I succumbed to the temptation of the brass tiger myself, and I am very pleased with it. As TJ said, its outstanding characteristic is its weight, it is twice as massive as anything else I have. I am pretty sure it is even heavier than my carbon fiber Sifu. If you want to swing fast, you really need to hold on. I tell you what though, the weight has its advantages too. The tight tolerances in the pivots, smooth bearings, and heavy handles make a knife that swings really smoothly and positively. If you start one of those handles moving, you can be assured it will swing all the way around to the other side. The knife will open. Excellent for latch drop openings Don! Don is right though, a stainless steel version of this knife would be great. The aluminum handles are too light, and the brass handles are too heavy.
The brass special edition also comes with a satin finished blade. The finish on the handles is very low polish, bead blasted I would guess, which is bad if you want a shiny piece to show off, but good if you want to hold on to those heavy handles. The rougher texture offers better grip, which is probably why they aren't finished brighter.
The sandwich construction of these handles is so basic and solid that I am not concerned with longevity at all. The handle is held together with four screws, the two pivot screws, and one screw at each handle end. The latch stop pins are just small pins stuck in blind holes in the handles. I'm only concerned about the tang pin seats on the brass handles. Those heavy handles really close hard on the tang pins.
As far as better than Benchmade, that's subjective of course, but from a production quality viewpoint, I would have to say the 42 is much better. More sophisticated blade grind, sharpened better, better blade finish, nicer handle finish, fancier hole pattern.
[This message has been edited by Steve Harvey (edited 06-22-2001).]
