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Tell me why I should or should not get a military.

3rdGenRigger said:
but I do prefer tip up as I find the thumb hole to be right where my thumb is oriented as a draw a tip-up Spydie out of my pocket
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Please explain how you do this, I can't make it work for me. I have long fingers, and not fat fingers. Half of my EDC knives are tip up and when I pull one out, such as the Manix 2, the tip of my thumb is several inches from the hole. I have to do some complicated manipulations to orient the knife so I can open it and this not only takes a lot of time but it is not secure. When I pull out a tip down knife such as the Military or PM2, my thumb is right on the hole and ready to open it. One of these days I'm going to have to get someone to photograph me doing this so I can ask the "tip up" people about it. I have discovered that with a real short knife such as the Delica I can do a reasonable job of drawing a tip up knife, but I don't carry real short knives. :D

I am carrying my Military tomorrow and of course it is tip down. For grins I did a quick experiment- I clipped the knife in my pocket and made a note of how much of the handle stuck out. Then I put it in my pocket tip up and held it with the same amount of handle sticking out, then I pulled the knife out in my normal method. I measured how far my thumb was from the thumb hole and it was right on 2".
 
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^ yup, tip-up carry is a hindrance on knives like the Military, K2, Manix/2 and others of similar size or length. Might get away with a middle-finger flick though, if proficient enough.
 
gooeytek said:
People get cut from a knife that's carried tip down, they swear off tip-down knives forever. People get cut from a knife carried tip-up, they swear off those knives forever. Blah blah blah, and more blah. Everyone's got their excuses, and honestly, tip-up or down has never mattered to me. Ever. Just have the presence of mind that you're always carrying a knife.
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I've never heard of anybody getting cut by a tip up knife that was carried in the front pocket with the blade against the seam of the pocket. I used to carry a lot of tip down knives and sometimes they would open in my pocket, especially if they were assisted openers. After one finally poked me in the leg I finally wised up. I have never in my life had a tip up knife open in my pocket. That makes it a multiple time issue with a final straw that drew blood for tip down and not a single instance of the same thing happening with the other orientation.

If you've never had an issue, great. But it's not just as simple as writing it off as not "having the presence of mind that you're always carrying a knife" causing that kind of problem. How often do you think about whether the knife in your pocket is open when you are simply going from a seated position to standing? That's not a logical time to stop to consider the position of your knife. If something like that happens, as it did to me, it's a problem with my carry system - NOT a problem with my mindset. Tip down doesn't work for me and I don't feel that I should have to adjust my carry system to work around it. That's why I won't buy a current Military.

And to top this off, the Para 2 already went from being limited in carry options to getting pocket clip options for either side, tip up or tip down. It's quite simply in line with Spyderco's "CQI" philosophy and having options is just flat out better than not having options.
 
Good point, that's the main reason why I also prefer tip up.

If a knife's blade detent is strong enough, then I am willing to make an exception, like in the case of the Military.
 
I have a question and I promise you, I'm not trying to be rude..(nice opening huh? :rolleyes:)
Why does this discussion always seem to center around "draw speed"? Is this really an issue for anyone? Are you putting a stopwatch to it? I may be the weird one here, but I have never paid a lick of attention to how long this process takes. I mean, I'm pulling a pocket knife out and opening it...that's it. Maybe it takes a second with one knife and a second and a half with another. Who cares? What's the rush? I guess that one answer could be that you want the process to be quick and natural in a high stress situation? I don't know...I get into these on a semi regular basis on my kayak with big fish on. I've still never even noticed in those moments whether I was "tip up or tip down". Slow and methodical usually works better than fast and fluid for me anyway.

I'm not trying to tell anyone that it shouldn't matter to them, I'm just genuinely curious as to why? Give me some sound reasoning and I might change my way of thinking...that's certainly happened before. Until then though I'm gonna keep on not worrying about it. :)
 
Surfingringo said:
I have a question and I promise you, I'm not trying to be rude..(nice opening huh? :rolleyes:)
Why does this discussion always seem to center around "draw speed"? Is this really an issue for anyone? Are you putting a stopwatch to it? I may be the weird one here, but I have never paid a lick of attention to how long this process takes. I mean, I'm pulling a pocket knife out and opening it...that's it. Maybe it takes a second with one knife and a second and a half with another. Who cares? What's the rush? I guess that one answer could be that you want the process to be quick and natural in a high stress situation? I don't know...I get into these on a semi regular basis on my kayak with big fish on. I've still never even noticed in those moments whether I was "tip up or tip down". Slow and methodical usually works better than fast and fluid for me anyway.

