Strongest lock

Lock strength and reliability is one thing, but safety precaution is another.

Over the years, I have read about many knife 'accidents' where the user have no idea how the lock had failed and all ended up in ER one way or another. The best 'safety' feature to me is to treat all folding knife like a slip joint, YMMV.
 
Is lock design the primary safety factor? Is it lock area interface? Or is the pivot?

The only times I have ever had an open knife unintentionally close on me was when twisting, or applying torque, to the blade while deep in some material.

Slip joints more often of course, easily sliding past the detent; cheap liner locks only rarely. But I always thought twisting made the contact area slip. So, blade play was the factor.

Am I off base?
 
A strong lock is primarily a redundancy, not an excuse for batoning, prying, or other tasks that deviate greatly from cutting. Is there a reasonable EDC task that would demand hanging 450 lbs. on the blade spine? Probably not. Is it a cool thing to have? Definitely.
 
MolokaiRider said:
Tri-ad is engineered to be very strong, and it is.

If you’re looking for strength in a folding knife it’s pretty high up on the list.
Click to expand...
I think that they make mistake with advertising Tri-ad lock as strongest lock .They should advertise it as the safest lock .
I don t like the tests they make ..........400 kilograms wight needed to destroy lock ?? Who need that kind of knife ???Who will EVER put that kind of force on knife with bare hands???? I like that design , without question best out there .What i don t like is the way how they test and compare with other design of lock /and for that reason i will never buy CS , i will feel like cheated/ and proportion blade/handle because of that tri-add system.........
 
Last edited:
You could say that bearing surface is an indicator of lock strength, in which case I believe the Triad Lock still wins.

That is, the amount of blade tang that is in direct contact with some part of the locking mechanism. It should really be expressed as a ratio, though. It still doesn't tell you much, but if you just want a number for comparison purposes, this would at least let you start applying math to the problem.

There are other ways to keep a knife from folding in on your fingies, too. I liked the Lake & Walker Knife Safety, and I wish it would have been adopted by somebody other than CRKT and Mil-Tac. Maybe there was a copyright issue that I don't know about. Either way, the idea of a tab that prevents the lock bar from disengaging by not-on-purpose seemed like a good one.

I think Extrema Ratio puts a secondary lock on some of their bigger stuff, and a place for a lock pin that also helps hold the blade in place.

Further complicating things is that a "properly designed" liner- or frame-lock will fail "safe", bending in and jamming against the blade tang, instead of allowing the blade to fold. I believe that it was Mr. Lake who said it, but I could be wrong.

How do you know whether it's properly designed or not? Can't help you, there: I've read so many separate articles about knives that they've all blurred together.

Edit: "Mil-Tac", not Mil-Spec. Whups.
 
Last edited:
I believe the Balisong (aka Butterfly knife) has the strongest and most reliable lock in a folding knife.
 
Welcome to BF, Marc. As you can tell, we have a lot of opinions about everything and we're happy to share them. I know what you're asking. I'm not sure why you want to know, so I'll first refer you back to Frank's post #6. Dependability is, IMAO, equal to, or more important than, pure strength. Although one might make a point that along with high strength comes some measure of dependability.

Second, as far as pure strength, determined by breaking the lock or the knife, I would rank Spyderco's ball lock and compression lock, and CS's Tri-Ad lock near, or at, the top of the list. I believe CS has done some breakage tests with their Tri-Ad locks. I think I remember some threads about it when they first started using the Demko lock. They advertise 800 pounds of pressure on their web site: "Designed by famed knife designer and Cold Steel collaborator Andrew Demko, the Tri-Ad®lock uses a unique combination of features that responds exceptionally to both positive and negative pressures and has been tested to hold up to 800 pounds of hanging weights."

Spyderco has also done in-house testing on their different locking systems, but I don't think they release the information publicly, or use it as an advertising point. I do think I remember some threads on one of the forums where Sal talked about the compression lock as one of their MBC-rated locks. Those locks are supposed to take a pressure of 200 pounds per inch of blade length. The original Manix midlock and the Chinook, were rated at 900 pounds of pressure, IIRC. I suppose the Manix II ball lock would also be among the strongest locks because of the thickness and strength of the materials used to make the lock.

HTH...
 
