Spyderco Tenacious - my take on it

the point is the liner lock if done properly.....is quite a solid and strong design. its not the strongest lock.....no doubt. no one would argue that...least i hope not?:)

I wanted to show done right the liner lock is stronger than the traditional lockback design. so its not that the liner lock is flawed in the concept when people have bad experiences with them......rather in the poor application and engineering of a particular knife.

Apologize for getting topic off track...back to tenacious discussion. i own one...had a few. gave most away to newbies. i find it a great value for what it is...but thats me.
 
I'm pretty satisfied with mine.

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I want to emphasize here that overall I like the Tenacious. I think it's a good design with awesome ergonomics, nice one handed opening and closing (I LOVE the Spyderco round hole), great jimping, super sharp out of the box and a wonderful blade shape. In my testing, however, the liner lock is just a little too weak for my tastes. Sure, it's better than nothing and it'l stand up to normal use, but I like a strong lock on my folders, so I don't carry the Tenacious anymore.

I do, however, find myself craving one of the Spydercos with a strong lock, like the Manix 2 LW, Endura or even that nice Calypso.
 
Murdamook said:
Seriously? Speed, impact, struggle after the stab. Stabbing in a high speed environment is different than controlled stabbing.
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I can't believe I just read someone use "tactical stabbing" as a serious term. Are you trolling?
 
Okay, here's the deal... Murdamook is not trolling, he is trying to make a point here.
You just said yourself that the lock failed due to abuse.
If you use your knife, as intended you would have no issues with the lock, plain and simple.
The Spine-Whack test, has been proven idiotic in my opinion. What is truly the point of that?

Also, the caged ball bearing lock is an extremely strong lock and you should for sure pick up a Manix 2 because it's a great knife.
I agree with the wanting a lock that will not fail.. however, I don't agree with you on abusing your knife, making the lock fail, and then deciding that the lock is defective. It's not defective, your use of your knife obviously is.

I have several liner lock knives and have owned several Spyderco Liner Lock knives with no issues whatsoever.
My Spyderco Breeden for example, I trust it would not fail under extremely hard use(it is a rescue knife after all) and it is a liner lock with a not so thick liner. The Liner Lock is a strong a proven lock. Is it the strongest? No. Does that mean it's weak? Not by a long shot.

Emerson are probably one of the most popular and trusted "Tactical" knife brands out there, they use the liner lock in every knife they make. Do you really think the most popular and trusted "tactical" knife brand would use a Liner Lock if it weren't safe or strong? I'm sure if you abused the knife enough, you could make the lock fail. But that's just because of human stupidity not because the lock is lacking.

Zero Tolerance knives is another huge tactical hard use brand, they use a liner lock for several of their knives. Again do you think they would use it if they thought it was lacking?

I personally have used a Tenacious, Resilience, and Persistence extremely hard and beat the hell out of them, and they never failed me once. I suppose that could be because the lock was fine and I didn't spine whack it or abuse it. I even used the tip of the Persistence to pry a couple of times and had zero issues before or after. That would qualify it as being abused a little, but I didn't abuse it into submission.

Not sure what you do with your knives, but I think maybe you need to look into how to use a tool.
 
It's not that the lock is defective. It's just among the weaker lock designs, or perhaps the liner lock on the Tenacious is just poorly designed. An Emerson liner lock would probably be a lot stronger; they explain on their website that the lock face and the blade tangmust meet at an angle or the lock will not function properly. Maybe the liner lock on the Military is done properly, I don't know. All I know is that the Tenacious' liner lock sucks! If it was improved I would gladly buy another, because I love everything else about my Tenacious, which has despite its lock failure really turned me on to Spyderco and now I want to buy more Spyderco knives, this time the ones with stronger locks.

I'd much rather a back lock, caged ball lock, frame lock or compression lock. Why do I care so much about lock strength? If I'm going to carry a sharp knife (especially sharp like a Spyderco) I want a lock that's as strong as possible, because if a push comes to shove, that lock is the only thing between my irreplaceable fingers and that sharp edge.
 
Ridiculous! having a problem once is not "testing". If you want to claim to be testing do it a hundred times on a thousand different samples. Then you can report on testing results. You had a problem, move on if you want to. The Tenacious is a bargain priced Spyderco that is ridiculously well designed for it's price point!
I find the lock to be quite good and I know Spyderco spends a lot of effort getting locks right.
My take on it, the Tenacious is awesome and you are kind of ridiculous.
 
MC Chan said:
Ridiculous! having a problem once is not "testing". If you want to claim to be testing do it a hundred times on a thousand different samples. Then you can report on testing results. You had a problem, move on if you want to. The Tenacious is a bargain priced Spyderco that is ridiculously well designed for it's price point!
I find the lock to be quite good and I know Spyderco spends a lot of effort getting locks right.
My take on it, the Tenacious is awesome and you are kind of ridiculous.
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There's no need to get flustered. I've stated multiple times in this thread that I think, overall, the Tenacious is a great high-value folder that is well designed. It gets everything right except for the lock. Because of that, I don't want to carry it anymore, but it's still a good folder, and I plan to upgrade to better Spydercos with better locks.
 
