Tip down carry..Why?

Maybe the shape or size of my hands has something to do with it. If other people don't have the problem, then it could just be me. It's not an important enough issue when it comes to knives, to me, to get into a heated debate about. I, personally, preferre tip up carry, especially since I favor lockbacks, and the blade opening will never be an issue.
 
If your knife has an opening hole, tip down carry allows the use of the "Spydie drop". Just don't tell Sal I mentioned this.

I really prefer tip down carry. I've never been in a situation where an extra tenth of a second to deploy a knife made any difference. I hope I never am. Unfortunately, Benchmade has come out with so many cool Axis Lock knives that I find myself carrying tip up an awful lot :)
 
Well, I have never carried an auto either so I really don't have a dog in this fight but like I said in the revised version of my reply that the first one I had(civilian) was tip down so it just seemed natural to me. I did spend alot of time training myself to open it quickly and got to where it was like an extension of my hand so the tip up was awkward at first. Now, either is as easy to me is my point. BTW....I don't use the hole but snap it open with a flick of the wrist....something I learned a long time ago on a crappy 5 dollar knife as a teen.
 
Tip down is the best in my opinion. Guys, try this on a tip down knife. Start the draw from your pocket and just as the butt of the knife clears your pocket and is still in contact with your body, tilt the knife toward the center of your body and right into the opening position. I can draw and open a knife in less than a second. With a tip up carry you have to draw the knife, even if your thumb is on the opening stud/hole your fingers are at the butt of the knife and have to be inched up the knife to open it, very awkward for me. Just my opinion.
 
It's all personal preference. I don't really care about Tip up v Tip down, I can draw the knife and open both just as easily, though I always liked tip up asthetics
 
djolney said:
IMO, knives move around in pockets, and blades occasionally open.

On a tip down knife neither of these things are very dangerous, but on a tip up knife there is suddenly a sharp point right where you want to put your hand.

I’ve read at least three posts about people putting their hand straight onto the blade tip of a tip up knife that has opened in a pocket.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and I'm one of them. Large Classic Sebenza. This happened the first week or so that I had it while waiting for the little thingy from CRK that covers the clip hole before I sent it to Tom Mayo and the belt Pouch that MtMike was making for me was still under construction. Had it clipped against the seam of my rear pocket next to my wallet. Drove to the grocery store with my wife and apparently from sitting on it/moving around, the blade opened slightly. Reaching for my wallet in the checkout got a sharp pain and suddenly blood was everywhere. Tip penetrated about 1/4" and I didn't even put my hand hard into the pocket, but rather just using the thumb and first finger to hook the wallet.

Cashiers do NOT like getting bloody money! LOL The knife went into a drawer till the cover came a few days later. The clip came off, the cover went on and off it went to Mayo. The pouch arrived before I got the knife back. It now rides vertical, strong side, tip down. When I go to pull the knife, my thumb is on the thumb stud and can just sweep it open.

Rob
 
Tip-up feels better to me. For knives that don't have a strong detent, I prefer tip-down.

Mostly, I carry lockbacks so tip-up does me fine.

I have long fingers so when I draw a TU knife my thumb is already on the openign hole, or just gets slid down to it. With TD, I find I have to rotate the knife before I can open it. I am not practiced with this so that my explain my difficulty.
 
Hey Guys...

Yaa this is a very personal thing I guess..
I prefer Tip up Always...

I've never had a folder open in my pocket, and even if it did, the blade is in the seam of the pants,, so I would likely mis the blade altogether...

I just find Tip down carry a pain,,and uncomfortable to use...

ttyle

Eric...
 
I've carried both TU and TD and didn't notice much of a difference in speed. What you people posting that one or the other is MUCH FASTER, ALWAYS need to remember is that this is a personal thing. Sure, YOU might find pulling a TU knife out to be a bit faster, but not everyone will.

From what I remember reading, SRKW chose to offer TD only carry as a safety/liability concern.
 
Well, I am one of those unfortunate few who managed to cut myself on a tip-up blade. Nothing serious and probably the fault of the design (liner lock) on a Wally World Buck discontinued bargain bin knife (can't recall the model). As for speed of draw, my EDC blade supplements my EDC weapon so (for me) speed is not nearly as essential for a blade than it is for my handgun. That said, I feel my knife would come out ONLY after 2 mags are empty, weapon malfuntions horribly, or I have lost my ability to run! A scenario I work hard to AVOID.
BTW, I am a lefty but prefer right front pocket carry as my strong side is my handgun.
 
The argument for gravity would be valid if the folders had no detent balls installed on the liner lock, or frame locks and if there were no spring tension on the blades from the lock bar in lock back or mid locking folders. Even some of the finer so called tactical combat ready folders are tip up carry so the gravity thing sounds valid until you look at the engineering built into the knives being made today. If your knife is closed with the tip just about up far enough to get your nail under it then yeah, you might be setting yourself up for a serious injury, but most these days are set to close deeper so there is significant space for the blade so even if it did move a bit it would still technically be closed within the handle.