Lock strength is of paramount importance on a folding knife designed to be used, that is, if your fingers are valuable to you. The Triad lock is hard to beat, but framelocks are not nearly has strong. Frame locks and liner locks are probably the weakest locks and test after test show that. Backlocks (including the upgraded backlock called a Triad lock) are among the strongest. The bolt lock is also incredibly strong. We used to have a small ranch/farm and we discouraged the use of frame and liner locks because they did not stand up to the rigors of hard work. They are easy to clean, though.
 
Natlek said:
I think that they make mistake with advertising Tri-ad lock as strongest lock .They should advertise it as the safest lock .
I don t like the tests they make ..........400 kilograms wight needed to destroy lock ?? Who need that kind of knife ???Who will EVER put that kind of force on knife with bare hands???? I like that design , without question best out there .What i don t like is the way how they test and compare with other design of lock /and for that reason i will never buy CS , i will feel like cheated/ and proportion blade/handle because of that tri-add system.........
Click to expand...
I know I can trust my Lawman when I stab it into a tree to do pull-ups. (It's also useful for other chores:D.)
 
dalefuller said:
Welcome to BF, Marc. As you can tell, we have a lot of opinions about everything and we're happy to share them. I know what you're asking. I'm not sure why you want to know, so I'll first refer you back to Frank's post #6. Dependability is, IMAO, equal to, or more important than, pure strength. Although one might make a point that along with high strength comes some measure of dependability.

Second, as far as pure strength, determined by breaking the lock or the knife, I would rank Spyderco's ball lock and compression lock, and CS's Tri-Ad lock near, or at, the top of the list. I believe CS has done some breakage tests with their Tri-Ad locks. I think I remember some threads about it when they first started using the Demko lock. They advertise 800 pounds of pressure on their web site: "Designed by famed knife designer and Cold Steel collaborator Andrew Demko, the Tri-Ad®lock uses a unique combination of features that responds exceptionally to both positive and negative pressures and has been tested to hold up to 800 pounds of hanging weights."

Spyderco has also done in-house testing on their different locking systems, but I don't think they release the information publicly, or use it as an advertising point. I do think I remember some threads on one of the forums where Sal talked about the compression lock as one of their MBC-rated locks. Those locks are supposed to take a pressure of 200 pounds per inch of blade length. The original Manix midlock and the Chinook, were rated at 900 pounds of pressure, IIRC. I suppose the Manix II ball lock would also be among the strongest locks because of the thickness and strength of the materials used to make the lock.

HTH...
Click to expand...
I’m quite happy as well with the compression and ball-bearing locks. Both feel solid.
 
it is important to de-lint your pocket daily, i do, elephant ear that shit and get it all out --- my top 3 lock choices, not in this order, is compression, axis, and tri-ad or spyderco's lockback.
i normally avoid liner locks, even though some companies do a good job with them

OP ...
i hear good things about hogue's button lock, might want to consider them as well, if you have 200 to spend on a folder that is
 
I seem to remember a post from a major manufacturer, (Sal from Spyderco I think but I'm not 100% sure.) that said something to the effect that they could design any lock to be virtually any strength. I was just a balancing act of making a lock 'strong enough' while still being able to easily be disengaged, not too heavy or thick, etc, etc. It makes sense when you think about it. A back lock could be beefed up to the point where the blade would break before it let loose, the spring tension could be increased to the point that it would take a pair of pliers to disengage. But who wants to carry around a brick in your pocket?

Like all things in life, a locking folding knife is a compromise. Smaller easier to carry than a fixed blade, because it folds into a more compact package.

Liner and frame locks are a little more difficult to manufacture properly. The mating angle of the blade and lock must be correct to avoid slippage. (And there is the whole 'spine whack' test that is just plain silly.) Even major manufacturers sometimes do it wrong. (I got bitten by a Buck Crosslock...twice.) first time not bad, figured it was an anomaly. Second time it was worse. I don't know if I just got a bad one or it's a design flaw, but I haven't bought a liner lock since.My first assisted opening knife was one of the early early kershaw framelocks (Chive maybe?), worked great for years and then hardly locked at all. I still use and carry a few framelocks but my favorite is the Spyderco Chaparral backlock in Ti.

As others have said, a folding knife is a compromise and reliability is probably more important than outright strength.

Grizz
 
3fifty7 said:
Some of yall have never scaled a frozen waterfall only by dual wielding XL Voyagers and it shows.
Click to expand...

I did.
Sadly at the time Cold Steel wasn't existed yet and Lynn was carrying his diapers in his mouth yet.
So I used fixed blades instead of Voyagers :^((
My bad.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top