New 2017 Benchmades....

[-Corey-]

The guy in this video (Hans with BM) claims it takes 40 minutes of machining to make the handle. It's around the 3:50-4:00 mark where he says it. Still doesn't make the price any easier for me to swallow though.

[video=youtube;UPme3kENiJE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPme3kENiJE[/video]

 

[Der W.]

The guy in this video (Hans with BM) claims it takes 40 minutes of machining to make the handle. It's around the 3:50-4:00 mark where he says it. Still doesn't make the price any easier for me to swallow though.

[video=youtube;UPme3kENiJE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPme3kENiJE[/video]

He also said it's on ball bearing washers.
To me, that's a turn-off. Because every ball in those washers is one additional part that can break.
Why they are overcomplicating such a, in it's core, simplistic design escapes me.
Furthermore, why all-of-a-sudden they decided to crown the spine is beyond me. This knife would have a flat back with an flat black on the thumb rest area on the blade. now the transition is not smooth because of it.

it would have been one of the a designs i consider perfect (another one would be the sebenza. Fun fact: even an inlaid sebenza will be much cheaper than this knife here in germany ).


Another point is the cost.
without ball bearing washers, the milled ti clip and the crowned spine this knife would be much cheaper.
Everyone loves the design but nobody want's to spend Sebenza-money on a Benchmade.

This knife could have been the next benchmade icon, like the 940 or the 710.

 

[-Corey-]

I don't see it being a big seller with that kinda price tag, so it probably won't be around long. It's not quite exclusive enough for the gold class market and BM quality isn't on par with CRK, so I don't think there will be a bunch of people buying it for edc. I could be totally wrong, but I think the retailers will have trouble just getting rid of all the 1st production labeled knives, so they may never even get past that stage. Maybe that would force the price to come down if that happened. Then again, it may turn into a highly sought after collectible if they discontinue it early, who knows.

 

[SpyderPhreak]

The guy in this video (Hans with BM) claims it takes 40 minutes of machining to make the handle. It's around the 3:50-4:00 mark where he says it. Still doesn't make the price any easier for me to swallow though.

[video=youtube;UPme3kENiJE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPme3kENiJE[/video]

Thanks for that! :thumbup: 40 minutes seems reasonable to me knowing what I know. However, that's a straight 40 minutes of machine time. I still bet that a similar two-piece metal handle (like the 940/943) would have at least the same amount of machine time if made in the same material, especially if you consider set-up time. A wash at best, and likely less wasted material (swarf) for the one-piece.

He also said it's on ball bearing washers.
To me, that's a turn-off. Because every ball in those washers is one additional part that can break.
Why they are overcomplicating such a, in it's core, simplistic design escapes me.
Furthermore, why all-of-a-sudden they decided to crown the spine is beyond me. This knife would have a flat back with an flat black on the thumb rest area on the blade. now the transition is not smooth because of it.

it would have been one of the a designs i consider perfect (another one would be the sebenza. Fun fact: even an inlaid sebenza will be much cheaper than this knife here in germany ).


Another point is the cost.
without ball bearing washers, the milled ti clip and the crowned spine this knife would be much cheaper.
Everyone loves the design but nobody want's to spend Sebenza-money on a Benchmade.

This knife could have been the next benchmade icon, like the 940 or the 710.

Well, at least it has bearings for that price tag. Still, I agree with you that if you swapped the bearings for standard phosphor bronze washers and used a standard clip, the price tag would be much more reasonable. Agree 100% with your last comment. :grumpy: What could have been...

I don't see it being a big seller with that kinda price tag, so it probably won't be around long. It's not quite exclusive enough for the gold class market and BM quality isn't on par with CRK, so I don't think there will be a bunch of people buying it for edc. I could be totally wrong, but I think the retailers will have trouble just getting rid of all the 1st production labeled knives, so they may never even get past that stage. Maybe that would force the price to come down if that happened. Then again, it may turn into a highly sought after collectible if they discontinue it early, who knows.

