Why the hate for AO (assisted opening ) ?

Lapedog said:
I honestly do not think an auto is any faster than a good manual knife, particularly a flipper. In the same ammount of time it takes for me to push a button with my thumb I can push a thumb stud or a flipper.
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Your say that because of your skill with the unassisted knife.

What if you had the same amount of skill with the auto? No contest.
 
I'm not much of a fan of AO, but in these threads I do invariably see a lot of people overlooking one of the major benefits of both assisted open and automatic knives. A good example of either means that opening the knife is practically 100% certain. That's not as true of manuals. If I was in a line of work that required me to use my knife in adverse conditions (under stress, wearing gloves, in the dark, with lots of adrenaline pumping, in the rain, etc) I would almost certainly use an auto or strong AO. Anything that takes even a little fine motor control out of the equation is good under those circumstances.

Since I'm not in a line of work where that's a concern, I prefer manual knives for greater control and satisfaction, but autos and AOs have their place in my mind.
 
Lapedog said:
I honestly do not think an auto is any faster than a good manual knife, particularly a flipper. In the same ammount of time it takes for me to push a button with my thumb I can push a thumb stud or a flipper.
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Accurate. They are potentially even slower if you have to disengage a safety first.

I would say that, with skill and some practice, manual, AO, and automatic knives are roughly tied for opening speed*. Even DA OTFs need to be out of the pocket and angled away from you before you slide the switch forward - flippers, flickable knives, gravity knives, assisted knives, automatic knives, etc all share the same minimum point of openability (handle out of pocket), and most are a brief finger or hand movement away from being open, all of which require a slight hand repositioning upon withdrawing the knife.*

* The major exception here being knives that wave open, which I would argue have the fastest possible opening speed. Drawn properly, they are fully open once the handle clears the pocket. Ringed and waved karambits might be the pinnacle of this, as you are likely also already in a proper grip and ready to go by the time the lock engages, where other waved knives would likely require a little repositioning as you finish drawing the knife.

Is speed really even the concern? The primary advantage of AO and autos might be reliability. If you absolutely need to be 100% sure the knife will open to its full and locked position with the bare minimum if coordination or input, then, maybe an auto or AO is the best option. If we were talking hypothetical scenarios, and, say, someone was being choked by a rope under tension, I would definitely want something like a Spyderco Autonomy over any manual knife just because I would want the assured readiness of the tool to take as few brain cells as possible in such a moment of incredible stress.
 
Insipid Moniker said:
I'm not much of a fan of AO, but in these threads I do invariably see a lot of people overlooking one of the major benefits of both assisted open and automatic knives. A good example of either means that opening the knife is practically 100% certain. That's not as true of manuals. If I was in a line of work that required me to use my knife in adverse conditions (under stress, wearing gloves, in the dark, with lots of adrenaline pumping, in the rain, etc) I would almost certainly use an auto or strong AO. Anything that takes even a little fine motor control out of the equation is good under those circumstances.

Since I'm not in a line of work where that's a concern, I prefer manual knives for greater control and satisfaction, but autos and AOs have their place in my mind.
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I spent like 5 minutes carefully phrasing the same notion, revising and editing it several times, and posted it only to find you had already posted something that encapsulated the crux of my statement something like 4 minutes before I had even begun typing.

Guhhhhh.
 
Meh, if speed was a major concern, I'd just carry a fixed blade. No opening to worry about, no worries about it slicing you upon opening or closing either.

I highly dislike assisted opening folders with only a thumb stud. They're downright dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. I used to be very wary of that Whirlwind even though I knew exactly how to open it. Under duress, try drawing a knife like that then worrying about opening it.

Assisted opening knives with a flipper are much less of a problem for me. My wife had a Kershaw Boa and I never had any problems using the flipper to open it.
 
Smaug said:
Your say that because of your skill with the unassisted knife.

What if you had the same amount of skill with the auto? No contest.
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The most skill is going to help an auto get out fast is drawing the knife with the thumb on the button ready to fire.

Think of it. The steps are exactly the same.

