Do I really have to review this knife? I mean, I only paid three dollars and fifty cents for it at the corner hardware store. It was in one of those black velvet-backed display boards, proudly held up with two rubber bands. You could buy them individually at $3.50 or by the dozen at $35. The knife is made in China, probably by the people who got fired from Maxam for making crappy knives. This is a review, not Whine & Cheese, so I'll keep the language clean while trying to keep it accurate. Let's get into this mess...
The Handle: It's 4" long and has cream-colored plastic handles. I know, they're supposed to look like ivory, but they don't. They're plastic, as are the shiny bolsters. The handle scales are glued on, and crappily at that. They're off-center and stick out near the bolsters (yup, both sides). At first I thought the bolsters were metal because, well, they're bolsters. Nope. They're plastic, as evidenced when I dropped the POS on the sidewalk and the right bolster cracked and a piece broke off. The liners are either plastic, or really cheap metal. They're very thin (about 1/32") and I'm not kidding. I can lightly squeeze the handles together and the liners will touch. The handle itself would be comfortable to use, if it weren't so small. I have large hands, and this 4" piece of doo-doo makes it really hard to handle. The entire handle length is indeed 4" long, but there's only 3-1/4" of useable area because the butt and the front curve in a very bad attempt at choils. So the handle is uncomfortable.
How does it lock up? Well, good to tell you the truth. It's a lockback, and the lock is located near the butt of the handle. The blade locks open with a small amount of side-to-side play, but none up-and-down. There's no way to fix this, as the entire knife is pinned together with plastic scales glued on. Opening-wise, it's actually the smoothest knife I've ever owned, and I'm not kidding there either. Opening is fast and smooth, even without adding the One-Arm Bandit (see below).
The Blade: The blade is 3-1/4" long with a 2-10/16" cutting edge, and it's just over 1/16" thick. The left side tang is stamped SABRE over STAINLESS, and the right side is stamped CHINA. The left side has a nail nick, although I opted to use a One-Arm Bandit (a removable thumb stud that can be used on any folder) for opening. The blade is a clip point, and looks like a scaled-down Buck 110 blade. Buck, I'm sorry for even mentioning your name in this review, and I'll make it up to you somehow. The blade is made of stainless steel; no idea what kind. It sharpens up okay and doesn't hold an edge worth crap. This is what's called "pot metal". Forget every bad thing you've read about AUS-4 or 420J2; this is the real deal. It doesn't even feel like metal, it feels like some sort of hardened plastic. This blade just refuses to get sharp enough to slice paper evenly, way far from shaving hair. It dulls easier than any other knife I've ever owned. It will dull (not that it was sharp in the first place) after cutting ONE 12" LONG PIECE of cardboard. Normal cardboard that you send a USPS package in. One friggin' cut, and the blade wouldn't do it again without a touch-up.
I feel like I've wasted my time with this review, like I could've been doing something else. Stripping my weapon and reassembling it, cooking some Ramen noodles, making prank phone calls to Spark, anything but this. It just leaves me feeling angry and irritated, knowing that not only did I pay $3.50 for this knife nine years ago, but I'm actually taking the time to try to write an fair review of it. The only reason I'm even writing this is so people new to the knife scene can be on the lookout for this piece of crap, and avoid it. Buy a box cutter if you have to. Buy anything else.
The Sabre lockback is a piece of doo-doo chocolate and I dislike it greatly. Thank you.
The Handle: It's 4" long and has cream-colored plastic handles. I know, they're supposed to look like ivory, but they don't. They're plastic, as are the shiny bolsters. The handle scales are glued on, and crappily at that. They're off-center and stick out near the bolsters (yup, both sides). At first I thought the bolsters were metal because, well, they're bolsters. Nope. They're plastic, as evidenced when I dropped the POS on the sidewalk and the right bolster cracked and a piece broke off. The liners are either plastic, or really cheap metal. They're very thin (about 1/32") and I'm not kidding. I can lightly squeeze the handles together and the liners will touch. The handle itself would be comfortable to use, if it weren't so small. I have large hands, and this 4" piece of doo-doo makes it really hard to handle. The entire handle length is indeed 4" long, but there's only 3-1/4" of useable area because the butt and the front curve in a very bad attempt at choils. So the handle is uncomfortable.
How does it lock up? Well, good to tell you the truth. It's a lockback, and the lock is located near the butt of the handle. The blade locks open with a small amount of side-to-side play, but none up-and-down. There's no way to fix this, as the entire knife is pinned together with plastic scales glued on. Opening-wise, it's actually the smoothest knife I've ever owned, and I'm not kidding there either. Opening is fast and smooth, even without adding the One-Arm Bandit (see below).
The Blade: The blade is 3-1/4" long with a 2-10/16" cutting edge, and it's just over 1/16" thick. The left side tang is stamped SABRE over STAINLESS, and the right side is stamped CHINA. The left side has a nail nick, although I opted to use a One-Arm Bandit (a removable thumb stud that can be used on any folder) for opening. The blade is a clip point, and looks like a scaled-down Buck 110 blade. Buck, I'm sorry for even mentioning your name in this review, and I'll make it up to you somehow. The blade is made of stainless steel; no idea what kind. It sharpens up okay and doesn't hold an edge worth crap. This is what's called "pot metal". Forget every bad thing you've read about AUS-4 or 420J2; this is the real deal. It doesn't even feel like metal, it feels like some sort of hardened plastic. This blade just refuses to get sharp enough to slice paper evenly, way far from shaving hair. It dulls easier than any other knife I've ever owned. It will dull (not that it was sharp in the first place) after cutting ONE 12" LONG PIECE of cardboard. Normal cardboard that you send a USPS package in. One friggin' cut, and the blade wouldn't do it again without a touch-up.
I feel like I've wasted my time with this review, like I could've been doing something else. Stripping my weapon and reassembling it, cooking some Ramen noodles, making prank phone calls to Spark, anything but this. It just leaves me feeling angry and irritated, knowing that not only did I pay $3.50 for this knife nine years ago, but I'm actually taking the time to try to write an fair review of it. The only reason I'm even writing this is so people new to the knife scene can be on the lookout for this piece of crap, and avoid it. Buy a box cutter if you have to. Buy anything else.
The Sabre lockback is a piece of doo-doo chocolate and I dislike it greatly. Thank you.