Yeah, I tried not to get flustered but this is why manufacturers shy away from forums. You continue to impugn the Tenacious with no grounds and now would like to spread this slander to the Military. I think you should measure your words more carefully. If you were to do this I might discuss other topics such as the Calypso with you. As it is I'm not inclined.
 
MC Chan said:
Yeah, I tried not to get flustered but this is why manufacturers shy away from forums. You continue to impugn the Tenacious with no grounds and now would like to spread this slander to the Military. I think you should measure your words more carefully. If you were to do this I might discuss other topics such as the Calypso with you. As it is I'm not inclined.
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I'm not really seeing why you're so upset. I never said anything about the Military, other than that its liner lock is probably better designed than that of the Tenacious. This isn't slander with no grounds. This is test results.

You don't want to discuss other topics with me because we disagree on one aspect of one of Spyderco's value folders? That's a little immature, don't you think?

If you love a brand, you should be honest about ways you think improvements can be made. The Tenacious' lock needs serious improvement, and I'll be honest about that because I love Spyderco and intend to buy many more products from them.
 
I disagree with your concept of testing. One example is statistically irrelevant. For you to say (with any validity) that your testing shows a problem with the design of the Tenacious you have to use a statistically relevant sample which for the set Spyderco Tenacious = x number of knives might be a number like 50 or thereabouts. If you tested this number of knives and found 100% failure then you would be able to make the statements you continue to make. I have to go now someone else is wrong on the internet.
 
I've had a couple of the Tenacious (also give away to newbies) over a period and have a Resilience. Never experienced any lock problems and think it is great value for money. But then I'm probably biased towards liner locks as my EDC is a Large 21 Sebenza.

One sample gave a problem under abuse? This means NO problem! Buy another one :-)
 
OP, I believe the negative tone you've thus far received boils down to the fact that you continually referred to your issues as problems with "the tenacious", rather than "my tenacious". As is evidenced by the many positive reviews out there, the tenacious is a fantastic knife for the price, but it's price is also its achilles heel. Quality control and manufacturing tolerances on a $30 Chinese made knife can be hit or miss to say the least. I believe that you own a knife that fails a spine whack test, but saying that since your knife fails the spine whack test then every tenacious must also fail the test and that spyderco needs to redesign the lock is just ridiculous. You may have gotten a more positive response if you had said something more along the lines of "Hey guys, my tenacious fails a spine whack test, I know the spine whack test isn't a true test of lock performance but it still makes me nervous. Do you think I should send it in?" Just sayin...
 
mkjellgren said:
OP, I believe the negative tone you've thus far received boils down to the fact that you continually referred to your issues as problems with "the tenacious", rather than "my tenacious". As is evidenced by the many positive reviews out there, the tenacious is a fantastic knife for the price, but it's price is also its achilles heel. Quality control and manufacturing tolerances on a $30 Chinese made knife can be hit or miss to say the least. I believe that you own a knife that fails a spine whack test, but saying that since your knife fails the spine whack test then every tenacious must also fail the test and that spyderco needs to redesign the lock is just ridiculous. You may have gotten a more positive response if you had said something more along the lines of "Hey guys, my tenacious fails a spine whack test, I know the spine whack test isn't a true test of lock performance but it still makes me nervous. Do you think I should send it in?" Just sayin...
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I'm starting to think you're correct. I've been looking around the web for abusive lock tests of the Tenacious. Some of them seem to be wicked strong, some of them are a joke. I've also seen a couple of Enduras fail, sadly...I wanted one of those.

The only Spyderco knives I've seen tested but never seen fail are those in the Manix 2 series. This is very disturbing for me because I really wanted a Calypso and an Endura. I also, however, wanted a Manix 2. I'll probably still be getting one of those.
 
K.K. Have you seen some of JDavis882's Youtube videos? I know there are going to be some that don't care for his stuff at all, but the engineer in me really likes him. To me he comes across as a guy that has some strong opinions but 99.9% of the time those opinions are backed up with some very solid reasoning. He's also very good at explaining his reasoning. He's got several videos that discuss "hard-use" of folders and some interesting points on the strength of various lock designs. You might find some of his stuff pretty cool.
 
quigibo said:
K.K. Have you seen some of JDavis882's Youtube videos? I know there are going to be some that don't care for his stuff at all, but the engineer in me really likes him. To me he comes across as a guy that has some strong opinions but 99.9% of the time those opinions are backed up with some very solid reasoning. He's also very good at explaining his reasoning. He's got several videos that discuss "hard-use" of folders and some interesting points on the strength of various lock designs. You might find some of his stuff pretty cool.
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I haven't, but I'll check them out, thanks. Lock strength is important to me, as I think you can tell. :)
 
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