Agreed with pretty much everything you said. Unfortunately, this would be an excellent modern upgrade to the 94x series, if only the price wasn't so insane. Maybe BM is watching this forum and might take our comments to heart.... :foot:

 

[Cypress]

I can't wait for ball bearing pivots to run their course in the marketing department. I have the 765 on bearings, and they aren't any smoother than the normal bronze joints BM sends. The realistic downside to the the bearings is that the tiniest amount of debris can make them feel like garbage. I've disassembled my 765 twice now to clean a comically-small amount of lint out of the tiny bearings and races. I love the knife, but the bearings make for more maintenance on my end than a normal washer setup.

 

[SpyderPhreak]

I like the bearings I have on my ZT's. Never had an issue with them, even on my frequently-carried 0560, but I can see where it could be an issue. I can't wait until we see more of a fully-sealed type of thrust bearing used that becomes essentially zero-maintenance, versus the mostly open-caged bearings currently used by most everyone.

 

[-Corey-]

I just had to take down my ZT 450 to clean out the bearings yesterday, let a buddy borrow it to cut a steak and he must've got some gunk up in there. I've never had an issue with the action on bronze washers, they open and close just as smooth as any of my bearing knives. The only plus I can see for the bearings is that you can get rid of that minute amount of blade play, that seems to bother some people, without making the action stiffer. I don't mind that little bit of play, so I prefer the simplicity of the standard bronze washers.

 

[mjpgolf1]

Awesome job Benchmade. A bunch of plastic handles and another titanium knife that you can charge double of what it's actually worth that will properly come with off center blade and sloppy action.

Seriously, what's the deal with these plastic handles? G10 is extremely affordable and takes the feel of a knife to a whole new level for not a lot more cost. So why wouldn't they do this? These plastic knives that are upwards of $200 or even just $100 at this point is just plain out ridiculous and they need to get with it here.

 

["Havoc"]

Honestly I'm underwhelmed too. The only thing I find enjoyable is the new (actually old) spring for the Axis lock on the 781. I say old because this idea has been in the Benchmade drawing board for some time. They just never brought it fruition till now. At least they are trying something new with the lock instead of the Omega spring.

I will say that hands down I still like my 940-1 with a deep carry clip above all others and the s90v blade is the real deal.

One thing I do on all my axis locks, even the 940-1, is I take some jewelrs rouge and my dremal with a soft polishing bit and polish the back tang of the blade where it contacts the axis and also polish inside of axis lock. Takes less than 5 minutes and the knife is buttery smooth. Use some brasso on the washers with a paper towel on flat surface.

My 940-1 has Zero side-to-side play and just wonderful.

Back to the 781, for that price you could get into a Chris Reeve Sebenza or Inkosi and fit and finish will be much better.
Or a bunch of other knives at that price point.

Bottom line, the 781 is Going to be a hard sell for Benchmade

 

[mqqn]

I would think assembling the 781 would be like building a ship in a bottle.

The Griptilian is fiddly enough, let alone trying to assemble it in situ.

BM makes great quality knives, but nothing compelling me to go for my wallet.

best

mqqn

 

[Max Archer]

I have a background in high-performance parts R&D and prototyping. (Not a machinist but worked very closely with them.) I find the 40+ minute estimate on those handles totally believable. Any Ti integral is a real achievement, especially because of how hard it is to mill out the center slot. (You need small but long tooling and that's a machinist's worst nightmare.)

I also totally get why they went with a bearing pivot, it's because it gives them just enough wiggle room to have a good action with slight variations in tolerances. It's much harder to get just the right spacing between the handles on an integral because you're dealing with a single large part that has to be milled "blind" and you're always going to be fighting your tooling to get it just right, as opposed to a traditional multi-piece design where you can use short rigid tooling and fixturing to do the job.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I also think this is the first AXIS on bearings, isn't it? That's an achievement in and of itself.

Oh, not that I'd spend $500 on the thing though, when there are so many other options out there.

