Razorsharp-Travis
BANNED
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2011
- Messages
- 612
Probably more pictorial than anything
I have had a strider SnG for about 3-4 months now, Bout time I posted a mini review.
The model: Strider SnG with:
Double gunner grips
Zapp ZwearPM Steel
Ranger Green G10
6Al4V Framelock
Black Oxide Blade finish
3/4 Hollow Grind
My Strider arrived from Canada , Im the second owner, the first owner wanted to sell it, then had sellers remorse and asked if we could undo what was done. Paypal took 17 days to refund me, so he sent it anyway, and I sent the money back (also made 20 bux as the exchange rate changed at some stage )
Upon opening I just couldnt help but do one of those giddy excited yelps. It wasnt fully broken in, but was close. It was pretty dang smooth, not my smoothest (spoiled by bearing flippers).
Out of box sharpness was shaving, felt a little overbuffed, but better than some knives come with. The edge angle was about 22 degrees per side (dps). Around 5 minutes after opening it, fondling it , and enjoying it, I destroyed a phone with it, I was saving that phone from the day I paid for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHXOH2yVxGg sorry for the bad quality, my mom accidentally took my phone to another city instead of hers that day. Basically, I destroy a phone in that video.
I must say, the zwear impresses me. Its toughness means it holds an edge longer than the high wear steels in rough use, and it doesnt easily get damaged with rough use at all. When I destroyed the phone, the edge dulled, no damage. It is extremely similar to 3v
I used this opportunity to drop the bevel angle
about 18 per side with a 21 per side micro- freehanded.
The knife still held up well as per expected. Out of box the lock was about 65%, it stayed at 65%
Pass a few days of fondling and breaking it in, I put it loose in my pocket , have a shower, when I finish I fold my pants up and the knife slips out and SOMEHOW it opened when it hit my foot
To this day, I still cant feel the toe next to the pinky toe from tip to wound.
The fun thing with black oxide is that its kind of abrasive, looks cool when you cut up an alu can, the alu comes off on the blade
As the days went by, the angle of the edge got steeper each time I reset the backbevel (on purpose) it is in this picture, probably close to what it is at this current time, 16 back, 19 edge.
The steel still held up to everything thrown at it, untill one day I pried a weld off a piece or UB beam, and snapped a bit of tip off, whoops
. I sanded the tip back, which meant a satin finished spine, I aked mick if my warranty was still in tact, he said its fine
At this stage, the coating has wear from every day use. Wood, Cardboard, ropes, metals, using the spine as a scraper and weld splatter remover (lol) and other stuff. Didnt make it that much less pretty, in fact, i think wear makes it prettier
After a few days of medium to light use, and mucking around cutting Corrugated iron, stabbing a freezer, breaking shells, stabbing cans, (steel and alu) battoning, The lock up is maybe 70%, mainly from the battoning, still rock solid though. Also by this stage (3 weeks?) its broken in very smooth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-vUvKWHG74
Heres a pic from working on site with seismic strengthening, scungy shitty tape
What is it with me and cans
Still love how the coating is abrasive
Here is the Knife after about 2 months, as a guess:
This is in cleaned up state, about 5 days before the vigorous 1 hour cleaning it looked like this:
Its the worst stuff any of my knives have gone through. they were opening dry mix Grout, and scraping expansion foam off the walls ( bit of scraping along concrete too. The southard got a nice big chip and significantly more edge dulling than the strider (you could see the apex of both knives, more so on the southard), this is what I mean by high toughness lasting longer than High wear in my job. I couldnt fix the Spyderco because I cant get the danged thing apart, the strider wasnt loctited anywhere except the pivot ( i made a pivot tool) The southards pivot screws stripped too, oh well, out of rotation for now (im not missing it :O )
At this stage, lockup is around 75%. Still solid as a brick shit house.
I have cut back with the un needed abuse... Doesnt mean I have stopped
Few days ago, I had some work in the mud to do, cutting plastic off the side of the place I work at, Water was wicking behind the iron making the office leak through the wall, so I dug a foot deep trench , had to trim the plastic which made it hard to dig, cut the iron shorter, then I got some gravel and made the trench into a soak pit so the water has somewhere to go.
The Strider has held up well as an EDC. Its overbuilt, but its overbuilt in a good way, Big pivot, thicker tip , trusty lock geometry BUT they do it in a way where its not going to take much more , or may even take less pocket space than a lot of modern pocket knives.
Despite what people say, the striders arent terrible cutters, yes there are better cutters,but these arent slouches. The hollow 3/4 grind on my SnG is 0.020" behind the edge right up till just behind mid belly where it starts subtly thickening to around 0.055 behind the edge at the tip meaning it cuts well where you do most your cutting, but has a stout tip meaning it can hold up to some prying tasks.
Still love the heck out of the Zwear. I think its my new favorite, or up in 1st place with m390 (which is up there for its high wear and decent toughness for what it has wear resistance) just because it handles rough as heck abuse, but still holds an edge for what seems around the level of s30v.
The blade is definitely no Caly 3.5 when cutting 2 layer thick cardboard, it can wedge a little, but regardless, it still gets the job done WAY easier than a prybar , and a bit better than the ZT0560 (now thats an awful cutter).
This is the best knife purchase I made, And my favorite knife for sure. The ergonomics are outstanding in all grips, it is comfortable and will NOT slip out of your hand, the fit in finish is excellent, The action now is GLASSY, SO FREAKING SMOOTH. Taking apart and applying TLC is a breeze with the simple, precise construction
Heres an edge shot for ya's
Here is a beauty shot from a week ago at 160 meters altitude to finish this off
Well Done Strider
I have had a strider SnG for about 3-4 months now, Bout time I posted a mini review.