1. Draw knife (you can even have your finger placed on thumb stud, button or flipper as you reach in your pocket)

2. Place thumb on button or thumb stud (or finger on flipper) skip this step if you’ve already done this while drawing

3. Push

That’s it. The spring isn’t accelerating the blade any faster than my finger or thumb is. Provided the knife has a smooth action and a detent dialed in well for thumbstud or flipper I don’t have to push the thumb stud or flipper any harder than I do the auto’s button.

If the knife doesn’t and has a weak detent where I have to conciously preload my thumb or finger abit lest I break the detent prematurely and the blade doesn’t fully open I may lose 1 or 2/10th of a second vs the auto.
 
sharp_edge said:
At least a few reasons that I can think of:
1. Almost all moderm locking folders without AO can be opened just as fast.
2. It is impossible to control/choose the speed of opening of AO knives.
3. The torsion bar of AO sometimes rattles.
4. In case the knife accidently opens in the pocket, an AO knife can be far more dangerous.
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If ANY knife opens in the pocket....isn't it pretty dangerous?

And you cant really control the speed of a lot of opening designs, like flippers for instance.
 
Comeuppance said:
Accurate. They are potentially even slower if you have to disengage a safety first.

I would say that, with skill and some practice, manual, AO, and automatic knives are roughly tied for opening speed*. Even DA OTFs need to be out of the pocket and angled away from you before you slide the switch forward - flippers, flickable knives, gravity knives, assisted knives, automatic knives, etc all share the same minimum point of openability (handle out of pocket), and most are a brief finger or hand movement away from being open, all of which require a slight hand repositioning upon withdrawing the knife.*

* The major exception here being knives that wave open, which I would argue have the fastest possible opening speed. Drawn properly, they are fully open once the handle clears the pocket. Ringed and waved karambits might be the pinnacle of this, as you are likely also already in a proper grip and ready to go by the time the lock engages, where other waved knives would likely require a little repositioning as you finish drawing the knife.

Is speed really even the concern? The primary advantage of AO and autos might be reliability. If you absolutely need to be 100% sure the knife will open to its full and locked position with the bare minimum if coordination or input, then, maybe an auto or AO is the best option. If we were talking hypothetical scenarios, and, say, someone was being choked by a rope under tension, I would definitely want something like a Spyderco Autonomy over any manual knife just because I would want the assured readiness of the tool to take as few brain cells as possible in such a moment of incredible stress.
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Actually any waved knife can be “reverse waved” like a karambit which gets the knife in a much stronger grip immediately after drawing. The regular wave draw into forward grip draws the knife into an awkward weak pinch grip.
 
I've only very recently payed any attention at all to assisted opening and that is only the OTF.
Specifically the Microtech 121-1.
I'm seriously winding down on knife buying and that would be one I want to try before pulling the plug entirely.
Interestingly in these specs they mention the handle material twice and never glance at the blade material. That kind of says it all right there. Unless I am so badly out of the loop that I don't realize right off what blade steel Microtech is "famous" for.
Kind of a cool toy I would like to try though.
Am I right in thinking these rattle a bit and the blade always kind of has play ? ? ? I think I recall reading that here some where.
Here's the specs I was referring to :

Specifications
  • Automatic Opening/Closing - Front Opener
  • Action: Duel Action - Auto Fire/Retract
  • Blade Thickness: 0.125"
  • Blade Length: 3.46"
  • Handle Thickness: 0.640"
  • Handle Material: 6061-T6 Aluminum Mil-Spec Hard Coat Anodize
  • Length Closed: 4.84"
  • Length Open: 8.30"
  • Pocket Clip Material: 301 Stainless Full Hard
  • Standard Top: 6061-T6 AL Alloy
  • Trigger: 303 Stainless
  • Does not include sheath
 
AntDog said:
Meh, if speed was a major concern, I'd just carry a fixed blade. No opening to worry about, no worries about it slicing you upon opening or closing either.

I highly dislike assisted opening folders with only a thumb stud. They're downright dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. I used to be very wary of that Whirlwind even though I knew exactly how to open it. Under duress, try drawing a knife like that then worrying about opening it.

Assisted opening knives with a flipper are much less of a problem for me. My wife had a Kershaw Boa and I never had any problems using the flipper to open it.
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I hear you, but there's also gonna be plenty of departments that won't let you carry a fixed on duty, particularly EMS/fire, though I imagine LEOs as well.

