New s30v Millie

brownie0486

brownie0486

Joined
Apr 6, 2003
Messages
1,913
Received the two Millies in s30v last night. One for a customer who is upgrading his from 440v and one for myself as an upgrade over the 440v I had. Sold the 440v for 100.00 and picked the new ones up for the same price at dealer cost.

Right away I could tell the s30v had a better edge on it from the factory than I had been able to get on the 440v [ thats why the customer was upgrading as well ].

These two came with torx pivot and torx screws on the handle. No blade play laterally and the pivots are "tight" preventing the blade from opening accidently, though they fly open when you want them to.

I "broke" the thumb serrations on the spine as I thought they were sharp enough to do unnecessary damage to the inside of the pockets during deployment, touched the edges to the white ceramics on the 204 kit and the edge is outstandingly sharp with only a few passes on both knives. Much sharper than the 440v could get at anytime.

Glad I upgraded to the new Millie. If you have a 440v model and are not happy with not being able to get it as sharp as you think you can, I'd suggest upgrading to the new model in s30v.

It also appears that the g-10 handles have a better "gripping" feel to them than the older models. I noticed on these new ones that the striations from cutting the g-10 are done so that the knife in the hand allows the "grain" to run perpendicular to the potential slipping of the hand down onto the blade.

The g-10 consequently "feels" courser in the hand, but not rough.

Overall, I'm happier with this one than the other Millies I've had over the years in various blade steels.

Brownie
 
I also like the thicker g-10 on the new millie better also, fills the hand better ! The S30V gets MUCH sharper than the 440V, IMO. Great knife
 
Brownie, regarding the tight pivot: I thought that a tight pivot is the reason that my Military is so hard to open. When I took the tension off the blade by thumbing the liner all the way to the side, the blade moved freely - the blade pivot is actually pretty loose. It turns out that the liner is bent so far over that it is exerting a lot of force on the blade; this pressure on the blade is what is making my new Millie more difficult to open than my old one in 440V. Also, that's why my Millie opens and locks with a loud "snap" and why the liner is so difficult to disengage.

I'd be interested to know if this is the case with yours (or anyone else's), or if mine is the exception.
 
Mine hasn't left my pocket since I got it. I don't know what it is about this knife... It's just right in every way. Light yet solid and Godawful sharp. Someone on these forums once referred to its design as a "formula one concept" and I think that really sums it up.
 
Klesk, that is the design flaw of the liner and frame lock. The lock bar in in constant pressure contact with the blade.

The later generations of lock such as the Benchmade Axis ( which is a fav of mine ) has much less pressure on the blade, althought the Spydie ball bearing lock would be more interesting as the pressure contact area is mucg smaller than the Axis lock.
 
Klesk :

I checked mine by thumbing the liner out of the way and looking at the free swing of the blade without the force of the liner against it.

The pivot torx screw is tight enough to prevent the blade from falling of it's own weight. It's not the liner thats holding the knife back on mine, it's the tightness of the pivot screw.

This can easily be remedied but I like it tight as there is no lateral blade play with the tight pivot torx. It's new and they break in nicely, I've probably popped the knife open 300 times in the last two days and it's already better and will continue to get better over the next few weeks.

The design flaw of the linerlock isn't in the lockbar and constant heavy pressure on the blade to my thinking, it's biggest design flaw is that the linerlock may fail due to lateral stresses or wear of the lockbar, stop pin or any other number of small things that can turn the design into an accident waiting to happen.

It's out in a hurry, but "stiff" compared tothe 440v I sold to upgrade to the s30v model. Time will remedy this situation and I think another couple of weeks of popping it will "break" it in nicely, smoothing the action, mating the parts through wear, etc.

Then it will be "lightening" fast like the older model I dumped for this one.

I spinewhack this knife every morning and several times during the day as I'm popping it open often enough and want to make sure the linerlock is continuing to mate properly and not be a problem child for me after breakin. It's passed so far, and the testing will continue daily as long as I choose to carry it.

BTW--The Chinook is also along for the ride daily in the event I need a crowbar.

Brownie
 
Thanks for the input guys. I own many, many liner locks, and I understand the tradeoffs associtated with this design, but this Military is the only one with this problem. The liner is bent so far over that I assume that I would have difficulty reassembling the knife if I had to take it down for some reason.

As I mentioned, my old Military was not like this - I wonder if this is a lawyer thing?
 
Hi Klesk. If you have a problem with a Spyderco knife, why not contact Spyderco? I'm sure they can solve your problem.

sal
 
Mine as on it's way back to me... had SC_Rebel(Ron) do custom work for me and put a glowring in the spacer. Will be nice to get it back in my pocket after a month and some.
 
Thanks for the offer, Sal, but my comments were more of an observation, rather than a complaint. The knife is a little hard to open, but I like the way the liner snaps into place.

On a side note, this is one of the reasons that I buy so many Spydercos (and MODs) - terrific, personal customer service. I had a Spyderco go in for service, for a problem that was my fault, and Spyderco fixed the knife at no charge, didn't even charge me for shipping.
 
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