Spyderco Resilience

[Cynic2701]

Introduction

I want to take the time to thank j.h. for putting together the passaround, and Spyderco for donating a Resilience for us to play around with for a week.

The passaround thread may be found here:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...saround-Spyderco-Resilience-G-10-Handle-C142G

The Resilience is part of Spyderco’s value oriented offerings, and has smaller siblings in the Tenacious and Ambitious lines.

The measurements, from Spyderco’s website, are as follows:

Overall Length: 9.375" (238 mm)
Closed Length: 5.25" (133 mm)
Blade Length: 4.25" (108 mm)
Blade Thickness: .125" (3 mm)
Cutting Edge Length: 4.25" (108 mm)
Weight: 5.4 oz. (154 g)

To be honest I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the Resilience. Since I’ve mostly stuck to Spyderco’s higher end offerings I haven’t really had a frame of reference for what to expect from the Resilience. Having had the opportunity to carry the Resilience for about a week, I’ve finally been able to get some experience with Spyderco’s value line.

 

[Cynic2701]

Unlike many of Spyderco’s other knives, I was immediately intrigued by the lack of the choil in the Resilience’s design. Personally, I am all for anything that will increase the cutting edge to handle ratio in a knife. One drawback, however, is that it reduces the number of ways that you can hold the knife. Pretty much the only comfortable way to hold the knife is like this:

For me, the knife had a fair number of hot spots. Even though it already has been beveled around the edges, I feel like it could use some more rounding around the corners of the knife. Bearing down hard on the knife it became rather uncomfortable. Using it with gloves, it pretty much eliminates this problem, and if you are using a knife hard I would usually recommend wearing a pair of gloves anyways. On the plus side, with how wide and flat the knife is, you can really get a lot of torque on the blade when making hard cuts in something like plastic or rubber.

The knife is quite smooth to open and close, though personally I would prefer a stronger detent to keep the large blade closed. This probably varies from knife to knife and person to person though, so be sure to keep that in mind. There is a small amount of blade play in the example that I reviewed, but, as it has gone through the hands of several people before me, I can’t really comment too much on it without knowing what the other people in the passaround did to the knife. Additionally, the lockup on this example was rather late:

Apologies for the blurry picture. If you can’t tell the lockup is roughly at 90%. This is a little late for my taste, but I’m a little curious to see how much it would move over a few years of EDC.

For the price point (~$40-50) I think that the fit and finish is acceptable. The scales don’t quite match the dual steel liners, and there’s a strange “waviness” in the flat grind of the blade. The interior of the scales have a sort of semi-polish/stonewash look that is probably the result of not polishing them completely. I would also like it if Spyderco increased the size of the washers, as I feel like this would provide more solid lock up. Despite my gripes, it feels heavy and well built. I’m sure that if someone less picky were looking at it, they wouldn’t be nearly so critical. Besides, these fit and finish issues are cosmetic, and don’t really affect the function of the knife.

 

[Cynic2701]

The knife was dull when I received it, so I sharpened it up to hair popping, and finished off on a 1 micron diamond paste loaded strop. This was my first time sharpening 8Cr13MoV, and I found it was much easier to sharpen than S30V—surprisingly so even. The long blade length is comforting and is useful when cutting thick materials like double walled cardboard. I cut up a couple of boxes from Amazon into 2 x 4 inch strips, and by the end of it the Resilience had lost its shaving edge, but still retained a somewhat usable working edge. All in all the edge retention was about what I expected, though I would think that if I thinned the bevels out, it would improve the edge retention by a good bit. One positive aspect of 8Cr13MoV is that since it is so easy to sharpen up, even when fairly dull it doesn’t take long to bring it back to hair popping sharp.

Food prep is an area where this knife excels, and is one of my personal requirements in a knife.

Bread for a sandwich is no problem at all:

Full sized tomatoes are also no problem:

As is normal for relatively “thick” pocket knives, it wedged as much as sliced onion apart:

For sandwiches the Resilience is great, though for more involved food prep the blade shape sort of gets in the way of mincing, for example.

 

[Cynic2701]

This brings me to my least favorite thing about the knife, the blade shape. In comparison to the Military, which I think is overall a better knife, the blade stays fairly straight until the last inch, where it starts curving up towards the tip. The steep belly keeps the knife from being useful in precision cutting with the tip, and makes it more difficult to cut on a flat surface. Here’s a picture in comparison to a Military with its much more gradual curve towards the tip:

One downfall of having such a renowned knife like the Military as a flagship knife is that any model with the same lock and of an approximate size will inevitably be compared to it. Such is the case with the Resilience. Both knives have roughly four inch blade lengths – though the Resilience is 4.25” to the Military’s 4” – and both knives are almost the same overall length, with the Military slightly edging out the Resilience.

