Do not blame chinese manufacuring. Too low production cost and bad enginering cause failure, not chinese manufacturing.
^^ This ^^
There a lot of ways to reduce costs. But IMO, all Buck lock backs should be roughly as safe and fail proof as the 110. I can deal with ugly handles (like the Bucklite Max) and could even cope with a handle busting. But I expect the lock to hold. Here's why...
sitflyer said:
A lock is only a safety device, and ANY safety device can be made to fail if one tries hard enough...
This is entirely reasonable advice but as a matter of practice, I don't treat my Opinels or Buck lock backs as folding knives with safety features. I treat them as folding fixed blades. I suspect I'm not alone on that. In fact, if I didn't count on the lock mechanism to hold, I would just use a slip joint.
When I'm bend cutting limbs and brush, occasionally my knife blade binds up in the wood. When that happens with a Buck or Opinel, I free the blade with a twisting and rocking motion. I don't think this abusive in anyway but I think this is exactly the kind of motion that could cause a failure like that video showed. I also wouldn't do that with a slip joint.
mbjannusch said:
The thing is made of plastic. How much pressure is it supposed to take to get the thing fails. If you don't like it don't buy it. Buy a 110
There's a wide range of plastics and synthetics available. Some are soft and pliable and some are brittle. I suspect this failure is due to the pliability of the Bantam's plastic, just as Duane and RAZORBLADEs have noted. (I also suspect the smaller radius of movement of the shorter lockbar is a contributing factor.)
Obviously, no knife is indestructible. My Opinels have a lock system that even more secure than the Buck lockback. The blade or handle will break before the lock fails. (Search for the Traditional forum for posts by Carl aka "Jackknife" for one such story.) Those are really inexpensive knives with locks that are very secure. I have a tick less confidence in lockbacks in general, but *sense* that the Bucklite Max with its more rigid (brittle) frame would fail more like the Opinel and less like the Bantam. Outright breaking of the handle is different than the joint deforming, the lock releasing and then folding the blade against the frame.
Put a 110, Ecolite, Bucklite Max and a Bantam each in bubble wrap side by each on the display rack. How is the average customer able to know which he can trust and which one he can't? IMO, if a lockback isn't pretty darn close to the 110 in terms of the safety of the lock, it shouldn't have the Buck name on it.
no problems
