Best lock knife…recommendations

[Lancaster]

I've been looking at this thread with interest as I have misplaced my old Winchester branded knife and need a replacement.
Difficulty is that ideally I want a one handed opening knife with a thumb stud and a liner lock for about £50, and nothing that has been suggested seems to meet that spec, any other suggestions?

 

[Rory]

I've been looking at this thread with interest as I have misplaced my old Winchester branded knife and need a replacement.
Difficulty is that ideally I want a one handed opening knife with a thumb stud and a liner lock for about £50, and nothing that has been suggested seems to meet that spec, any other suggestions?

Ontario Rat 1 fits your brief perfectly. Nice full flat grind as well.

 

[Lancaster]

Ontario Rat 1 fits your brief perfectly. Nice full flat grind as well.

You're a star, that knife in a plain blade looks exactly like what I am looking for!

 

[Klenchblaize]

Stick it in the dishwasher:

CRKT Drifter Stainless

If you like stainless steel, then you’ll love the CRKT Drifter Stainless! The Drifter Stainless is a smart looking, robust feeling frame lock folder. CRKT have equipped this knife with a brilliant 8Cr14MoV stainless steel blade complete with hollow grind

heinnie.com

K

 

[xavierdoc]

I used to be a knife-a-holic, including making them.

Top end Rocksteads, Sebenzas, Farid, Shing folders. I used them all.

I had a stupid collection of exotic folders and then had an epiphany: I could do nearly everything as well or better with a Spyderco Resilience.

Big enough for anything a folder can do (it has smaller siblings if preferred), a liner lock that has never failed, open back design for easy cleaning, multi-position removable pocket clip, one hand open/close and FFG drop-point blade made of sensible steel that balances edge stability with toughness and sharpenability. Lanyard hole to attach a Bright loop of paracord or a tritium pod if you are worried about visibility.

Mine has taken a beating over the years and has never let me down.

Dropped it tip first onto a tiled floor: floor lost!










Lives in my pocket (with good reason for locker, obvs)

Spyderco Resilience Folding Knife

The Spyderco Resilience has a full-flat ground 8Cr13MoV stainless blade with a tip-to-handle cutting edge. Jimping cross-hatches the spine offering a slip-proof seat for the thumb while grasping and cutting

heinnie.com

Under £70 with discount code.

The only con I can identify is that left handers find liner locks harder to close than eg. Back lock etc.

 

[Klenchblaize]

I used to be a knife-a-holic, including making them.

Top end Rocksteads, Sebenzas, Farid, Shing folders. I used them all.

I had a stupid collection of exotic folders and then had an epiphany: I could do nearly everything as well or better with a Spyderco Resilience.

Big enough for anything a folder can do (it has smaller siblings if preferred), a liner lock that has never failed, open back design for easy cleaning, multi-position removable pocket clip, one hand open/close and FFG drop-point blade made of sensible steel that balances edge stability with toughness and sharpenability. Lanyard hole to attach a Bright loop of paracord or a tritium pod if you are worried about visibility.

Mine has taken a beating over the years and has never let me down.

Dropped it tip first onto a tiled floor: floor lost!










Lives in my pocket (with good reason for locker, obvs)

Spyderco Resilience Folding Knife

The Spyderco Resilience has a full-flat ground 8Cr13MoV stainless blade with a tip-to-handle cutting edge. Jimping cross-hatches the spine offering a slip-proof seat for the thumb while grasping and cutting

heinnie.com

Under £70 with discount code.

The only con I can identify is that left handers find liner locks harder to close than eg. Back lock etc.

Sounds like an awesome knife to use but fuggerly (awkward-looking handle to blade profile) as are most Spyderco knives to my eye.

That however may be unimportant to most.

K

 

[xavierdoc]

Sounds like an awesome knife to use but fuggerly (awkward-looking handle to blade profile) as are most Spyderco knives to my eye.

That however may be unimportant to most.

K

True enough! Form follows function though. The hole enabling ambidextrous one-handed opening and the resultant hump creates a thimb-ramp.

No choil on this one (unlike it's similar-sized cousin, the Military). Either a good or a bad thing depending on if you like choils! I like that the cutting edge comes right to the handle: no wasted blade and good for those controlled cuts or long, slicing cuts starting near pivot.

They are typically quite "flat" handles, which means they sit well in pockets but can create hot spots in prolonged heavy tasks or carving (which I do do with folders but usually use a fixed blade.) Never been a problem for me with typical use, though.

 

[User00035]

I've been looking at this thread with interest as I have misplaced my old Winchester branded knife and need a replacement.
Difficulty is that ideally I want a one handed opening knife with a thumb stud and a liner lock for about £50, and nothing that has been suggested seems to meet that spec, any other suggestions?

