bucks in the process.

If that's not big enough, I really (though I rarely carry it for bulge reasons) like the Benchmade 581 series. Very high quality and I think the satin version was around $150. That's on the high side of what I'd consider EDC (EDC - a knife that, if it gets a scratch, I won't weep openly).

I've always been partial to Kershaw but that Spyderco Manix...that's one nice knife. I gave it a whirl a few days ago and liked a lot better than I thought I would.
 
Patrisage said:
For some reason Spyderco lines have never really appealed to me; like something a little more linear I guess...
Click to expand...

I had a Gayle Bradley, sold it, and regret it. I know what you're saying about linear and the GB has a great look when open. Kind of a 'I don't mess around' type look, not to mention carbon fiber scales. It fits most of what you're looking for except it was kind of heavy. I see myself buying / trading into another one in the near future.
 
PatrickKnight said:
Spyderco Caly 3.5 would be my pick the only one of your criteria it misses is that its a back lock.

3.5 inch blade
Spydercos VG10 is normally right around 60 hrc
FFG
Tip up carry
lovely G10 scales they are not to rough but good enough for nice traction
weighs in at a shade over 3 ozs (amazingly light for 3.5 inch blade and G10 scales)

Unless you are going to be doing a lot of rope cutting you might want to reconsider the half serrated and go with a plain edge.
Click to expand...

Its riveted together so you can't take it apart to clean/adjust AND they use an allen screw for the pivot. Caly 3.5 is a stupid knife. For the price its a rip-off considering it is lacking in features that are present on virtually every other Spyderco knife. Not sure what makes the G-10 scales "lovely" they are mediocre. The one I got had vertical blade play (not fixable) meaning the lock and blade were not machined correctly. Returning it was a no-brainer. It is the only Spyderco knife I wouldn't recommend.

BM 950 Rift would be my suggestion although you can't go wrong with the 940 or 943 either.
 
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T.L. said:
Its riveted together so you can't take it apart to clean/adjust AND they use an allen screw for the pivot. Caly 3.5 is a stupid knife. For the price its a rip-off considering it is lacking in features that are present on virtually every other Spyderco knife. Not sure what makes the G-10 scales "lovely" they are mediocre.
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This is a good opinion. Thank you for your opinion.
 
The only reason I said the S30V Blur was because of him saying he wanted D2/S30V/... I really like 14C28N, you may have to sharpen it more often than S30V (I haven't used my Blur in S30V enough to know how it holds up compared to 14C28N) but from Kershaw it comes stupid sharp, and can be sharpened well beyond that as well.

For $150, you could even buy a S30V Blur and an additional Blur in a handle color you like and Franken-Blur them and end up with two very nice knives. (I'm actually in the process of trying to decide which Blur to order to put my S30V blade on; if that smoked green didn't come with a half serrated tanto I could almost convince myself to step up and get that one. But since it is a half serrated tanto I'm probably going to go with tan, but I like the OD version also, and the purple Al spider...)
 
ibute21 said:
This is a good opinion. Thank you for your opinion.
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You got it brother. Love Spyderco but the Caly 3.5 should never have left the drawing board IMO. Not all of us can afford a compressed air gun to clean out a riveted together knife. I mean seriously the liners are skeletonized....just asking for crud to build up inside that knife.

I love how people say "Sal Glesser says he EDCs the Caly 3.5"...if he actually even said that it was to drive up sales because he knew the knife was poorly designed.
 
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T.L. said:
Not all of us can afford a compressed air gun to clean out a riveted together knife.
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For a $100 knife, I would think you can spare $7 for a can of compressed air that can be used for all your knives :confused: To the OP, I'll throw in another vote for any Emerson that catches your eye. I love that wave :)
 
Good post.

bpeezer said:
For a $100 knife, I would think you can spare $7 for a can of compressed air that can be used for all your knives :confused: To the OP, I'll throw in another vote for any Emerson that catches your eye. I love that wave :)
Click to expand...
 
bpeezer said:
For a $100 knife, I would think you can spare $7 for a can of compressed air that can be used for all your knives :confused: To the OP, I'll throw in another vote for any Emerson that catches your eye. I love that wave :)
Click to expand...

Okay my bad. But does that somehow make it worth the money??? I surely don't think so.

It's a bad design relative to every other Spyderco knife. They took the Caly 3 and took away the CF scales. What is the point when you can get a Native 5, Para 2, Sage, etc. for just about the same price maybe a bit more and you get 'upgraded' steel, much smoother deployment, and the freedom to perform routine maintenance without ripping your hair out in the process.

If you like the Caly 3.5 so be it - I just think its a big fail.

And sorry to derail the thread so much, we all need to vent every once in awhile.
 
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