Spyderco tenacious - any love here

S-3 ranch said:
Hello, I am a newbie on here, but the meadowlarks & cara cara make great EDC , the 8cr13 steel can be beat up then hit a lick or two on a strop or diamond stick and be back to work, without much pain, and I cut lots of crazy stuff
From hay string to rope and wire , and clean lots of hogs and other stuff ( like about 50-100 feed sacks a day). And my meadowlark just jumps right back to razor very quickly
the CRK I had wound up being a very expensive paper weight as the
Blade ( s35v was very unstable because of uneven temper ) it would
Get flat spots after lite use, and the customer service was terrible,
Never had any problems with spyderco products or my old gerber 7223 EDC’s in comparison with the CRK , I keep some of the cara cara and meadowlark In all my trucks ( along with some other knives like moraknif) every thing has a place or time that it is a stand out

S-3
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I totally get your appreciation of the Spyderco budget line. I too have a Cara Cara and the Resilience was a fine knife. My brother had managed to cut himself a couple times (one requiring my super glue field medicine) after I honed the blade to a popping edge.

The 8cr13 is an easy to sharpen soft steel. I can get it to scare the hair off my arm with a simple Arkansas stone and a loaded strop. It will take an edge very easily. The issue is that no matter how one looks at it, it IS soft and does require a lot of touch ups. This doesn't bother me in the slightest, but it is a knife that requires a good deal of maintenance to keep razor sharp.

The issue with most CRK knives for most people is that they have more of a convex profile over a flat one. To be honest, I don't keep mine as "sharp" as I do other knives simply because I have not taken the time to thin out the edge. Chris Reeve designed his knives to be hard use work knives. That gets forgotten a lot of the time due to the price. I am just as guilty of it. My Inkosi was my grail knife that I purchased to commemorate a major achievement. It is a very good knife with incredible fit and finish. Not the sharpest knife I own nor the one that cuts the best out of the box, but it has spoiled me on folding knives to the point that I can't seem to go back to entry level stuff and feel as happy with it. Knives are a sickness ;)

If your CRK is giving you fits, I'm not sure what to tell you to fix it. As far as I have seen, their CS is incredible. At the very least, sending it off for a spa treatment should net you a near perfect knife. If the edge rolls or flattens again, that would indicate a real issue with the steel. Its just really rare for steel to be the issue since Mr. Reeve is responsible for developing it. That's not to say batches don't come back bad, but I would think it would be an easy fix.

However, if your Byrd knives do it for you, use them and be happy:) They, like the other Chinese made Spyderco knives, are incredible values and very capable work knives. What they lack in edge holding and refinement they make up for in fit, value, and ease of maintenance.

Best of luck to you :)
 
Steely_Gunz said:
I totally get your appreciation of the Spyderco budget line. I too have a Cara Cara and the Resilience was a fine knife. My brother had managed to cut himself a couple times (one requiring my super glue field medicine) after I honed the blade to a popping edge.

The 8cr13 is an easy to sharpen soft steel. I can get it to scare the hair off my arm with a simple Arkansas stone and a loaded strop. It will take an edge very easily. The issue is that no matter how one looks at it, it IS soft and does require a lot of touch ups. This doesn't bother me in the slightest, but it is a knife that requires a good deal of maintenance to keep razor sharp.

The issue with most CRK knives for most people is that they have more of a convex profile over a flat one. To be honest, I don't keep mine as "sharp" as I do other knives simply because I have not taken the time to thin out the edge. Chris Reeve designed his knives to be hard use work knives. That gets forgotten a lot of the time due to the price. I am just as guilty of it. My Inkosi was my grail knife that I purchased to commemorate a major achievement. It is a very good knife with incredible fit and finish. Not the sharpest knife I own nor the one that cuts the best out of the box, but it has spoiled me on folding knives to the point that I can't seem to go back to entry level stuff and feel as happy with it. Knives are a sickness ;)

If your CRK is giving you fits, I'm not sure what to tell you to fix it. As far as I have seen, their CS is incredible. At the very least, sending it off for a spa treatment should net you a near perfect knife. If the edge rolls or flattens again, that would indicate a real issue with the steel. Its just really rare for steel to be the issue since Mr. Reeve is responsible for developing it. That's not to say batches don't come back bad, but I would think it would be an easy fix.

However, if your Byrd knives do it for you, use them and be happy:) They, like the other Chinese made Spyderco knives, are incredible values and very capable work knives. What they lack in edge holding and refinement they make up for in fit, value, and ease of maintenance.

