I like the shape of the handle, looks comfortable.
Erm, thanks?
Sorry to bump the thread …
After the prior mention on the forums of me having to buy a boating knife I had a coworker come help me last week at work. He’s junior to me but such a good employee I almost feel like he’s my son at times. He broke his very crappy pocket knife last week so I went out and got him a Kershaw Leek as a replacement … aaaaaand I forgot how much I love these things. Now I want one again. They are decent quality steel for the price, damned sharp, nimble and carry-able, and have, in my limited opinion, the best opening method of most similar carry knives.
If you’re looking for a great knife that won’t break the bank, these fit the bill for sure.
And if you don’t like the look of this one, they make them in a million different combinations of handle and blade color, serrations if you like that, etc.
I have a lifetime of pocketknife love behind me, but I’ve been going a bit wacky on buying all the Pokemons I’ve wanted. I just picked up the Benchmade Auto Fact. As a lefty I’ve always had a very soft spot for Benchmade because not only is their lock the strongest in the market (barring exceptions I’ll get to shortly) but that lock is also perfectly ambidextrous. Now they’ve figured out how to use that lock and make it also an automatic, which is just fun and satisfying. Not actually faster, which is a common misconception, thirty years ago when Spyderco figured out their blade design speed wasn’t a thing any more, it’s open as soon as you get it out of the pocket. Without futher ado:
Unh. Damn. Sexy. Very quite nice and I found the right Reddit where I got it for about 60% of retail yet brand new.
The exceptions are that Hogue and Cold Steel have released locks that are copies of the Benchmade, so maybe they are a few percent better, but the Axis lock outperforms every other lock for the last 20 years by a mile.
You had me at Benchmade. Great knives from them. But yeah man that thing is sexy. How’s the handle? That looks very anti-slip, something I like but also a bit squared off on the edges?
The blade profile reminds me a lot of Al Mar knives. Kershaw bought them a while back though.
Psst, you should PM me that reddit.
The carbon fiber is perfectly smooth, it’s definitely somewhat a “gentleman’s knife”. The blade is very thin in all dimensions, it’s the opposite of a workhorse like the Griptilian. Reddit is knife_swap, these weirdos buy and sell knives that are essentially NIB but they trade so much they ask low prices vs. eBay, for example. I use this bookmark to search for Benchmades and sort by New posts with my morning coffee.
I’ve got one of these on the strap of my backpack. It’s a great knife.
I had remembered your post when selecting it. It’s miles above what he had and he loves the opening action on it.
Any issues with yours at all? I don’t have a pocket carry anymore and it made me want one again.
Negative, it’s still perfect. And yeah, it’s action is super satisfying.
Did I post about it here before? Oh ya, I did! It was that story about how TSA didn’t catch it on my backpack, lol.
The whole mess I’ve bought over the past 20, er, 30 years. Though there’s 20 years between the first Spyderco and having enough money to start buying Benchmades. Butterfly was an impulse buy, Kershaw put out an excellent one for 1/3 the cost of other excellent ones.
Oh, you know a cool new type of knife I’ve found a while back? Or at least, it was new to me.
Instead of having a normal blade, it’s got a scalpel blade mount, but then the whole thing folds up like a normal penknife.
The cool thing about it is that you get a crazy super-sharp blade, and then when it’s dull, you just pop it off and replace it.
I like that, but I’ll rebut with your basic folding utility knife, cheaper up front at least. Not sure if standard razor blades ($.10 a blade) are cheaper than standard scalpel blades, and if scalpel blades are chisel grind instead of both sides, I could get into it. For fine woodworking a chisel grind is better because you can slide the blade down a reference piece and have the cut/shoulder even closer to the line.
That’s fair, although the pen knife form factor is nice.
Way more than me because I lose them. I have an old Buck knife, a super cheap Gerber I take camping in case I lose it, a Swiss Army for boating, somewhere … the last of my Leatherman knives, somewhere … a Spyderco, and somewhere a scalpel sharp flip knife a buddy gave me to practice sharpening on, and others I’ve lost.
However, I sharpen a few knives for buddies at this point so I see a lot more than I own. I need a pocket model for work that will be abused opening way too many hardware boxes. Thus my consideration getting me one of those cheaper Kershaws. I’d rather not abuse a 200+ knife for stuff like that.
Almost forgot, I want one of these for each of our cars, each with a belt cutter and glass breaker tip.
https://www.amazon.com/Kershaw-Barricade-Multifunction-Stainless-Pocketclip/dp/B06XPR3W77
I hate you guys. ;)
I finally got rid of my swiss army knife. I realized the main thing I use it for is cutting and never use the tools on it. So I purchased an A.G. Russell folding pocket knife with a beautiful Cocobolo wooden handle. I love nice looking woods. It’s been a great knife, though I still wonder if my Chef’s Choice 15 Trizor XV Select sharpener is the best way to keep it sharp. Paid about $135 for it and that seemed like a lot for a carry everyday pocket knife, but I love carrying it.
So reading this thread, I looked up Benchmade. Saw this right away:
And thought "I NEED this knife! " Then looked at the price. $900.
Crap. I do need that knife. But I searched my sofa cushions and came up a little short of $900.
Yeah, I don’t carry a knife and have limited use for one around the house beyond what I already have, but looking at the Benchmade site made me drool.
Their fancy ones get spendy fast. I don’t own anything other than the basic versions, but since I’ve really started enjoying automatics, they are still far from cheap.