Why the hate for AO (assisted opening ) ?

I blame AO for the current BS knife laws here in Canada.

When I first saw AO's I thought that it's not going to take long before these are outlawed, so I bought a couple.

But the problem is AO's made other knives look bad too. People justified them by saying "My unassisted knife opens just as fast, so why is this legal an the other one isn't" Well IMHO they shot us in the foot with that argument because importing both types of knives is now difficult to impossible.
 
cbrstar said:
I blame AO for the current BS knife laws here in Canada.

When I first saw AO's I thought that it's not going to take long before these are outlawed, so I bought a couple.

But the problem is AO's made other knives look bad too. People justified them by saying "My unassisted knife opens just as fast, so why is this legal an the other one isn't" Well IMHO they shot us in the foot with that argument because importing both types of knives is now difficult to impossible.
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My fixed blade opens at infinite speed. It is always open.
 
jill jackson said:
490 is another that works well.
1e0zl3.jpg
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It also works well as a de-assisted knife :D
 
For the most part I consider an AO folder a solution to a non-existent problem. The oddest AO I know of is Benchmade's assisted Axis Lock. Completely useless, IMO.

I own a few but they see very little pocket time. I can see a need for one if you are disabled though.
 
Well, sh*t, I understand the hate now.
The assist on my Kershaw Dividend just broke. I've only carried it for about a month.
 
With autos becoming legal to carry in many places and bearings becoming common on even very affordable knives it’s realmy just not necessary anymore.

I’ve always felt like AO was an excuse to not have to put much engineering into the pivot!

Also, they can be dangerous...

There’s a member on here who had a Kershaw fire in his pocket tip down and nearly amputate one of his testicles.

Sliced scrotum will ruin anyone’s day!
 
RBid said:
I don’t hate them, but do avoid AO now. My EDC for over a year was a 0566, and it served me very well. However, it lead me to these conclusions:

2. The assist is clearly not necessary.
4. There’s no compelling reason to buy assisted.
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i have two bad shoulders, and opening a folding knife with a flick of the wrist is possible (I prefer this method), it is also VERY painful at times, so I try to carry AO knives. That being said, if I want an AO to open quietly, I usually will reduce the opening speed with a finger or thumb on the blade while opening. And i just found a knife marked PAL BLADE CO, MADE IN USA, that is definately NOT AO.
 
It's just unnecessary and annoying to me. The novelty of pretending you have a swichblade when you don't grows old real fast. I don't think it really improves your "speed of deployment" neither all things considered. Also, AO basically forces you to "flick" open your knives every time you open them. I'm not sure if that's very good for the pivot in the long run. I have an old ZT301 with AO, where the pivot started rattling pretty quickly after using it for a while.
 
I dislike assisted open for many reasons, of course the folks on here have already pointed them out but here’s my two cents anyway. In most cases it seems to be a way to get around poor tolerances and lazy craftsmanship. The mechanism is often unreliable. Everyone thinks they’re autos. You don’t have as much control opening as unassisted. More awkward to close. I personally like the nice sound of my lock engagement rather than the smack of the forced open blade and often a twang or vibration of a spring.
 
I don't like my knives to snap open with a lot of force. I like a smooth, gentle and controlled deployment from start to finish. Also, because an assisted opener deploys quickly and forcefully like an automatic knife, people who aren't well-versed with knives may mistake it for an automatic knife. Automatic knives are illegal where I live, so I really don't want to be desperately trying to explain to a law enforcement officer how my assisted-opening knife is not an automatic knife (or 'flick knife', as we call automatics here).
 
Lapedog said:
No I was actually addressing someone else who brought it up as an issue. It started off with the guy saying that Autos had the advantage of being much faster opening. I was just saying that a good manual knife opens just as fast.

Practac has nothing to do with it, just arguing with Smaug about whether there is any discernible speed advantages to an auto or AO.

I was saying that a well tuned manual knife opens just as fast because pushing a button, thumb stud or flipper takes the same ammount of time. And that’s why many people dislike A/O, because there is no real advantage over a well tuned manual knife and that they feel AO is used to hide poor action.

I usually don’t care much about how fast my knife opens for edc. I often carry a righty only small 21 in my left pocket sort of making opening it with my left hand tricky.
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And there is only one reason to argue which knife opens faster ;)
 
There are a few knife designs I think are cool and would have probably tried out, had they not been AO.

Jim
 
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