Both knives are flat ground, and although the Military pictured above far outperformed the Resilience in cutting tests, it is likely due to the much thinner bevel that that Military has on it. In fact, differences in knife steel and heat treatment aside, if one focused only on geometry I would expect the Resilience to out cut the Military due purely to the thinner 3 mm stock that the Resilience uses compared to the thicker 4 mm stock on the Military. However, in reality, I’m sure that even the S30V of the standard Military will likely out cut the 8Cr13MoV of the Resilience if the knives were set to the same bevels and edge angles. On the other hand, as I mentioned above, the ease with which one can sharpen 8Cr13MoV should not be underestimated, and I think that since the majority of knife users out there don’t have high sharpening skills, it might actually be a better trade off. Just a thought.

When I went to clean the Resilience after cutting tomatoes, onions, and a lime I found that the 8Cr13MoV blade had been stained by the acids in the food.

While this is purely a cosmetic issue – as there was no pitting or rusting – I was somewhat surprised to see this on what I would nominally call a stainless steel. I have seen some reports floating around the forums that 8Cr13MoV is not very stainless compared to other steels, and this result certainly supports that.

 

[Cynic2701]

Blade stock thickness can be seen in the picture below:

Also, another thing to note is the differences in jimping on the spines. The Military has smaller, more aggressive jimping, while the Resilience has large tank-tread-like jimping. I’m not sure which I prefer—both were perfectly adequate and I couldn’t really tell the difference in use.

Although the handle scales of the Resilience are slightly thicker than the Military, it is so slight that I hardly noticed. In the pocket they both took up just about the same amount of space, though I did barely notice that the Resilience was a little bit heaver: this was probably due to the fact that I carry a Military often enough I could note the weight, but it wasn’t really that much more.

Another thing to note about the scales is that the texture of the G-10 is different. Where the Military has a zigzagging pattern of vertical and horizontal striations, the Resilience has sort of a raised diamond-like pattern. I could not find a satisfactory way to take a picture of it, but I found that the pattern on the Resilience offers less grip than on the Military. Some people may prefer this, as it is less likely to shred pockets, while others may not. Furthermore, the Resilience offers 4-way tip up/tip down carry which the Military does not.

 

[Cynic2701]

Final Comments

After a week of use I will grudgingly admit that the Resilience, and likely the rest of Spyderco’s value line, are more well built than I would have expected. To be perfectly honest, I much prefer the Military to the Resilience. In a way, though, this is fairly strong praise for the Resilience to be compared to a knife costing about three times as much. There are many people out there that are either unwilling or unable to spend more than $50 on a knife; I would have no hesitation recommending from the Resilience/Tenacious/Ambitious family if that was something that they were looking for.

In the end though, I’m going to return to my usual EDC and two favorite knives:

 

[Chris "Anagarika"]

A very nice review!

I have two of them, so the comment on fit & finish is spot on. Without the carry mark on the handle and the stropped blade, one woild not be able to tell them apart.

Few things I noticed differently are:
- lockbar engagement are early on mine. The liner lock sits flushed to the side of the blade (at least to my eye), so it's about 30-40%, with the EDC a bit more. It hasn't moved any further though
- side to side play: only appears in my EDC an only when the pivot screw is loosend up (not enough locite I guess). After tightening it down, the play is gone.

I thoroughly like it for the smoothness and hole opening (becoming a favorite now).

 

[PaleAleDude]

Thank you for taking time to post this very thorough review. It was an enjoyable and informative read. Good pics too!

 

[WILLIAM.M]

Excellent Review!!!!

 

[lava_lamp]

Nice review. I participated in the pass around as well and I find it interesting to compare notes. You caught some things that I didn't, but I think we are in overall agreement that it is not a bad knife, either in absolute terms or relative to its cost.

 

[Cynic2701]

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

lava_lamp, I've always really enjoyed your reviews--especially how many of them you have. I didn't turn any screws with the tip on the Resilience, but I can't say I'm surprised that it was able to with how much steel is at the tip.

 

[Nafunu]

Great review! I've never seen one of these in person, and seeing it next to the Military, i looks quite a bit larger than I expected.

I don't like how the the drilled out holes for the pocket clip are all around the pivot; assuming they go all the way through the liners, it looks like they would funnel dirt, debris, and pocket lint right into the pivot

 

[Cynic2701]

Great review! I've never seen one of these in person, and seeing it next to the Military, i looks quite a bit larger than I expected.

I don't like how the the drilled out holes for the pocket clip are all around the pivot; assuming they go all the way through the liners, it looks like they would funnel dirt, debris, and pocket lint right into the pivot

In general I haven't found that 4-way tip up/tip down knives end up with any extra lint/dirt/gunk in the pivot. Besides, there is a lot of space between all the parts which allows it to be easily cleaned just by running the knife under some water.

The only knives I've found that collect lint/dirt/gunk in the pivot are lockback knives.

 

[Chris "Anagarika"]

In general I haven't found that 4-way tip up/tip down knives end up with any extra lint/dirt/gunk in the pivot. Besides, there is a lot of space between all the parts which allows it to be easily cleaned just by running the knife under some water.

The only knives I've found that collect lint/dirt/gunk in the pivot are lockback knives.

I also noticed the same.

 

[RayzorSharp]

You have a wicked edge on your military.

 

[Sonnydaze]

Nice review. I also prefer the Military for the kitchen, and PM2 and Sebbie for carry.