Spyderco Military

stabman

stabman

Joined
Sep 17, 2007
Messages
21,367
Trying to decide between the Military and Civilian for my next knife. Does the Military have steel liners both sides of the handle? Does it use phosphour bronze washers? Anyone know how thick the liner lock is? Good or bad impressions of the Military model are welcomed.

Thanks in advance.
 
The Military is a utility knife the Civilian is a SD knife. The newer Militarys have dual nested liners. Yes they have phosphor bronze washers. The Military is one the best liner locks made, it is very reliable and perfectly executed.
 
The liners are skeletonized, nested and not full length (in fact different length for the two sides), in other words about as much attention as you can give the liners. There design ensures max. strength at min. weight which is pretty much the underlying concept of the Mili if you ask me. The locking liner is 0.050" thick and the lock is IIRC rated to about 150 lbs/in - far in the heavy duty range. The BG-42 CF Mili is IMHO one of the best folder that have hit the market in the past three or four years and this is considering design, execution, funtionality and price.

The Civilian is the only purebred SD folder. In fact, I think you void the garantee if you use it for EDC tasks. The Civilian is made to protect your life, potentially at the cost of the knife.
 
I own a few Civilians, and a few Militarys. I've EDC'd the Milly since it was released.

Cool as the Civilian is, the Milly is a workhorse, most useful folder I've owned.

my $0.02
 
If you can find a bg-42 millie get it the steel is great. The new d2 ones seem to be holding up well too.
 
Getting a Military on Wednesday. I was supremely impressed with the smaller Paramilitary with compression lock (I believe the compression lock is stronger than liner lock by a decent amount?) and so I expect to be equally pleased with the Military.
 
Yes, the compression lock is stronger and in my opinion overall a much better design. However, I am not too fond of the ergos on the Para. The Mili is in my opinion much better in that regard.
 
A poorly made liner lock will be practically worthless, but the Military has one of the classicly reliable liner locks. It has held up under hard use all through the knife's long and varied history.

A question came up about the Military recently (Have you ever wore out a Military?) and Sal Glesser wrote this:

I think that it is important to "peel the onion" in making these determinations. Also one must include "time" and refinement" in analysis.

Any lock can fail. If you didn't hear it. Any lock can fail.

Locks are bits of metal cut to very close tolerances and carefully balanced heat treats. The interface area is ciritical.

Failure can occur from error, out of spec, wear (time), dirt affecting the interface, excess force, which bends or coins the interface, etc.

Locks require maintenance, attention, occasional light spine tap to check. In case you didn't hear that, light is the key word. I see many locks that have seen "death by spine-wack". Expectations are often too high in this area, in my opinion. If a light tap defeats the lock, then inspection, cleaning, etc can save the lock. Each time it defeats, it "breaks" a tiny bit more. Continual spine whacking without making a change and expecting a change is not logical. It also ruins the lock.

With that in mind.

Each lock mechanism has advantages and disadvantages. Manufactures continually refine to reduce disadvantages. Eg: We're on our 3rd lock material on our Military in 10 years. As manufacturers learn more, they improve. (time again).

The Walker linerlock has some very nice advantages; easy one hand open and close, smooth action, easy to overcome closing force for easy opening, takes up little space affording far more flexibility in design. Simplicity of concept.

disadvantages; it's difficult to make reliablle. Much attention needs to be paid to the materials and hardness of the blade material (tang) and lock interface. (This is also true of lock-backs, Axis-locks, compression-locks, E-Locks, Reeve-Integral-Locks, ball-bearing-locks, etc).

On the Military we've contually refined this area. We use an offset concave arc ramp for greater reliability. We precisely control angles and hardness of the interface materials. We've gone to dual nested liners (very close tolerance) with focus on greater ridgidity. We could go to a LAWKS like CRKT and we' ve considered it, but at this time, we would prefer to evolve the Walker Linerlock to improve reliability without the addtional parts.

Does this make it perfect? Of course not. Any lock can fail.

But with the constantly improved materials, tolerances, hardness balance, they get better and better.

This is, IMO, true of any lock.

sal
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Well, spent more money I don't have and got the Military, S30V steel. Damn this knife is big! Really substantial, but amazingly light in the pocket. Wonder why I'll spend $160 on a knife but $40 for pants seems expensive...
Really cool knife though. Glad I got it.
 
The knife will outlast the pants! :)

After a very short while, the knife won't seem so big -- but your other knives will seem small. It's not just light but very flat, and tip-down, so I carry it in my back pocket against the forward seam.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
The knife will outlast the pants! :)

After a very short while, the knife won't seem so big -- but your other knives will seem small. It's not just light but very flat, and tip-down, so I carry it in my back pocket against the forward seam.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I went through a phase like that with the BM Resistor. Seemed big at first; now it seems normal. I'm sure this one won't seem too big for long, seeing as you mentioned, it's light and slim.

I hadn't thought of it in terms of outlasting the pants. I'll have to try that justification on my fiance if she complains.:)
 
Esav Benyamin said:
The knife will outlast the pants! :)

After a very short while, the knife won't seem so big -- but your other knives will seem small. It's not just light but very flat, and tip-down, so I carry it in my back pocket against the forward seam.
Click to expand...
Ha ha, my Delica now feels like it should be attached to my key chain, after EDC'ing the mighty Military for the last few months:D
 
Those last few posts about the Mili not seeming too big after awhile but other knives seeming small is true!!

I remember when I got my 1st Mili and didn't want to carry it cuz I thought it was huge!! Then I started carryin it all the time and got to the point where I loved it. After awhile, I bought a Manix and then I really thought that was huge cuz it's a lot wider and thicker than the Mili. After I carried that for awhile I bought my first Strider - a SMF. Same as the Manix relative to size. Bought a few more SMF's and then got a GB. Thought that sucker was huge.

Now, rather than thinking my GB is huge, my other knives are all just tiny little back-up things!!!!
 
When the Police came out I remember thinking it was insane, a crazy folding bowie with teeth and now I picked up a nice serrated SS Police and it feels like a nice slim carry knife for when the Chinook3 is to thick for my pants. Really slim is the most important thing to me to make a folder carryable which is why I did not like the Strider folders. I am not a Strider hater though i just ordered a nice slim ED for EDC.

 
IUKE12 said:
Ha ha, my Delica now feels like it should be attached to my key chain, after EDC'ing the mighty Military for the last few months:D
Click to expand...

I know how it is, my Delica was so intimidated when she saw the Millie that she had to withdraw in the drawer for a few weeks ;)

As Sal said, the Military is (perhaps) not perfect, but without any doubt it is a very good knife. You can't find anything better in his size / class range.
 
Unsub said:
i just ordered a nice slim ED for EDC.
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Nice knife. It's so light, it even makes a comfortable necker. If I wear it vertical on a Tek-Lok, I can forget it's on my belt. It's an excellent personal utility knife.
 
A few days of carrying the Military... and I must say I really enjoy it. Examining the design of the Military, I believe it is one of the few liner lock knives I can really trust. It is really well made and absolutely exudes *quality* in every aspect of its feel.
 
I agree with your carry thoughts, Unsub. A thin knife is much easier to carry, for me. I carry IWB 99% of the time.
I have carried a old military a lot; I love it. As a matter of fact, I just ordered a D2 green handled model.
Before the military, I carried one of the old aluminum handled police models, with the coated handle. Extremely light, for such a 'big' knife.
Now that it is back in my mind, I think I'll dig out the alum police to carry until my new military gets here.
 
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