I'm not trying to tell anyone that it shouldn't matter to them, I'm just genuinely curious as to why? Give me some sound reasoning and I might change my way of thinking...that's certainly happened before. Until then though I'm gonna keep on not worrying about it. :)
Click to expand...

It's not draw speed for me but rather ease of use. I find that on the military or on similar length knives, tip down puts my thumb near the hole when the knife is out. I have a similar length recon 1, the older one with the axis K/O, and I found that I often dropped it when I was focused on holding what I was cutting with my left hand and needed to crawl my grip to where my thumb could reach the thumbstud. On shorter knives, up or down doesn't really matter to me.
 
bdmicarta said:
Please explain how you do this, I can't make it work for me. I have long fingers, and not fat fingers. Half of my EDC knives are tip up and when I pull one out, such as the Manix 2, the tip of my thumb is several inches from the hole. I have to do some complicated manipulations to orient the knife so I can open it and this not only takes a lot of time but it is not secure. When I pull out a tip down knife such as the Military or PM2, my thumb is right on the hole and ready to open it. One of these days I'm going to have to get someone to photograph me doing this so I can ask the "tip up" people about it. I have discovered that with a real short knife such as the Delica I can do a reasonable job of drawing a tip up knife, but I don't carry real short knives. :D

I am carrying my Military tomorrow and of course it is tip down. For grins I did a quick experiment- I clipped the knife in my pocket and made a note of how much of the handle stuck out. Then I put it in my pocket tip up and held it with the same amount of handle sticking out, then I pulled the knife out in my normal method. I measured how far my thumb was from the thumb hole and it was right on 2".
Click to expand...

Perhaps it is how you draw your knife. I typically put my thumb in my pocket, and the tip of my index (or middle) finger at the end of the clip (a habit probably started due to a particularly tight clip). I remove the knife by applying upward pressure on the clip to lift the knife, and my thumb is usually in good position for opening whatever I am carrying. (I don't generally carry a Spyderco, but I just stuck a Manix2, in there to check - my thumb ended up right at the hole. Then I tried with a Manix2 XL & had the same result)
 
Surfingringo said:
I have a question and I promise you, I'm not trying to be rude..(nice opening huh? :rolleyes:)
Why does this discussion always seem to center around "draw speed"? Is this really an issue for anyone? Are you putting a stopwatch to it? I may be the weird one here, but I have never paid a lick of attention to how long this process takes. I mean, I'm pulling a pocket knife out and opening it...that's it. Maybe it takes a second with one knife and a second and a half with another. Who cares? What's the rush? I guess that one answer could be that you want the process to be quick and natural in a high stress situation? I don't know...I get into these on a semi regular basis on my kayak with big fish on. I've still never even noticed in those moments whether I was "tip up or tip down". Slow and methodical usually works better than fast and fluid for me anyway.

I'm not trying to tell anyone that it shouldn't matter to them, I'm just genuinely curious as to why? Give me some sound reasoning and I might change my way of thinking...that's certainly happened before. Until then though I'm gonna keep on not worrying about it. :)
Click to expand...

Not draw speed, but insurance against the knife opening in the pocket.

I once owned a Benchmade which was tip down only, with a very weak detent. The blade would open with almost no thumb pressure. After I read about a few guys who stabbed themselves in the leg, I realized the safety of having a blade tip up and against the seam of your pocket. No way it could open by itself.

Sold that BM soon afterwards.
 
bdmicarta & hhmoore,

Thanks for asking the question & answering. I have been puzzled by the same statement that tip up put the thumb right there to open. I pull the knife by grabbing it with thumb, fore & mid finger and never get my thumb near hole. It seems to be incorrect, I'll practice more. ;)
 
singularity35 said:
It's not draw speed for me but rather ease of use. I find that on the military or on similar length knives, tip down puts my thumb near the hole when the knife is out. I have a similar length recon 1, the older one with the axis K/O, and I found that I often dropped it when I was focused on holding what I was cutting with my left hand and needed to crawl my grip to where my thumb could reach the thumbstud. On shorter knives, up or down doesn't really matter to me.
Click to expand...

