I was lucky enough to get in on the Benchmade Skirmish passaround/lotto and got to use this monstrousity for a week. It was great getting the "geez that's big" and "Oh my god, that's a pocket machete" comments from people. This knife definitely got attention when it was opened.
I thought I would take some pictures of this knife along side of some of my other knives so you can get a better idea of the size of this knife. I for one didn't really get an appreciation of the size of this knife from other pictures I had seen on this forum so hopefully these will give you a better idea.
Now to the review:
What I liked.
The shear size of this knife.
I normally carry a Strider AR on the weekends and have grown accustomed to the advantages of a strong large blade. This knife is may not be for small handed people as it is quite wide and may present a problem opening it. I am an average 6 ft. tall 190lbs. male and it fit me just fine, but a 5ft. 9in. co worker did not like the handle width.
The fact that this knife is not that blade heavy.
The action is incredibly smooth and the blade can be opened very briskly but it doesn't feel like the inertia of the blade opening is going to flip the knife out of your hand. With the 3/16" thick blade and titanium handles I expected this knife to be blade heavy and want to flip out of my hand when opened but it is amazingly balanced and didn't require any firmer of a grip on the handle than other knives while being opened.
The blade lockup and being a framelock.
As the pics. show lockup is excellent. No blade play at all and while I did not spine whack this knife I did try to close it with hand pressure and the lock didn't move at all. The scales on this knife appear to be as thick as the liners in my AR, or maybe a little thicker didn't measure them. So if it works for my AR I am sure there will be no problems with this knife. The lock was also easy to disengage and did not stick even when I flicked the knife open.
The pocket clip.
Easy to clip in your pocket and not to much tension so you pull up your pants when pulling out the knife. Set up for deep pocket carry, which is a must on a knife this size if you don't want to draw undo attention.
The handle.
Ergonomic and secure. My hand did not slip at all while stabbing into 2X4's. This handle design is very reminiscent of the Commander and my DM knives Instigator which is truly a great design. The corners were well rounded with no truly sharp edges that I found.
Ease of disassembly.
While I did not actually disassemble this knife it sure wouldn't take much to have it in pieces. Gotta love that in anything you buy!
That is what I liked in a nutshell along with the fact that this knife is very pleasing to look. I am sure I have forgotten something so don't be suprised to this post edited.
On to what I didn't like.
The pocket clip.
It was nice to have the knife set deep in the pocket but I don't like tip down carry for the simple fact that when I put my hand in my pocket the knife always seems to catch on my hand or worse yet cut it on a sharp edge. Also this clip I think is unnecessarily long and shiny. This of course draws attention to your pocket and the knife inside. I do not really care for any extra attention especially at work when carrying a knife this large, too many sheeple that easily scare, and usual want me to justify carry such a "large" knife.
The opening hole.
While I don't have a problem with the hole being there, so please NO patent discussing please. I don't care for the chamfer. After looking at pictures of this knife I thought it would be an improvement over other hole opening designs, but I did not find it to be. My thumb slipped out of the hole several times and contact the edge once, if I was consciencious about how I gripped the knife it didn't happen but just grabbing the knife out of my pocket and opening it my thumb would slip maybe 1 out of 6 or 7 times. This is probably because the handle does widen at the choil?, not to sure in knife jargon, which my thumb came very close to while opening. I think if this knife had a straight hole instead of a chamferred hole my thumb would not slip out of the hole.
Those two things were about it as far as complaints go. In general I cut up some old mudflaps I had laying around and stabbed it into some 2X4's and it performed pretty good. The edge held like you would expect, S30V with a good heat = great edge retention. This knife obviously did not penetrate the wood that deep as it is not that pointy and get wide quickly.
I would not recommend this knife as a true EDC to lug around all day for most people, it's just too large and does intimidate people. I would have no problem carrying this knife around the house doing household repairs or throwing it in my BUG out bag as it is a VERY STRONG folder that would handle years of abuse and neglect. Of course if you do like your knives to bring you attention and scare people carry this and I am sure once people hear it clank open you will have there attention.
