New toy...

[Christian]

I have now in my hot little hands a Benchmade Griptilian 551 in 154CM. Been playing with it for the last couple of hours, and have some positive (and one not so positive) things to say about it.

First of, it feels great in the hand. Good heft, feels really solid. Second, it looks really nice. Third, it opens sweetly. Either with the thumbstuds, or by holding the Axis bar back and flicking the wrist.

Now to the not so positive. Is it so hard to put a decent edge on a Benchmade product? How about even thinning their angle out so the user can put their own edge on? I think that they use a thick edge, but I have no way of measuring this. Bear in mind, this makes the third Benchmade product I have owned, and none of them had a usable edge. All of them had (or will have to be) been reprofiled by me to be usable. (Maybe I just got unlucky three times- it's possible.)

Anyways, I'm not slamming Benchmade in any way. I am 90% satisified with this knife- the other 10% will have to wait until my DMT diafold arrives and I can sharpen this beast properly. Thanks for reading.

 

[futz]

Now to the not so positive. Is it so hard to put a decent edge on a Benchmade product? How about even thinning their angle out so the user can put their own edge on? I think that they use a thick edge, but I have no way of measuring this. Bear in mind, this makes the third Benchmade product I have owned, and none of them had a usable edge. All of them had (or will have to be) been reprofiled by me to be usable. (Maybe I just got unlucky three times- it's possible.)

Anyways, I'm not slamming Benchmade in any way. I am 90% satisified with this knife- the other 10% will have to wait until my DMT diafold arrives and I can sharpen this beast properly. Thanks for reading.

Benchmade knives are great - good materials, good designs, excellent fit and finish - but almost every one I've ever bought has needed to be immediately re-profiled and sharpened right out of the box. They seem to almost always ship dull, badly profiled knives - obtuse, mismatched bevels and even completely unsharpened in many cases.

Meh... Doesn't bother me all that much. Sharpening isn't difficult. Re-profiling is a bit of a chore, but not so bad if you have decent tools.