It is probably also worth adding that you get what you pay for. If you buy a cheap Taiwan or China made tip up carry knife or even a cheap beater made in the USA one and it bites you I don't think you can blame that entirely on gravity so much as being cheap. Spend the extra and get a good knife. It is still less than one emergency room visit.

I have carried both tip up and tip down. Some knives don't feel right one way but do the other so in some cases it is kind of up to the knife in question as to what works best. The main reason I prefer tip up is for the blade spine being tucked away neatly away from your hand so you can reach into your pocket without scraping your hand on the thumb stud or the spine or sharp tang part of the blade when reaching for something other than your knife. Some of the tip down carry knives I have should have big red letters on them that read "knuckle scraper" because that is what they do. And on some of them they draw blood in the process.

Even still I have favorite carry knives that are set up for both modes of carry. One of my favorite EDC knives is my Ka-Bar Dozier Thorn for tip down carry. I actully made a pocket clip for this one to convert it to tip up and it just didn't feel right at all. The original tip down carry clip is integral in how the knife feels when opening the blade. Without that clip there to properly space your hand away from the handle your fingers actually interferes with the smooth opening of the blade.

Still on others like my Spyderco Salt 1 or the numerous Delicas I have I could not imagine carrying it any other way than tip up.
 
Niether way is a deal breaker for me but I thought one advantage mentione many times before for tip up is your pivot will attract less lint
 
try doing a speedy draw with a mega folder with tip up carry. it doesn't work very well because your thumb in no where near the stud like on my rekat sifu.

when i carry a folder i follow the Mike Janich rule of carrying in the same place which is inside the waistband (normally carry fixed blade) and this is even slower to draw a tip up carry folder because i can only grab the butt end of the knife then have to readjust.

tip down i have no problems drawing the knife in my preferred carry place.
 
This is one of those things that is not only personal preference, it has to do with a whole mess of other factors like which knife (as in whether it has an opening hole, thumbstud, push button, index trigger, etc.) as well as the size of the knife. Also it has to do with what kind of pockets you have and which pocket you keep it in (front, rear, etc.), where you keep it in the pocket (towards the seam, away from the seam, etc.), how coordinated you are, and I think a huge factor is how your hands are. My fingers are a bit stubby so if I'm carrying a tip up when I go to grab my knife my thumb is nowhere near the opening mechanism on a knife that is around 3.25". If it was the size of a Kershaw Chive (if the Chive was tip-up) then I would have no problem, but on something like the LCC then I'd have a real problem with deployment. I had my LCC converted to tip-down so you know what my preference is.

This topic comes up all the time and it will continue to come up because we can never all agree on what's "best". You should always read up and see the advantages/disadvantages, but in the end you still have to make the decision on your own and probably the only way to do that is to go out and try it yourself. I've tried both ways and I picked tip-down. Don't care that other people insist that tip-up is the only way to go--it just doesn't work for me.
 
I've always carried my knives tip down as my knives are easier to open that way but I think it is a case of each to their own. It's much like asking what is the best knife in the world...every one has their own opinion :D

I do know 2 people who have cut them selves on a tip up knife. One of them still carries his knives tip up so it obviously didn't put him off :eek:
 
Tip up or tip down is a compromise. It is what works best for the individual. No matter how you look at it, there is a certain risk involved with having a sharp piece of metal in your pocket. No matter how well designed it is, the chance will always exist that you will manage to put yourself in a postion where the safety designed into the knife fails and you get cut. It has happned to many of us here, regardless of tip up or tip down, regardless of the quality of the knife or design. It may never happen to you. You are fortunate. The fact that it has happened to so many others with varying degrees of injuries should give you reason to be even more cautious.

Know the tool you are carrying, gun, knife, club whatever and you will reduce your risks even greater.
 
Every time I see this question come up in another thread I think to myself about the steering wheel on the left vs on the right thing. Which is better? It depends on who you ask, where you are from and what position it was on when you learned to drive to a large extent I guess. Some people switch later, some don't, some go both ways with no problem and others have both but like one better.

There are also stories here and on other knife forums of guys fixed blades poking through their sheaths and cutting them good when they fell on it or didn't realized they shoved it in at the wrong angle and stabbed themselves so, Dirk brings up a good point: anytime you have a knife on you there is the potential for an accident. Knowing your blade can help a lot but if having a clip scares someone that much then take the thing off and carry your folder in your pocket or in a sheath on your belt. End of story.
 
I prefer tip down because it's easier to get a firm grasp on the knife as you draw it, and then not have to move or reposition your hand while you flip or thumb the blade out. With tip down, you can securely pull the knife out, use it, and return it to your pocket without ever changing your grip. I don't know about speed, but it's convenient when the knife is used one-handed. I have a tip up knife that I use purely because it conceals very well. Otherwise, I would go with another blade.

WYK
 
How can anyone have trouble with tip-up? The blade spine is against your pocket, and usually you don't shove your hand into the pocket with the knife, you just put your thumb inside your pocket on the handle and pull it out. Tip-down leaves the blade spine free to open, IMHO.
 
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