Best of luck to you :)
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The CRK is definitely a pinnacle knife( price,not quality), and reeves spa treatment is nice , I really got a badly tempered blade, and having different soft spots in the blade drove me nuts, as did getting warranties to figure it out, being on a ranch or up north on a moose hunt and having a blade failure is zero fun , now I keep a couple of moraknif and Buck fixed tanto 420hc in the truck or in a pack for emergency

but I will never recommend or buy another CRK , my spyderco and benchmade 940 are truly reliable @ two knives for the price of one that has bad mojo like a CRK S35v
 
It was a great knives and option 5 years ago.

Now with Civivi is really isn’t a great option.

Check out a few videos on Civivi’s 9cr18 edge retention. It rivals spydercos s30v.
 
bobobama said:
For what it's worth, the same thing happened to one of the first knives I owned, a Benchmade AFCK in ATS-34 steel. It was scary, but luckily I noticed it before it could do any damage. Benchmade, to their credit, fixed it but it's now retired (the blade steel was fine though- no problems there).
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Yeah Ive seen enough liner lock issues that I completely swore them off. And frame locks by extension, though that could change. No matter the company, liner locks just dont seem to quite hold up.
 
I had one. First Spyderco I ever bought. It was OK. Did not hold an edge very well but super easy to sharpen. Used up a lot of pocket real estate.
 
I had and used one for quite a while, my first spyderco since the early days of clipits, but it didn’t hold an edge very well and I thought it was a little large. The g-10 is slick. I’ve since sold it.
I’m sure there are better options in that price range.
 
sharp_edge said:
It is the first Spyderco I bought. The ergo is great, the price was good back then, and the lock is definitely fine. No - it is no longer a good $50 knife with 8cr13mov steel.
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Agreed.

Back when it was $35, it was a good deal.

Honestly, I'd rather have a Rat 1. It's less expensive and has [arguably] better steel.

It certainly has better steel than the Tenacious I had. I had a lemon though.

Maybe a Byrd Raven in BD1 would be a better choice?
 
my first spydy was vg10 in the early 2000s, ... so I can't really tolerate 8cr13
I paid under 50 for a delica back then

now I use their cpm-m4 in the gb2... no way I'm going down to 8cr

if I want softer ss, I'd rather go for sandvik 12c27 or 14c28n

at least spydy didn't go down to 3cr & 4cr like kershaw (and others) have with their budget lines
 
yes, my intention wasn't to say 14c28n is 'soft', only that it's softer than cpm-m4, which is typically around 62 or 63 hrc

and I agree, it's my fav budget steel also (at least for stainless)
for budget carbon steel, 80crv2 wins
 
In their own right, the Tenacious series of knives are great budget blades. It's just that there's some competition that offer the same or better performance at about the same price or a tad less, e.g. Ontario Rat 1/2, Cold Steel Tuff Lite, etc. That being said, I love the Resilience. Hope it gets offered in S35VN like the Tenacious.
 
I bought a serrated Tenacious but found the grips had a strong plastic smell. After almost a year they still smell.I tried soaking them in water with lemon juice, left them in the sun while covered in Bicarbonate of Soda but to no avail. Nice knife, but it still smells (although less than when I bought it)
 
Love mine, the steel is outperformed by my other Soydies, but I really like the blade shape and size alot.
Mine is over 10 years old now iirc.
 
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Houlahound said:
All this talk of low quality steel beyond redemption.
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It's nothing of the sort. It's tough, corrosion resistant enough for a working knife, and takes one of the sharpest edges of all the steels I've used, and regains it easily enough.

DangerZone98 said:
I love the Resilience. Hope it gets offered in S35VN like the Tenacious.
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BRING IT! The only difficulty for me is figuring out what to do with my first one:
Resilience Deluxe.jpg
Resilience Modified Clip Point.jpg
Resilience Spear Point.jpg
Resilience Wharncliffe.jpg
 
For Chinese-made knives, your $50 gets you a better-made knives from Chinese brands. Civivi and CJRB will get you better materials and build quality at the same or lower prices.
 
I would challenge any other knife in that price range and a bit even higher to show the robustness, ergonomics and overall user friendliness of the Spyderco Tenacious. Eric Glesser design a couple of gems there, and I think even with the 8Cr they stand the test of time and inflation - and from what I can see their sales seem to indicate so as well.
 
sabre cat said:
I can’t help but think a full serrated Tenacious would make a killer rescue knife if you blunted the tip.
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I'm guessing you mean that figuratively. :D
 
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