Poll: Have you ever had a ZT knife fail on you?

Have you ever had a ZT knife fail on you?

  • Yes

  • No

Results are only viewable after voting.
I have owned alot of ZTs and I still own several ... most are older knives as their newer releases just haven't interested me ... more artsy than functional for my use IMHO ...

but I carried and used several models in some harsh enviroments ... never had a failure using them ... and I have never found a resason to use the back of the blade for anything ...

yes I have pryed and cut things knives weren't made to cut in a pinch in an only option situation ... and still not one failed or broke ... but if they would have failed or broke ... it would be user error ... all on me for using it for an unintended purpose ... it's that simple.

I can't say that a ZT will never fail ... but if you consider using one (or any brand of knife) for uses it isn't intended for ... then be prepared for a failure or bad outcome.

You could put up a poll for any most any brand ... folder or fixed blade ... and you will get a small percentage of people that have negative things to say ...

but this whole nonsense about ZT is a witch hunt ... someone saw a video and jumped on trying to cause arguments and BS ... IMO this has ran it's course.
 
I’ve never had any ZT fail during use, and I’ve used my ZTs for almost everything imaginable. I’ve batoned with multiple ZTs and although that constitutes misuse, I’ve done it and it’s helped me out in tight spots and those ZTs still function fine to this day.
 
if your trying to break something you will. based on my experience with zt's it seems i would really have to work at it to make one of mine fail.
 
Quite a few respected members have reported lock failures with the odd ZT, as @craytab mentioned correctly elsewhere. Nobody seriously disputes that. @jill jackson for one is somebody I trust on this site, and she has reported it.

That being said, I think Jill and others, as mentioned by Frank and several other users, own multiple ZT knives and the failing examples are few. (She will swoop in and kick my ass if I am wrong about that, rest assured.) They certainly do have issues occasionally. But for those who like ‘em, they seem to do the job far more often than not. Like most knives, it is so much about aesthetic appeal. I don’t find them attractive, personally.
 
I think the big hang up is an academic one. If you use a knife the way a knife is supposed to be used: moderate pressure with the tip and cutting so that the blade tang presses against the stop, I would be shocked to see a ZT fail. In that regard, pretty much any k ife will pass. Correct usage of the knife will make sure of this. It's why the flippant remark (on both sides of this issue, mind you) of using a slip joint in such a way are both correct and a moot point. All folding knives are designed to cut "downward".

My gray area with my failure is that I would be hesitant to use a 350 as a something that is stabbed into a hard piece of wood and pried downward against the lock. I don't see that as a common use, but maybe if one were frantically digging during some emergency, I could see it slipping the lock and folding. Maybe chipping into ice or something?

However, this is a hypothetical situation. Academic, as I have said, even under the most hard use, day to day, it probably won't happen. Furthermore, my failure happened while I was leisurely doing a project and not really going hardcore with things. Just a fluke of a spine tap that is easily replicable if at an odd and improbable angle. Conversely, before I knew the lock could be defeated I used that 350 as a work knife for a couple years. Poking, cutting, light prying. Full of mud, rinsed in a puddle, shaken, and stuffed into my pocket until I could clean it at home.

It's funny how one little motion can defeat an otherwise stout and proven knife. I still use it as a work knife, but it wouldn't be the one I selected in an teotwawki situation.

Still, real world failures are very uncommon.
 
I think you hit the nail on the head ... yes locks can fail ... any lock ... any brand ...

but I believe most cases are from unintended uses or from mishaps such as you described ...

in normal use and even hard but proper use ... I think most locks will hold ...

as I stated before ... I have used knives to cut or pierce things they weren't made to cut ... and in a rare unavoidable only option I have pryed with a knife and used them in ways they aren't meant for ...

I have yet to have one fail ... but if they had it wouldn't have been a knife failure ... it would have been on me.
 
To clarify, I voted NO and that is based on a pool of 5 I own. For the "Failure Rate" (and I don't consider spine whacking failure of a folding knife) expressed as a percentage of voters to be meaningful that would need to actually be expressed as percentage of knives that have failed not owners who have experienced a failure. Ergo a person who owns 20 has 4x the chance of experiencing a failure than I do.....but call me Captain Obvious as I suspect we all knew that already.
 
Steely_Gunz said:
I think the big hang up is an academic one. If you use a knife the way a knife is supposed to be used: moderate pressure with the tip and cutting so that the blade tang presses against the stop, I would be shocked to see a ZT fail. In that regard, pretty much any k ife will pass. Correct usage of the knife will make sure of this. It's why the flippant remark (on both sides of this issue, mind you) of using a slip joint in such a way are both correct and a moot point. All folding knives are designed to cut "downward".

My gray area with my failure is that I would be hesitant to use a 350 as a something that is stabbed into a hard piece of wood and pried downward against the lock. I don't see that as a common use, but maybe if one were frantically digging during some emergency, I could see it slipping the lock and folding. Maybe chipping into ice or something?

However, this is a hypothetical situation. Academic, as I have said, even under the most hard use, day to day, it probably won't happen. Furthermore, my failure happened while I was leisurely doing a project and not really going hardcore with things. Just a fluke of a spine tap that is easily replicable if at an odd and improbable angle. Conversely, before I knew the lock could be defeated I used that 350 as a work knife for a couple years. Poking, cutting, light prying. Full of mud, rinsed in a puddle, shaken, and stuffed into my pocket until I could clean it at home.

It's funny how one little motion can defeat an otherwise stout and proven knife. I still use it as a work knife, but it wouldn't be the one I selected in an teotwawki situation.

Still, real world failures are very uncommon.
Click to expand...

I recently got my 350 used at a pawnshop so I spine whacked it and it passed flawlessly, I wouldn't hesitate using it at all for the activities you describe.

When I first saw the ZT lock fail vids it did make me hesitant towards the brand to be honest. Growing up my best friend had his Dad's faulty Buck 110 where the spring had worn out and it made it a seriously dangerous knife! It was that uncertainty of if today is the day this thing is going to hurt me. So when I buy a knife I don't want to feel that uncertainty anymore. I can't help but feel the lock is a huge part of someones reason to purchase one knife over the other.

In the 90's I wasn't a knife guy but I remember friends who were telling me that you had to spine whack your knife by giving it a love tap. If it didn't pass then you should throw your knife out because it was dangerous.(Then they would proceed to smack their knives on the table to show off lol) I think the test must have been the latest cool thing to do I would like to know where the test came from.
 
I'm quite new to the forum, so bear with me. I own 0452 (multiple copies), 0456, 0462, 0909, 0920 and 0095. And no, in practice, they never failed.

Now, I've followed this discussion here and elsewhere for a while and remain confused, since the following details are always omitted:

1) All my ZT locks hold when the knife is "spine-wacked" once. I understand this matches ZT's QA process and makes practical sense - the lock should hold when the knife is accidentally hit somehow, not when it's held against a sledge hammer. When spine-wacked 5 times+, locks on all my ZTs, except the 0095 fail, you can see how from wack to wack the lock moves a tiny bit to the outside. But I don't understand why this would matter practically.

2) When dis- and re-assembling the knife, clearly the perfect alignment of lock and tang can be affected. And "spine-wacking response" will be, too.

So, did your ZT fail when spine-wacked once (only), and/or after DIY reassembly or as delivered to you by the factory ?

Just wondering. Thanks,

Roland.

PS: as a side note, I have a nice still visible scar on my index finger when a knife closed on me ~50 years ago. So I do understand lock failure.
 
No. 450, 452 & a 562. Have them for a
Couple years now. All have been well used, as folding knives should be used.
No play and they still lock up solid.
 
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