 

[loonybin]

Honestly my very first impressions of a few new knives:
570 = Presidio 2.0

They do actually call it the Presidio II.

The 4400 is a straight up copy of the HK Patrol auto.
The rest looks like they are trying to get artsy and keep up with ZT and Kizers designs..

4400 is the HK Patrol
4600 Phaeton is the HK Turmoil with s30v and different cosmetic design on the handle
4700 is the HK Epidemic with improvements.

on the autos.....so they cut off the deal with hks and put their own logos on the same knives and i'm sure raised the prices......not impressed so far with what is ee across the board, and i heard the stryker is gone...and that was one of my all time benchmade favorites. very disappointing turn going on this year......so be it.

They did some cosmetic changes to the HK autos and changed from D2 to s30v. The black blades are now DLC instead of their BK coating (the only real improvement they made to them!) And raised the price $50. And put it under the MAP enforcement, which results in about a $100 price increase for the end consumer for at least the 4600. The Turmoil sold on most sites for $199/$209, and the 4600 sells for $297/$314.

I like that the Presidio is not completely gone, but I doubt that changing the machining on the handle made it any better, it was already really good. Everything else is just OK. Brad.

The Presidio II is more than just a re-handled 520. The blade is longer. The 520 had a 3.4" blade, the 570 has a 3.7" blade. Unfortunately, it is still an aluminum handle, which sucks in the winter around here.

No one seems to be talking about the new otf's, I think the 4600 looks nice. I was kinda saving up to a HK turmoil though, there's still a couple at a local store but I don't think they'll be there for long.

Get one while you can! The 4600 will be almost $100 more.

The Bali, the Phaeton OTF, and the LE Infidel are on my list. Sorry you all seem disappointed, I am happy as hell that Benchmade will only cost me about a grand this year.

Get a HK Turmoil as soon as you can. The Phaeton is just the rebranded Turmoil with s30v instead of D2 and different cosmetics.

I'm wondering what the fan-boys over at the Benchmade Forum think of all this. They're usually so undyingly loyal to BM but we're seeing good old knives gone, new knives that are re-hashes or dull (at least figuratively), and big price jumps all at once. Could be too much to take even for those dudes.

Most of us aren't impressed, but understand that the targeted demographic will be -- the non-knife-nuts who just want a good knife and don't get into debates about whether D2 is better than s30v or which locking mechanism has a bazillion pound breaking point. I may try out the 590 at some point, but only when they hit the secondary market.

 

[Firestrike]

@Looneybin, good advice but I like the s30v and Butterfly logo. It is worth a few extra bucks.

Sent from my SCH-S968C using Tapatalk

 

[mlmcasual]

I watched the 2017 lineup video.. Seriously, was this supposed to be a an early April Fools joke??

A rubberized "gerbified" plastic boring barrage... Some redone autos that are not even legal in my state and others.. and some overpriced safe queen gold class. What in the literal F? Benchmade for thier 30th aniv. come out with only ONE EDC knife and to add insult, it's a gerbified plastic rehash of a barrage??? How can a company the size of Benchmade and their reputation seriously only come out with ONE EDC model? Did I miss something? Because this looks more like a joke then a lineup. I got my start into knife collecting with Benchmade EDC's so it's not a very warm fuzzy fealing when they say "this represents where are going into the future" and only have ONE EDC, and a bunch of gold class and autos some of us can't even buy. what a shame.

Pretty sad when Kershaw can come out with over a dozen EDC new nice designs and g10 at 50$ and benchmade only comes out with ONE rubber rehash.. just ...wow..

 

[loonybin]

@Looneybin, good advice but I like the s30v and Butterfly logo. It is worth a few extra bucks.

Sent from my SCH-S968C using Tapatalk

Is it worth $100 more? The Turmoil (if you can find it) is $209 with the black blade, $199 with the satin. The rebranded s30v version is $297/$314.

