Paramilitary / Compression Lock

K

komondor

Joined
Jul 2, 2001
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I was looking at some basic pics of a Paramilitary and thought, 'Wow, what a sturdy, neat, practical looking little knife.' Especially the black blade model. :eek:

Then I saw a pic of the backside where the compression lock is nestled. It looked really cheap. The lock material looked like flimsy sheet metal or something. Is this an accurate assessment, or was I looking at a bad picture?

Do the compression locks look cheap or flimsy? Does anyone have a high-res, close-up shot of the compression lock on a Paramilitary?

I would be very interested in this knife if my 1st impression could be changed about the lock assembly.

BTW, my EDC for the last year or so has been a CF Police Spydie edge. Great knife!
 
Depends on whether you would consider the lock material on a quality liner lock knife to be flimsy. Nested liner and nested compression locks use thinner material than their framelock counterparts, but I would not consider the Spyderco versions of either to be flimsy myself.
 
keep in mind the compression lock does not take lateral stress ( side to side) like on a liner lock, the pressure it takes is "up and down" betwwn stop pin and the back tang of the blade. Unlike liner lock where pressure agains the lock bar can cause failure, there is no way really for compression lock to "fail " in this way. I don't know if this is clear, but pressure on the compression lock bar presses it up against the stop pin.h
 
Unfortunately your impression is accurate. The locking liner is rather thin, although lock-up on my particular Para is dead-solid. I realize that this knife is close to MBC and the lock design lends itself to using thinner materials, however that doesn't change the fact that when it comes to the locks on my knives, my opinion is "thicker is always better". For my custom folders using the Walker lock I specify liners as thick as .090", and that's titanium.
I didn't measure the liner thickness on my Para, but I'd guess it's in the .040" neighborhood (if that).
Make it in a titanium frame!!!
Overall though I'm still very happy with the Para. It's well-built, carries and handles very well, ergos are great, blade shape is awesome. If they'd just beef up the lock and change the pocket clip it'd be perfect.
 
I love the compression lock on my ParaMilitary and can't imagine how a thicker liner would do anything except make the knife heavier. Don't let the way it looks in pictures stop you from buying this knife.
 
I don't know about the specific lock in the Paramilitary, but the Compression Locks in Spyderco's MBC knives have held incredible loads before breaking, according to the Papa Spyder, whom I believe. They simply do not need to be heavier.

PT Alpha, it was my experience with a knife that had a titanium liner lock and a steel blade that the titanium liner dalled and then wore unnecessarily fast when compared to the the steel liners in my Spydies. Now, the titanium frame locks on my two CUDA MAXX knives, a 5.5" Bowie and a 7", seem to be doing just fine. They do not get the EDC usage tha the other one received, however.
 
I have to believe that if there was a problem using titanium liners and steel blades then Kit Carson, Mike Obenauf, Tom Mayo, Rick Hinderer, and 99% of the other custom folder makers would have stopped combining the two materials long ago. As it currently stands, 99% of the high-end folders I see have ti lock-bars and steel blades. Strider AR, GB, SnG, SMF, Benchmades, Emersons, Sawby's, Onions....
The fact is simple. With regards to locking liners, thicker equals stronger. When it comes to good tools, especially ones that can hurt you, overbuilt is what I like to see. And if the Para were available with a thicker liner or better yet a titanium framelock, then threads like this one would not be posted and sales of the Para would increase. Would it be slightly thicker? Probably. Slightly heavier? Probably, although ti would help. Would either of these factors keep potential Para buyers from pulling the trigger? No. They are in the market for a ParaMilitary, not a Delica. An overbuilt Para would be a better Para.
The ONLY two things I don't like about my Para are the pocket clip and the thin lock liner. The pocket clip I can change or even get used to. The liner is a constant reminder that this is not my perfect knife, and will probably be the reason I sell or trade my Para.
-Paul
 
I bought 2 paramilitarys last April when they first came out. I gave one to my Son and I have carried mine nearly every day for the last 11 months. The lock performs totally fine. Not the least bit flimsy or weak. I would say it is not overbuilt and not underbuilt. The compression lock is a simple effective means to stop the blade from folding on your fingers. I like my Paramilitary!
 
A compression lock should be stronger than a commensurate frame lock. That's not my guess, that's Spyderco's testing.

The fact is simple, but it is not that thicker is stronger. Rather, as Sal has often tried to "edge-u-cate" us, what needs to be examined is where a given lock fails, then strengthen that part to achieve the level of strength your aiming for, then break it again and start over.

IIRC with regards to liner locks Sal has said that they tend to fail at the pins that mount the liners. So the thickest liners ever produced will only be as strong as the pins holding them. That is, the big thick liner won't break, the little bitty pin will. -So why not beef up the pins? Okay, but you'll need, in this example, to make the pins so strong that the liner will actually fail first before strengthening the liner even becomes an issue. You might end up with pins bigger than your pivot. If that's okay with the designer, then great, but...

This has been said over and over recently, this is all academic. High quality locks from well respected manufacturers are so unlikely to break when used that it seems a little silly. They may fail when used, and that's why reliability is a far more important than "strength" as a criteria. :)
 
Thanks for all of the good information everyone.

I don't know, I still might pick one up.

Or maybe I will just get one of those darn Manix that everyone is raving about! Prolly like getting the Al Mar SERE 2000 all over again. :)
 
The compression lock at the Paramillie is thin, but it takes a great / huge amount of pressure to deform that small lip of metal which is squeezed between the blade and the stop pin. I don't think you'll encounter any failures (unless the knife has manufactuing defects).
OTOH, the Manix could prove an even better choice ;)
 
I guess tortoise has said it all. Just wanted to add that the direction of the force on the lock pin is completely different in a compression lock than in a liner lock. In a liner lock it's along pin (or the slot in the liner that forms the pin). In a compression lock it is perpendicular, so instead of deforming a 2 in long pin, the compression lock has to deform a 1/4 in long pin.

I guess you can best visualize this with a simple wire coat hanger. Cut a straight piece of say six inches and try to compress it length wise (wearing thick gloves) and it will easily buckle. Now cut a straight piece that is only 1 inch long and try to compress that, it will be MUCH harder to get it to buckle. Finally, you can take the same 6 inch piece and and make some loops at the end and try to PULL till the wire brakes, that will be really hard. That demonstrates, why lockbacks are intrinsically so much stronger than liner locks.

Finally, since the pin in a liner lock is pre-bend it should always buckle to the outside, where it is partially supported by the handle scale. Fame locks do not have this support, so 1/1000 in for 1/1000 of inch the liner lock should actually be stronger than a frame lock. But of course the materials involved in a framelock are much thicker.

But again this is all a theoretical exercise.
 
I used to own a Military and recently had a play with a Paramilitary.
In my view the lock mechanism does look "cheap" on the Para.
I suspect, however, that it would take a lot to have it break.

Sorry but I'm going to join the church of Manix.
Now that realy looks solid. :eek:
 
I had a paramilitary, and thought it was a great knife. But I couldn't get used to the fact that it doesn't "snap" closed (like a lockback) from an inch away from being closed, and it relies on the detent to keep it closed.

Worrying about it opening in my pocket was probably as rational as worrying about experiencing a tornado in the northeast US. But both have happened...

That's why I am also part of the Manix fan club now :)
 
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