The compression lock is a very good lock. I'd rate it as both stronger and more reliable than a typical liner lock, however in my experience this lock, particularly the thinner ones are just as prone to developing evidence of excessive wear and quickly at times. Usually the evidence of wear is first noticed with vertical blade play and or excess lock travel. It seems to me that the thinner compression locks may actually wear faster than a thin liner lock because I think under extreme loads the lock takes a lot more stress on the compression style lock due to the nature of the leverage of the longer handles on most Spydercos and also because both the blade stop and the blade are harder than the lock itself and you have the stop pin hitting the lock on one side and the blade hitting it on the other so in effect you have two wear points on this lock as opposed to one on a typical liner locking folder which leads to double the chance of wearing prematurely. Needless to say when something has to give guess which part of the system it will be. If the blade is 60 Rockwell hardness, and the lock is at 45 Rockwell and the stop pin to 50 Rockwell hardness its the lock that will suffer the most.
I'm planning to turn one of these Para Military folders into a frame lock in the future that I happen to own and the thought occurred to me to do this once the lock wears. I figured that would be a while. I have not really used this knife hard or that much but the lock has moved out from just engaging to the thickness of the liner to about 5/8ths of the way across the blade contact on its way to the opposite side now and all just from light use. I must admit I'm a bit shocked at how quickly it has worn. The good news is that I think this style lock is far more reliable than a typical liner lock is even when the typical Walker style lock is solid with no play and the compression lock has a little play. Overall for strength I believe you'd see the stop pin rip out of the folder before the compression lock would give out. I can't say I have the means to prove that but its my guess anyway. Sal would be the one to ask on that. I have seen that the compression lock can defeat if the lock does not travel out far enough but its always on new folders so as I always caution with a brand new liner lock right out of the box, its worth some caution until it breaks in.
I may toy with the idea of leaving the original compression lock on it functioning just as it came from the factory and then simply add a .135 frame lock to it as well. I've thought to call it the Para Military
"Double Take" and look forward to getting to it. Unfortunately my dance cart has been so full as of late with all this stuff I have to do for customers that I can't do what I'd like to do for myself until this work load is out of here.
Here in the last three weeks I've been knocking out a record amount of referral work in the way of repairs for Kabar. Its gotten so backlogged I've started referring a lot of work to my circle of friends doing a lot of these same things seeking some help to cover it all. Once I get all caught up I expect to be able to get to some forum jobs here as well and then of course my own Para Military project among others. Just pop in now and then and check. I hope to be caught up fully by April.
Thanks for asking.
STR
I loved the Manix's handle ergo's, but the huge blade profile turned me right off. I wish it had the same blade profile of the Para.