Honestly, I would really always rather be using a fixed blade for pretty much everything, but I have to give the nod to folders for convenience and social norms.
 
Lapedog said:
Actually any waved knife can be “reverse waved” like a karambit which gets the knife in a much stronger grip immediately after drawing. The regular wave draw into forward grip draws the knife into an awkward weak pinch grip.
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I actually addressed that in the post you quoted:

"Ringed and waved karambits might be the pinnacle of this, as you are likely also already in a proper grip and ready to go by the time the lock engages, where other waved knives would likely require a little repositioning as you finish drawing the knife."

That's what I was referring to; waved karambits are generally designed to be drawn from a position where the blade spine is anterior in the pocket, and the ring allows one to draw into a natural dagger grip without readjustment. Much like the benchmade SOCP, drawing with the index finger (or pinky, depending on how you plan to use it) puts you in a perfect position from the get-go.

Now that we've hashed that out, let's put away our Tom Clancy novels, take a cold shower, and get back to nerding out about how AO knives are for uncultured plebs.
 
IMO, consciously or unconsciously, we like non AO better, because we know they (AO) are less refined...

Head to head, AO knives tend to "usually" be cheaper then their high quality counterparts. The AO mechanism seems to me, to simply be a way to overcome small deficiencies in overall build quality. A well built and refined (and usually comparatively more expensive) knife is built to tighter tolerances, and they usually can and will open as quick and sometimes even more effortlessly as any AO.
Whereas AO snaps open, it also has more moving parts, which also means more parts to potentially fail, and so, while often more affordable, and "does the same thing", the level of overall refinement is just typically not there, and we enjoy quality mixed with simplicity in one of the oldest tools known to man. So a well executed manual is preferred.
 
strategy9 said:
IMO, consciously or unconsciously, we like non AO better, because we know they (AO) are less refined...

Head to head, AO knives tend to "usually" be cheaper then their high quality counterparts. The AO mechanism seems to me, to simply be a way to overcome small deficiencies in overall build quality. A well built and refined (and usually comparatively more expensive) knife is built to tighter tolerances, and they usually can and will open as quick and sometimes even more effortlessly as any AO.
Whereas AO snaps open, it also has more moving parts, which also means more parts to potentially fail, and so, while often more affordable, and "does the same thing", the level of overall refinement is just typically not there, and we enjoy quality mixed with simplicity in one of the oldest tools known to man. So a well executed manual is preferred.
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Gonna go full-on devil's advocate here.

The K.I.S.S. argument does apply pretty well to most AO knives, since the spring is generally necessarily somewhat flimsy and often crucial to the function of the knife. I don't know if I agree to the "more moving parts" aspect of the argument, though, because that indirectly implies a direct correlation between moving parts and risk, as if each moving part has an equal additive role in the chance of suffering critical failure.

The truth is much more complicated; the chance of failure depends on its interactions with the rest of the knife, its construction, its materials, and the design. If an AO knife had a spring, but also had a true detent and was well-constructed, it might open just as well with the same motion were the spring to break. The spring could potentially just be a backup guaranteed method of opening the knife to 100%, but, even without it, the knife still functions as one might expect a folding knife to.

Also, let's be realistic - a manual knife generally has just as many parts as an AO knife. You lose a spring that could break, but you gain a detent ball that could fall out. If you have both, and thus more parts, don't you actually reduce the risk of critical failure?
 
The only AO I own is a Kersaw Leek. And I like it. It is an oldish model, where the secondary lock (to avoid unexpected openings) has to be engaged manually. I wouldn't hesitate to buy any other AO knife.

I do understand that some people may dislike it or think that the higher complexity of it may translate into reliability problems if the knife is muddy, dropped in sand, etc. I guess that's what fixed blades are for anyway.

They work for me.
 
I myself had a bad experience with a Kershaw Blur Tanto many moons ago. As I edc it in my front pocket, it does sometimes deploys by accident although there isn't anything else in the pocket. Probably the pocket lineng does catch the thumb studs which resulted in it deploying. That was my only issue with that folder. The spring operations, etc worked very well without any hitch. I decided then that I could do without assisted opening.
 
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