 

[loonybin]

How can a company the size of Benchmade and their reputation seriously only come out with ONE EDC model? Did I miss something? Because this looks more like a joke then a lineup. I got my start into knife collecting with Benchmade EDC's so it's not a very warm fuzzy fealing when they say "this represents where are going into the future" and only have ONE EDC, and a bunch of gold class and autos some of us can't even buy. what a shame.

Pretty sad when Kershaw can come out with over a dozen EDC new nice designs and g10 at 50$ and benchmade only comes out with ONE rubber rehash.. just ...wow..

Ummm... maybe math is different where you're from, but 3 different EDC models:
560 Ritter-esque blade
570 Presidio II (that's what they're actually calling it) with aluminum handles
590 doesn't really look like a Barrage, but I guess Axis Assist means it's a Barrage rehash.

I'm not too interested in them until they hit the secondary market, so we'll see how well the Versaflex holds up. They've been using it on a couple fixed blades for a while (167 and 169 Protagonist) and I have yet to hear any reports of early breakdown of the material.

 

[Firestrike]

Is it worth $100 more? The Turmoil (if you can find it) is $209 with the black blade, $199 with the satin. The rebranded s30v version is $297/$314.

Yep...D2 is not my preferred steel for an OTF.

Sent from my SCH-S968C using Tapatalk

 

[Max Archer]

I'm really interested to see how the Versaflex holds up too. I'm not sure the fixed blades are a good indication, because most of the wear on a folder handle is going to come from constantly going in and out of a pocket.

Speaking of that, I'm also worried that it's going to be "sticky" and make the knives hard to get in and out. I've had rubberized phone cases that loved to turn my pocket inside out when I took my phone out, and it was super annoying.

 

[mlmcasual]

So this "new direction" for benchmade is to make rubber handles for their edc line and absurd priced milled handles on REHASHES for thier premiums/gold line? This can't be for real.
There is a reason G10 has been and still is THE premium goto material. But apparently all that goes out the window and Rubber is the new G10. And aluminum scales? (facepalm) you can't be serious.
G10 is superior to aluminum in every way.
"Rubberized" and aluminum and durable high end do not belong in the same sentence when talking knives unless in the context of a joke.

 

[SpyderPhreak]

I would think assembling the 781 would be like building a ship in a bottle.

The Griptilian is fiddly enough, let alone trying to assemble it in situ.

BM makes great quality knives, but nothing compelling me to go for my wallet.

best

mqqn

That's the thing, with the different Axis spring set-up, I don't think it would be very fiddly at all to assemble. The Axis bar (with one lug already attached) inserts from the side through the slot, then th second lug is attached. The coilspring rod assembly could be mostly built up outside the knife, then set into the slot and compressed while the two screws are threaded in. Finally, the blade and bearings are slid into the knife while being held together and affixed into place with the pivot screw. Lastly, the pocket clip is attached. Seems easier to me than a Grip. Dunno.

I have a background in high-performance parts R&D and prototyping. (Not a machinist but worked very closely with them.) I find the 40+ minute estimate on those handles totally believable. Any Ti integral is a real achievement, especially because of how hard it is to mill out the center slot. (You need small but long tooling and that's a machinist's worst nightmare.)

I also totally get why they went with a bearing pivot, it's because it gives them just enough wiggle room to have a good action with slight variations in tolerances. It's much harder to get just the right spacing between the handles on an integral because you're dealing with a single large part that has to be milled "blind" and you're always going to be fighting your tooling to get it just right, as opposed to a traditional multi-piece design where you can use short rigid tooling and fixturing to do the job.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I also think this is the first AXIS on bearings, isn't it? That's an achievement in and of itself.

Oh, not that I'd spend $500 on the thing though, when there are so many other options out there.

Some good points, but based on my experience with small machined parts for our extremely high-precision wind tunnel models, I don't think it would be too hard to machine that slot to a 0.001" tolerance with standard machinery. The slot wouldn't be all that deep for such a small handle (I'm thinking 94x in size from the looks), and a carbide slotting wheel could maybe even be used which would likely make it a no-brainer. I'm not saying it's trivial, but far from impossible with modern CNC equipment.