Buck Selkirk Folder Small

As an addition to their popular Selkirk line, Buck Knives have added this small folder to the family to provide a simple and lightweight folding pocket knife for less demanding outdoor situations.

heinnie.com

Or:

Boker Gemini Guayacan Stud

With handle scales of Guayacan ebony with the typical milled Arbolito pattern, the Boker Gemini Guayacan Stud is without a doubt a modern classic.

heinnie.com

Budget is the problem. It's getting harder to find good folders for £50 that isn't made in China. I think the Buck is. But the Boker is Argentinian. Boker Arbelitos are really good knives for the money.

 

[Bowland blades]

I have a buck alfa cross lock ( not used in years) comes with a saw / gut hook and a belt pouch . someplace in the gunroom could see it go at an honest price as imo its pointless now the law specifically says a lock knife is not legal EDC

 

[grimstone]

I’ve tried most knives over the year and currently have gone back to an old buck 110 (alongside a eka swingblade). It just works. I picked up a buck 110 LT for about £30 exactly the same blade but goes in the dishwasher as has a plastic handle. Great knife. I use a 110 slim at work too.

 

[Indlovu]

Lots of inspiring suggestions here, so I flipped back to @romanb’s original specs: suitable for all UK deer species (and that he’d be happy with a belt pouch.) The knife’s primary use would thus be the gralloch, for which my single knife of choice is the EKA Swing Blade.

 

[grimstone]

I used to be a knife-a-holic, including making them.

Top end Rocksteads, Sebenzas, Farid, Shing folders. I used them all.

I had a stupid collection of exotic folders and then had an epiphany: I could do nearly everything as well or better with a Spyderco Resilience.

Big enough for anything a folder can do (it has smaller siblings if preferred), a liner lock that has never failed, open back design for easy cleaning, multi-position removable pocket clip, one hand open/close and FFG drop-point blade made of sensible steel that balances edge stability with toughness and sharpenability. Lanyard hole to attach a Bright loop of paracord or a tritium pod if you are worried about visibility.

Mine has taken a beating over the years and has never let me down.

Dropped it tip first onto a tiled floor: floor lost!










Lives in my pocket (with good reason for locker, obvs)

Spyderco Resilience Folding Knife

The Spyderco Resilience has a full-flat ground 8Cr13MoV stainless blade with a tip-to-handle cutting edge. Jimping cross-hatches the spine offering a slip-proof seat for the thumb while grasping and cutting

heinnie.com

Under £70 with discount code.

The only con I can identify is that left handers find liner locks harder to close than eg. Back lock etc.

Good shout, they are on amazon for £50 atm. Bargain!

 

[xavierdoc]

Good shout, they are on amazon for £50 atm. Bargain!

Aaaargh! Must resist buying a spare!

 

[JabaliHunter]

Spyderco Pacific Salt with a plain edge.

 

[25 Sharps]

I've been looking at this thread with interest as I have misplaced my old Winchester branded knife and need a replacement.
Difficulty is that ideally I want a one handed opening knife with a thumb stud and a liner lock for about £50, and nothing that has been suggested seems to meet that spec, any other suggestions?

Did you see post 4? All your requirements plus premium steel

 

[Steff]

For this reason I only ever buy liner lock folders. They are by far the strongest mechanism and the easiest to clean. When the blade is out and locked, the chassis is wide open with no recesses of hinges to hold dirt. Back locks are terrible for holding gunge and the lock button always gets clogged with grit and dust.

I don't like pocket clips either. They get in the way during use and I want to carry the knife loose in my pocket or in a belt pouch, so any belt clips need to be removable.

A good liner lock with a flat ground blade, no pocket clip and bonded scales make very good, strong knives that are easy to clean and maintain.

Inspired by your post I bought two
liner locks knives, looking closely to that they are as simple as possible with regard to hidden corners and gaps.
No. 1 is the Fällkniven PC and no. 2 is an ANV 200.

Both are nice knives. The Fällkniven PC being a little small. But hardly any hidden recesses.
The ANV has the right size for me. I have removed the pocket clip, which leaves two small holes where gunk can collect.

Common to both is that the liner which locks the blade has a sloping angle against the scales and is a perfect trap for gunk from a gralloch and very hard to clean unless you take the knives apart.

My conclusion is that I actually prefer back lock designs. Most locking mimics have rounded edges which can be kept clean much better than any liner lock.

 

[User00035]

Inspired by your post I bought two
liner locks knives, looking closely to that they are as simple as possible with regard to hidden corners and gaps.
No. 1 is the Fällkniven PC and no. 2 is an ANV 200.

