SNG vs. XM-18 opinions wanted

Gress said:
Great vids cziv :thumbup:
Thanks for doing it. :)
Each work deserves the best knife for doing it :) Slicers for slicing, cutters for cutting, etc. :) ..so..Spidies for slicing, Striders for fixing them and admiring all after, Hinderers for relying on them 100% and for passing them around to Strider folk :D
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Got the Spydies for slicing. Got the Hinderers for relying 100%. Passing on the Striders ;)
 
Keep trying Strider. SNG, PT CC, and PT which I still have. Keep on trying because I like the look and ergos.

ALL of the problems of lock up, blade wiggle and centering can be attributed to loose and sloppy pivot tolerances. On most Striders you can push the lock bar over another 20 - 30 % as blade is pushed forward. Actually tried that with about 15 different Striders at a knife show.

Of course tightening pivot and pinching blade between handle slabs to minimize back and forward blade movement is a cheap trick and makes you think it needs breaking in. This slop is what also causes lock bar sticking.

I just picked up my PT, unused, because I don't know what I'll do with it, and was able to apply force to open blade as if cutting and was able to move lock bar from 65% over to ball touching G10. Game over ! Good looking piece of crap.

Go ahead and try that with any other frame lock. Supposedly you get what you pay for.
 
tundratrader said:
I love the Striders appearance and ergos. I love the choil being a part of the grip. I just could not get over the fact that most never get smooth. I refuse to pay 400 for a knife that opens like one of the two dollar knives at the hardware store checkout. I opened a dozen at a knife shop one day. The only one that opened smoothly and locked up properly was a Duane Dwyer custom. I think it is ridiculous that you have to pay 800 for a knife to work. I really tried to like them. I would buy an SNG use it and try to break it in and finally gave up. I got a Sebenza because I knew it would be perfect. I later scored an XM-18 and have not looked back.
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This is all very interesting.

At the recent Chicago Knife Expo, I spoke with Josh, from Strider Knives, and mentioned how tight the blades were, every single one of them. I'm referring to the customs... He told me they would loosen up with use. He probably meant hard use. He said that for a while they sold them a bit looser, but went back to tighter, as they didn't want the knives opening up unexpectedly in someone's pocket. That's what he said. I can understand in a combat situation how that could be a problem.

That said, my SnG is super smooth. It might well be that the prior owner, who is himself a maker of custom knives, took it apart and polished it in all the right places to make it fantastic. Whatever... mine's great.

Folderguy
 
Broad Arrow said:
whew! thank God I didn't get Striders. I planned to get an SNG or SMF before. Saved me a lot of money.
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Before you just write them off, why not look on the secondary market for one that is perfect? Perfect as in function, not scratches from use.

Are they available? I found one... at a reasonable price too.
 
Folderguy said:
This is all very interesting.

At the recent Chicago Knife Expo, I spoke with Josh, from Strider Knives, and mentioned how tight the blades were, every single one of them. I'm referring to the customs... He told me they would loosen up with use. He probably meant hard use. He said that for a while they sold them a bit looser, but went back to tighter, as they didn't want the knives opening up unexpectedly in someone's pocket. That's what he said. I can understand in a combat situation how that could be a problem.

That said, my SnG is super smooth. It might well be that the prior owner, who is himself a maker of custom knives, took it apart and polished it in all the right places to make it fantastic. Whatever... mine's great.

Folderguy
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do the customs and productions differ in terms of smoothness/fit and finish? I know with Hinderer XM-18s, the customs and productions (they're more or less customs though) are the same except for the handground blade (minus some less-common variations of each). I've never handled a strider custom so I'm curious to hear a comparison of the two--say a custom MSC or DDC SNG vs a production SNG.
 
They have the same CNC-made frames and F&F is the same as the production models.
I don't know if I was lucky but both my XLs are pretty good, better than the hand-ground SMFs.
 
I love the basic design, but with Striders....the big flaw is no Ti liner under the g-10 side. That (and poor over/under tightening of the pivot screw) is the culprit of most instances of blade play/ sticky action. Get the XM or start looking at customs, which IMHO is where you actually REALLY get your money's worth and can finally relax your knife searching muscles.
 
macmiddlebrooks said:
I love the basic design, but with Striders....the big flaw is no Ti liner under the g-10 side. That (and poor over/under tightening of the pivot screw) is the culprit of most instances of blade play/ sticky action. Get the XM or start looking at customs, which IMHO is where you actually REALLY get your money's worth and can finally relax your knife searching muscles.
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Kirby Lambert, Yuna Knives, and Galyean pro-series, are all incredible knives, which are all in the same price range, and are extremely high quality. My Lambert inferno is as robust as any knife I've ever handled (in fact more so in many cases), and I've had quite a few XM-18s and some Umnums (plus many customs).
 
wally@ferguson said:
Keep trying Strider. SNG, PT CC, and PT which I still have. Keep on trying because I like the look and ergos.

ALL of the problems of lock up, blade wiggle and centering can be attributed to loose and sloppy pivot tolerances. On most Striders you can push the lock bar over another 20 - 30 % as blade is pushed forward. Actually tried that with about 15 different Striders at a knife show.

Of course tightening pivot and pinching blade between handle slabs to minimize back and forward blade movement is a cheap trick and makes you think it needs breaking in. This slop is what also causes lock bar sticking.

I just picked up my PT, unused, because I don't know what I'll do with it, and was able to apply force to open blade as if cutting and was able to move lock bar from 65% over to ball touching G10. Game over ! Good looking piece of crap.