The model: Strider SnG with:
Double gunner grips
Zapp ZwearPM Steel
Ranger Green G10
6Al4V Framelock
Black Oxide Blade finish
3/4 Hollow Grind
My Strider arrived from Canada , Im the second owner, the first owner wanted to sell it, then had sellers remorse and asked if we could undo what was done. Paypal took 17 days to refund me, so he sent it anyway, and I sent the money back (also made 20 bux as the exchange rate changed at some stage )
Upon opening I just couldnt help but do one of those giddy excited yelps. It wasnt fully broken in, but was close. It was pretty dang smooth, not my smoothest (spoiled by bearing flippers).
Out of box sharpness was shaving, felt a little overbuffed, but better than some knives come with. The edge angle was about 22 degrees per side (dps). Around 5 minutes after opening it, fondling it , and enjoying it, I destroyed a phone with it, I was saving that phone from the day I paid for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHXOH2yVxGg sorry for the bad quality, my mom accidentally took my phone to another city instead of hers that day. Basically, I destroy a phone in that video.
I must say, the zwear impresses me. Its toughness means it holds an edge longer than the high wear steels in rough use, and it doesnt easily get damaged with rough use at all. When I destroyed the phone, the edge dulled, no damage. It is extremely similar to 3v
I used this opportunity to drop the bevel angle
about 18 per side with a 21 per side micro- freehanded.
The knife still held up well as per expected. Out of box the lock was about 65%, it stayed at 65%
Pass a few days of fondling and breaking it in, I put it loose in my pocket , have a shower, when I finish I fold my pants up and the knife slips out and SOMEHOW it opened when it hit my foot
To this day, I still cant feel the toe next to the pinky toe from tip to wound.
The fun thing with black oxide is that its kind of abrasive, looks cool when you cut up an alu can, the alu comes off on the blade
As the days went by, the angle of the edge got steeper each time I reset the backbevel (on purpose) it is in this picture, probably close to what it is at this current time, 16 back, 19 edge.
The steel still held up to everything thrown at it, untill one day I pried a weld off a piece or UB beam, and snapped a bit of tip off, whoops
. I sanded the tip back, which meant a satin finished spine, I aked mick if my warranty was still in tact, he said its fine At this stage, the coating has wear from every day use. Wood, Cardboard, ropes, metals, using the spine as a scraper and weld splatter remover (lol) and other stuff. Didnt make it that much less pretty, in fact, i think wear makes it prettier
After a few days of medium to light use, and mucking around cutting Corrugated iron, stabbing a freezer, breaking shells, stabbing cans, (steel and alu) battoning, The lock up is maybe 70%, mainly from the battoning, still rock solid though. Also by this stage (3 weeks?) its broken in very smooth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-vUvKWHG74
Heres a pic from working on site with seismic strengthening, scungy shitty tape
What is it with me and cans
Still love how the coating is abrasive
Here is the Knife after about 2 months, as a guess:
This is in cleaned up state, about 5 days before the vigorous 1 hour cleaning it looked like this:
Its the worst stuff any of my knives have gone through. they were opening dry mix Grout, and scraping expansion foam off the walls ( bit of scraping along concrete too. The southard got a nice big chip and significantly more edge dulling than the strider (you could see the apex of both knives, more so on the southard), this is what I mean by high toughness lasting longer than High wear in my job. I couldnt fix the Spyderco because I cant get the danged thing apart, the strider wasnt loctited anywhere except the pivot ( i made a pivot tool) The southards pivot screws stripped too, oh well, out of rotation for now (im not missing it :O )
At this stage, lockup is around 75%. Still solid as a brick shit house.
I have cut back with the un needed abuse... Doesnt mean I have stopped
Few days ago, I had some work in the mud to do, cutting plastic off the side of the place I work at, Water was wicking behind the iron making the office leak through the wall, so I dug a foot deep trench , had to trim the plastic which made it hard to dig, cut the iron shorter, then I got some gravel and made the trench into a soak pit so the water has somewhere to go.
The Strider has held up well as an EDC. Its overbuilt, but its overbuilt in a good way, Big pivot, thicker tip , trusty lock geometry BUT they do it in a way where its not going to take much more , or may even take less pocket space than a lot of modern pocket knives.
Despite what people say, the striders arent terrible cutters, yes there are better cutters,but these arent slouches. The hollow 3/4 grind on my SnG is 0.020" behind the edge right up till just behind mid belly where it starts subtly thickening to around 0.055 behind the edge at the tip meaning it cuts well where you do most your cutting, but has a stout tip meaning it can hold up to some prying tasks.
Still love the heck out of the Zwear. I think its my new favorite, or up in 1st place with m390 (which is up there for its high wear and decent toughness for what it has wear resistance) just because it handles rough as heck abuse, but still holds an edge for what seems around the level of s30v.
The blade is definitely no Caly 3.5 when cutting 2 layer thick cardboard, it can wedge a little, but regardless, it still gets the job done WAY easier than a prybar , and a bit better than the ZT0560 (now thats an awful cutter).
This is the best knife purchase I made, And my favorite knife for sure. The ergonomics are outstanding in all grips, it is comfortable and will NOT slip out of your hand, the fit in finish is excellent, The action now is GLASSY, SO FREAKING SMOOTH. Taking apart and applying TLC is a breeze with the simple, precise construction
Heres an edge shot for ya's
Here is a beauty shot from a week ago at 160 meters altitude to finish this off
Well Done Strider
