What doesMBC rated locks mean???

Spartan Ajax

Here's the content of a post that Sal Glesser made on the Spyderco.com Forum. Hopefully it should answer your questions.

Quote:

Spyderco has set up our own in-house standards on lock strength to provide our own parameters for manufacturing.

We have established an in house test that breaks knives and records the break. We get a graph and numerical results of the break.

A knife is put into a vise and a probe applies pressure to the handle. The distance from the pivot pin to the probe is measured in inches. This is the leverage arm. If the probe takes 100 lbs of pressure to break the lock and the probe is 3 inches from the pivot, then the amount of force is measured as; "3 inches times 100 lbs equals 300 inch lbs of force to break the lock (or blade or ?).

We then established a standard for our own knives. We decided that we would use the inch lbs of force to break the lock times the length of the blade to establish thresh holds.

25 inch/lbs of force for every inch of blade length would be considered a "light duty service". That means that a 2" blade needs to hold 50 inch/lbs of force to meet the "light duty service" requirement.

50 inch/lbs of force per inch of blade would be "medium duty service". This means that a 2" blade times 50 inch/lbs of force equals a minimum of 100 inch/lbs of force to break the lock.

"heavy duty service" is 100 inch/lbs of force per inch of blade is required to break the lock. This means that a 2" blade times 100 inch/lbs of force equals 200 inch/lbs of force is required to break the lock.

MBC is 200 inch/lbs of force is required for every inch of blade length to break the lock. This means that a 2" blade times 200 inch/lbs of force equals 400 inch/lbs of force is required to break the lock.

This is not intended for any other knife companies or custom makers. It is our own standard that we test to with every model in every shipment or run in our own facility.

I hope that helps.

sal
 
It means that if you have to stab someone in the chest or head with a MBC rated-folder, that you won't have to worry about the lock failing and closing on your fingers.;).
 
thanks for the info. Spyderco should be commended for this testing. Makes me feel better about a folder as a defensive weapon.
 
Even a heavy duty folder, like the Military or the Endura will cope with most cutting tasks. Never heard about lock problems with these. As for the MBC rated models (Chinook, Gunting and Lil'T) those are incredibly strong knives.
 
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