Go ahead and try that with any other frame lock. Supposedly you get what you pay for.
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Uh, locks aren't static, they do move on occasion. Being able to force the lockbar over isn't a sign of a bad lock.
 
misterjuiceman said:
Kirby Lambert, Yuna Knives, and Galyean pro-series, are all incredible knives, which are all in the same price range, and are extremely high quality. My Lambert inferno is as robust as any knife I've ever handled (in fact more so in many cases), and I've had quite a few XM-18s and some Umnums (plus many customs).
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I second the idea of looking at customs. I would add to the list David Mosier (the Furion is a beast of a folder and yet so smooth). Still, my top choice would be the Hinderer IF reasonably priced.
 
Moving .. not forcing a lock bar over is a sign of pivot/blade hole excess clearance.

If I grip a frame lock for some hard cutting, I don't expect a to have to unstick the knife to fold it closed.

You only seem to here of this break in/sticky problem on Striders.
 
I'm not comlaining about the factory edge not being hair popping. I'm complaining about how a $400 folder doesn't even have a workable even edge. Having to sharpen a factory edge that is not hair popping sharp on a $100 folder is one thing. Having to reprofile the whole edge on a $400 folder is completely unacceptable in my book. I know that others prefer to put their own edge on the knives they buy. Every new knife I receive gets stropped to as close to a mirror edge as I can get it, but the only knives I've ever had to reprofile are the Striders.

If the knife is plenty smooth then it has already been broken in.

Folderguy said:
I bought it used, and it's fine. Broken in? Perhaps. I really don't know. It is plenty smooth.

That edge was put on by moi in about two minutes with a Work Sharp.

I really don't understand why so many complain about factory edges on knives that aren't hair popping sharp. It's soooo easy to make the edge incredibly sharp...
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Tony8179 said:
I'm not comlaining about the factory edge not being hair popping. I'm complaining about how a $400 folder doesn't even have a workable even edge. Having to sharpen a factory edge that is not hair popping sharp on a $100 folder is one thing. Having to reprofile the whole edge on a $400 folder is completely unacceptable in my book. I know that others prefer to put their own edge on the knives they buy. Every new knife I receive gets stropped to as close to a mirror edge as I can get it, but the only knives I've ever had to reprofile are the Striders.
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And the standard grind XM-18 is any different? There is a reason why people flock to the custom ground XM's
 
Tony, you own too many RJ Martins.;) Many custom makers have issues with putting a decent edge on a blade. I would say that the edge is not what bothers me the most about Striders. The stickiness of the lock, the play in the pivot and the handle with that straight top and sharp corner at the back are more serious drawbacks, at least for me. And of course the total lack of customer service.
 
Don't have a Hinderer, would love to have one, but refuse to stand in line and beg.

I have two knives that have no lock up wandering towards end of life and no sticky unlock after hard grip. Both have Reeve style pivot bushing system (extra part and precision machining) and no issue with blade wiggle as you tighten up on bushing ends.

One is the small Sebenza with about 3 yrs of hard use and the other is the Spyderco Leafstorm with over one year of hard use. Lock up has gone from about 40-50% to about 55-60% and can't go any further because of radius on blade tang.

Why ? because blade can't be pushed forward. The Leafstorm is half the price of the Strider PT.

Strider would have us believe the sloppy tolerance is needed for hard field use.
 
5.56 said:
And the standard grind XM-18 is any different? There is a reason why people flock to the custom ground XM's
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I believe that people flock to the custom ground XM's because they are custom ground XM's. I never said that the XM-18 was a slicer or was ever meant to be one. I will say that out of the three XM-18's I have owned that I've never had to reprofile the edge on any of them. Like I said before, I strop every knife I get and that's all the XM's ever needed to get them to the performance point that I wanted them at. The Striders were a different story and four out of six that I owned needed to be reprofiled. I've explained this in other posts in this very thread.

LorenzoL said:
Tony, you own too many RJ Martins.;) Many custom makers have issues with putting a decent edge on a blade. I would say that the edge is not what bothers me the most about Striders. The stickiness of the lock, the play in the pivot and the handle with that straight top and sharp corner at the back are more serious drawbacks, at least for me. And of course the total lack of customer service.
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Lorenzo, RJ is on another level to damn near everyone when it comes to sharpness directly from the maker. I'm not talking about a decent edge that may have to be touched up though. I'm talking about having to reprofile the entire edge, not just sharpen it. I've also made note of the other problems that one can run into with a Strider folder in other posts. It's definitely not just an edge issue. It's the lockup, the bladeplay, the sticky lock, the uncentered blades, all on top of the bevel that looks as though a blind person ground it.

Sorry if I'm offending the Strider crowd, but I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said a hundred times by a hundred different people.
 
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I am a Hinderer junkie/user. My hand ground spanto FXM is the sharpest knife I own. It came that way. It slices with my sharpest Spyderco. The only thing I do to a new Hinderer is strop. When the edge gets banged up I give it a few licks on a Spyderco ultra fine stone and it is perfect. The SNG is flat ground but it is such and obtuse blade angle. The first SNG I got was razor sharp but it came "broken" the replacement came "broken" and with a dull edge about as thick as a Gerber hatchet.

I think for a user knife the spanto is the perfect compromise. I would love to try his slicer grind at some point.
 
5.56 said:
And the standard grind XM-18 is any different? There is a reason why people flock to the custom ground XM's
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I've been happy with the bevel and sharpness of an XM-18 & XM-24. I'm not a mirror edges guy. Both cut the lightest printer paper w/o a hitch and would shave hair. I suppose there's a certain allure to having one of Rick's hand ground, slicer blades, or a more satin looking blade, but getting those comes with travelling to knife shows and raffles, high ticket aftermaket prices or the help of long time friendships with fellow knifenuts who do. I haven't felt any need at all to even strop a new Gen 3 Hinderer out of the box. YMMV. :)
 
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