Final word: Buy it! It is a heck of a value at this price point.
I thought I would take some pictures of this knife along side of some of my other knives so you can get a better idea of the size of this knife. I for one didn't really get an appreciation of the size of this knife from other pictures I had seen on this forum so hopefully these will give you a better idea.
Now to the review:
What I liked.
The shear size of this knife.
I normally carry a Strider AR on the weekends and have grown accustomed to the advantages of a strong large blade. This knife is may not be for small handed people as it is quite wide and may present a problem opening it. I am an average 6 ft. tall 190lbs. male and it fit me just fine, but a 5ft. 9in. co worker did not like the handle width.
The fact that this knife is not that blade heavy.
The action is incredibly smooth and the blade can be opened very briskly but it doesn't feel like the inertia of the blade opening is going to flip the knife out of your hand. With the 3/16" thick blade and titanium handles I expected this knife to be blade heavy and want to flip out of my hand when opened but it is amazingly balanced and didn't require any firmer of a grip on the handle than other knives while being opened.
The blade lockup and being a framelock.
As the pics. show lockup is excellent. No blade play at all and while I did not spine whack this knife I did try to close it with hand pressure and the lock didn't move at all. The scales on this knife appear to be as thick as the liners in my AR, or maybe a little thicker didn't measure them. So if it works for my AR I am sure there will be no problems with this knife. The lock was also easy to disengage and did not stick even when I flicked the knife open.
The pocket clip.
Easy to clip in your pocket and not to much tension so you pull up your pants when pulling out the knife. Set up for deep pocket carry, which is a must on a knife this size if you don't want to draw undo attention.
The handle.
Ergonomic and secure. My hand did not slip at all while stabbing into 2X4's. This handle design is very reminiscent of the Commander and my DM knives Instigator which is truly a great design. The corners were well rounded with no truly sharp edges that I found.
Ease of disassembly.
While I did not actually disassemble this knife it sure wouldn't take much to have it in pieces. Gotta love that in anything you buy!
That is what I liked in a nutshell along with the fact that this knife is very pleasing to look. I am sure I have forgotten something so don't be suprised to this post edited.
On to what I didn't like.
The pocket clip.
It was nice to have the knife set deep in the pocket but I don't like tip down carry for the simple fact that when I put my hand in my pocket the knife always seems to catch on my hand or worse yet cut it on a sharp edge. Also this clip I think is unnecessarily long and shiny. This of course draws attention to your pocket and the knife inside. I do not really care for any extra attention especially at work when carrying a knife this large, too many sheeple that easily scare, and usual want me to justify carry such a "large" knife.
The opening hole.
While I don't have a problem with the hole being there, so please NO patent discussing please. I don't care for the chamfer. After looking at pictures of this knife I thought it would be an improvement over other hole opening designs, but I did not find it to be. My thumb slipped out of the hole several times and contact the edge once, if I was consciencious about how I gripped the knife it didn't happen but just grabbing the knife out of my pocket and opening it my thumb would slip maybe 1 out of 6 or 7 times. This is probably because the handle does widen at the choil?, not to sure in knife jargon, which my thumb came very close to while opening. I think if this knife had a straight hole instead of a chamferred hole my thumb would not slip out of the hole.
Those two things were about it as far as complaints go. In general I cut up some old mudflaps I had laying around and stabbed it into some 2X4's and it performed pretty good. The edge held like you would expect, S30V with a good heat = great edge retention. This knife obviously did not penetrate the wood that deep as it is not that pointy and get wide quickly.
I would not recommend this knife as a true EDC to lug around all day for most people, it's just too large and does intimidate people. I would have no problem carrying this knife around the house doing household repairs or throwing it in my BUG out bag as it is a VERY STRONG folder that would handle years of abuse and neglect. Of course if you do like your knives to bring you attention and scare people carry this and I am sure once people hear it clank open you will have there attention.
Final word: Buy it! It is a heck of a value at this price point.
I never had any other frame lock do this.