Both are nice knives. The Fällkniven PC being a little small. But hardly any hidden recesses.
The ANV has the right size for me. I have removed the pocket clip, which leaves two small holes where gunk can collect.

Common to both is that the liner which locks the blade has a sloping angle against the scales and is a perfect trap for gunk from a gralloch and very hard to clean unless you take the knives apart.

My conclusion is that I actually prefer back lock designs. Most locking mimics have rounded edges which can be kept clean much better than any liner lock.

I don't actually use folding knives for gralloching. I will if I have no other knife was to hand, but doesn't really happen as I have fixed blades specifically for that.

A folder to me is usually a general purpose knife. I have several. The only one I use for any sort of carcass work is a Buck Vantage liner lock for rabbit paunching. Though there's rarely any blood involved with paunching, fatty, milky rabbits do deposit a considerable amount of gunk and fur and I've found the Vantage extremely easy to clean. No fluids get behind the scales and I replaced the pocket clip screws after removing the clip so the holes aren't left open. All back locks I've used for paunching have invariably have their lock buttons glued up with fat and I found it very hard to shift without boiling water.

I bought an SKA Swingblade for gralloching a few years ago, which is essentially a folder as it has a pivoting blade, and gave up using it for that purpose, because apart from the fact it was abysmal at keeping an edge, it was a nightmare trying to clean blood out of the pivot joint. I'd wash and wash it, working the blade all the time until the water ran clean, but a pool of watery blood always collected under the hinge on the draining board. Now I only use the unzipper blade for skinning out legs (it is very good for that).

The only back lock folder I now possess is a Helle Dokka, which I bought in a moment of weakness a few years ago. It also is terrible at holding its edge and it has been relegated to the role of an (expensive..) gardening knife for cutting string and opening bags of compost. But on many occasions I've found so much grit has collected in the mechanism from rattling round in my pocket that the button can't spring back and the locking mechanism fails to engage, leaving a knife that can fold up on me. (I once had an Opinal fold up on me when I failed in the dark with icy fingers to turn the feral properly and it collapsed and cut the back of my fingers to the bone, so it's something I've remained very conscious of).
Lock knives don't have slip joints like non-locking folders so if the locking mechanism can't be relied on that makes the knife dangerous in my view.

I guess we all use knives differently in our own way. My experience has been that liner locks have been the cleanest and safest knives for what I do. But each to their own. You have to find out for yourself what suits you best. I'm sorry your knives aren't suiting you, but such is life. I have a half a dozen knives in a drawer which never get used.
At least the ones you've bought are high quality. They'll make fine general pocket knives, if not grallochers.

 

[Steff]

I guess we all use knives differently in our own way. My experience has been that liner locks have been the cleanest and safest knives for what I do. But each to their own. You have to find out for yourself what suits you best. I'm sorry your knives aren't suiting you, but such is life. I have a half a dozen knives in a drawer which never get used.
At least the ones you've bought are high quality. They'll make fine general pocket knives, if not grallochers.

Ha, ha, no worries. I‘ve ditched a couple of other knives that wouldn‘t hold an edge or had a wobble in the joint. The new ones will replace them. So the purchase wasn‘t purely experimental.

 

[Lancaster]

Did you see post 4? All your requirements plus premium steel

Sorry 25 Sharps, I didn't see that one

I bought a Rat 1, seems well built and was razor sharp, but....
The flat grind had a bevel, and it wasn't equal.
I have no means to measure the difference but a rough guess would be almost flat, maybe 5 degrees one side 15-20 the other, it almost looked like a Japanese blade, flat grind on one side with a grind on the other.

An hour or so of work with stones and rods and it ended up with a 20 deg grind with a 25 deg micro bevel.
It had a tendency to develop a very fine wire edge, but it is now hellishly sharp and I battening a few 2" off cuts, didn't touch the blade, no rolls, nicks etc.

 

[Rafter]

Sorry 25 Sharps, I didn't see that one

I bought a Rat 1, seems well built and was razor sharp, but....
The flat grind had a bevel, and it wasn't equal.
I have no means to measure the difference but a rough guess would be almost flat, maybe 5 degrees one side 15-20 the other, it almost looked like a Japanese blade, flat grind on one side with a grind on the other.

An hour or so of work with stones and rods and it ended up with a 20 deg grind with a 25 deg micro bevel.
It had a tendency to develop a very fine wire edge, but it is now hellishly sharp and I battening a few 2" off cuts, didn't touch the blade, no rolls, nicks etc.

Was that with D2 or the AUS-8 steel? I have a D2 Rat 2 and am very impressed -it replaced a SV30 Spiderco Native that broke through the hole... (while being used as a prybar)