- Joined
- Jun 9, 1999
- Messages
- 4,729
I've been wanting to get a nice daily carry knife to replace my serrated Delica 98 for some time now. What I wanted was a medium sized knife that I could wear most places without breaking the law or causing stampedes among the sheeple, a plain edge, and an affordable price tag. After handling a few of the M16's at my local sporting goods store and reading so many rave reviews here at BF, I decided to get one of the medium sized spear points. Here's what I think of it.
I personally find the knife to be aesthetically pleasing. It has excellent fit and finish, and while bead blasting may not be the greatest choice available, it looks pretty good on this knife. The skeletonized handle is really a nice touch and makes this aluminum handled knife only slightly heavier than the Delica it's replacing! The clip is well executed, and has a very nice sort of gray marbled finish. It's hard to describe, but for any of you who have seen the finish on a SOG SEAL knife, they are very similar. I find that it is positioned a little lower than I would like, but not extremely so.
I was really impressed with how smooth and light the action is. The knife is easy to open with the thumb stud, or you can just give it a light wrist flick and it'll pop right out. I couldn't detect any play in the blade when it was open.
This is the really surprising and also fairly controversial portion of the knife, it's liner lock. I have read many posts in which members wrote that they wouldn't trust such a thin liner lock. I can see why someone would think that since the liner is only about 1/16" thick. I had no real opinion about it when I bought the knife, but I did want to test it out a little for myself. Unfortunately it did not impress me right away. After a few opening and closing cycles, the lock started to stick in the middle of the tang whenever I flicked the knife open hard. It couldn't be disengaged with one hand. I was pretty dissapointed since I never had this problem with any other liner lock. I decided to work it a little and hope it would loosen up a little.
The next thing I did was try a little spine wack test. My test area was the work bench in my garage, which is metal covered with a sheet of OSB. First I lightly opened the knife with the thumb stud and whacked away about 5 or 6 times . I hit the table top hard enough to leave indentations in the OSB and the lock didn't let go. Then I snapped it open and repeated the process. Again, it just wouldn't fail. I was hitting then spine against the table as hard as I was able to while still keeping a grip on the handle. I had absolutely no qualms about the security of the lock.
I was concerned, however, with the fact that it was still sticking when I wrist flicked it. When I looked at the tang I realized that it wasn't very smooth, in fact it had some minor corrosion. So I used a very small piece of 2000 grit sandpaper and a toothpick to sand down the corrosion on the tang. After this minor adjustment, the lock operated as smooth as butter. Considering how successful the sanding had been, I was worried about the lock security. Maybe it locked so tight because it was sticking. So I took it out to the garage and repeated the spine whack test with 10 full powered spine whacks in a row. Whether I snapped the blade open or just lightly used the thumb stud, the lock would not fail and closed easily. I have not yet managed to make the lock fail. I'm extremely impressed with this lock and with every other facet of the knife. It even came so sharp out of the box that I haven't taken my Edge Pro to it yet! I'm almost never satisfied with factory edges, and this one is so sharp it's shamed me into sharpening all of my other knives to match it!
Now comes the most incredible part. I only paid $45[i/] for this knife from 1SKS. I aid more than that for my Delica, and I like this knife better. After playing with it for 3 days now, I couldn't be happier with this knife even if it cost $100. So if you don't have one, get one! And if you do have one, convince someone else to get one.
I personally find the knife to be aesthetically pleasing. It has excellent fit and finish, and while bead blasting may not be the greatest choice available, it looks pretty good on this knife. The skeletonized handle is really a nice touch and makes this aluminum handled knife only slightly heavier than the Delica it's replacing! The clip is well executed, and has a very nice sort of gray marbled finish. It's hard to describe, but for any of you who have seen the finish on a SOG SEAL knife, they are very similar. I find that it is positioned a little lower than I would like, but not extremely so.
I was really impressed with how smooth and light the action is. The knife is easy to open with the thumb stud, or you can just give it a light wrist flick and it'll pop right out. I couldn't detect any play in the blade when it was open.
This is the really surprising and also fairly controversial portion of the knife, it's liner lock. I have read many posts in which members wrote that they wouldn't trust such a thin liner lock. I can see why someone would think that since the liner is only about 1/16" thick. I had no real opinion about it when I bought the knife, but I did want to test it out a little for myself. Unfortunately it did not impress me right away. After a few opening and closing cycles, the lock started to stick in the middle of the tang whenever I flicked the knife open hard. It couldn't be disengaged with one hand. I was pretty dissapointed since I never had this problem with any other liner lock. I decided to work it a little and hope it would loosen up a little.
The next thing I did was try a little spine wack test. My test area was the work bench in my garage, which is metal covered with a sheet of OSB. First I lightly opened the knife with the thumb stud and whacked away about 5 or 6 times . I hit the table top hard enough to leave indentations in the OSB and the lock didn't let go. Then I snapped it open and repeated the process. Again, it just wouldn't fail. I was hitting then spine against the table as hard as I was able to while still keeping a grip on the handle. I had absolutely no qualms about the security of the lock.
I was concerned, however, with the fact that it was still sticking when I wrist flicked it. When I looked at the tang I realized that it wasn't very smooth, in fact it had some minor corrosion. So I used a very small piece of 2000 grit sandpaper and a toothpick to sand down the corrosion on the tang. After this minor adjustment, the lock operated as smooth as butter. Considering how successful the sanding had been, I was worried about the lock security. Maybe it locked so tight because it was sticking. So I took it out to the garage and repeated the spine whack test with 10 full powered spine whacks in a row. Whether I snapped the blade open or just lightly used the thumb stud, the lock would not fail and closed easily. I have not yet managed to make the lock fail. I'm extremely impressed with this lock and with every other facet of the knife. It even came so sharp out of the box that I haven't taken my Edge Pro to it yet! I'm almost never satisfied with factory edges, and this one is so sharp it's shamed me into sharpening all of my other knives to match it!
Now comes the most incredible part. I only paid $45[i/] for this knife from 1SKS. I aid more than that for my Delica, and I like this knife better. After playing with it for 3 days now, I couldn't be happier with this knife even if it cost $100. So if you don't have one, get one! And if you do have one, convince someone else to get one.