I like the increased speed with tip down but it usually doesn't really matter. I do like the simplicity and security of tip down. Like I've said I very frequently carry tip up folders and when I pull one out my thumb is a considerable distance from the opening device so I have to figure out some way to shift the knife in my hand. If my other hand is busy holding something this can be difficult. With my Manix 2 I ended up actually tossing the knife up in the air a little bit and catching it in the correct position, then opening it. You can imagine that could be problematic in some situations.


hhmoore said:
Perhaps it is how you draw your knife. I typically put my thumb in my pocket, and the tip of my index (or middle) finger at the end of the clip (a habit probably started due to a particularly tight clip). I remove the knife by applying upward pressure on the clip to lift the knife, and my thumb is usually in good position for opening whatever I am carrying.
Click to expand...

I am very tall and have long fingers. With a short knife like the Delica, I can put my thumb in my pocket and pull the knife out with my fingers. My thumb will barely reach the hole in the blade. With my Manix 2 my thumb ends up almost an inch away from the hole. If I do this experiment with my Military pretending that it has a tip up option, I measured a full 2 inches from my thumb to the hole. Now I wear jeans, usually tight jeans, and nothing much more than a thumb can go into my pocket while a big knife is clipped in there. When I put my thumb in the pocket to pull the knife out, even my long thumb will only go into the pocket so far.

I did some research into tip up draw at one point and found some youtube vids where people were showing how to do tip up draw. The guy was wearing loose pajamas, I have no idea how you can demonstrate proper draw while wearing loose pajamas. Well with loose pajamas I might be able to get my whole hand into my pocket and grab the knife wherever I want to, but I don't ever wear pajamas much less loose ones. I wear jeans and can't put my hand into the pocket to grab the bottom end of the knife. But the beauty of tip down carry is that it works with any length of knife, tight jeans, and even if my pockets are stuffed full. I pull the knife out and my thumb is always in the right place.

I can understand if people have concerns about knives being open in their pockets. It hasn't happened to me in 20+ years of carrying knives with pocket clips so I don't worry about it. I was carrying a Military today and it is fairly hard to open even when you try to open it.
 
I agree that tip down is faster and more efficient for getting the blade out with the least amount of hand shifting.

I used to carry my pm2 tip down and my thumb
Was right where it needed to be every time I pulled it out. Now that I have switched to tip up, I have to do as others stated, kind of toss the knife around in my hand to get the proper position to open the blade.

The only reason I switched to tip up is it get the blade portion of the knife out of the path of my hand. When it was tip down, my hand would always interfere with the spidey hole portion Of the knife( also where jimping is). I will see how the military is in my pocket. I typically do not like to have the blade portion out in such a way that it makes contact with my hand. Unfortunately I have very large mitts. We shall see. I seriously cannot wait to get it here !!!
 
I tried the suggested method, and wasn't quite working for me. I guess YMMV.

Interestingly, Spyderco video on how to choose knife demonstrated tip up being more convenient for the deployment. Still can't figure out with any that I have (Resilience, Endura, Bradley). I can't test, IIRC this is the video: [youtube]o3USgqMAhLQ[/youtube]

Maybe I should try Delica ?
 
The wait is killing me!!! The military isn't supposed to get here till Saturday from the spyderco store.com.

I seriously cannot wait to try this thing out!!!!
 
Mine has not left my side since Saturday when I received it. I am coming back to moderns after going down the traditional path for awhile. I will always carry a traditional now as they compliment the mili perfectly. It has been sooooo nice to have a full size blade AND handle on the quick and ready. In the past I have owned a lot of blades trying to find what works best for ME. Umnumzan, 560, lion steel sr1, other mili's, para2's and some customs to name a few. I keep coming back to the Military, just meets my needs perfectly and so far the cruwear is exactly what I was looking for. Would not turn down an M4 version though or a new serrated version :D
 
Question - I recently bought a Ti Millie and it's off center away from the lock side. The only way I can get it centered is to tighten the pivot up to the point where I have to use both hands and serious muscle to open it. It really just seems like the lock is a little too strong and is pushing the blade off center when closed. Anyone else experience this before? I don't know if I could disassemble it and try bending the lock away to weaken it...I wouldn't want to damage the Ti though.
 
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