Easy there CRKT

Wow this video kinda ticked me off.

Watch that “easy one-handed closing”. I have one of these knives, to close it you need to push up on the Autolawks safety, push in the liner lock, then push the blade closed. Its a pain and is really better and safer to be done with one-hand.

I love CRKT knives, I carry a Gekkota on my keychain, and my Vertex is one of my favorite carry knives. I also have an big Ultima fighting and survival knife of which I have limited use for, but I find it to be a great blade.

The Autolawks system on the M16 knife just ruins it. Now I have a CRKT Convergence which has a manual safety. Its a neat idea, you flick this little lever up and it simply wedges the liner-lock of the knife in the locked position. Nice to have…tho most times I use a pocket knife the knife comes out, deploys, cuts, is folded and its back in my pocket. That’s why I like one-handed opening and closing knives, I’m generally using them when I’m doing stuff and they allow for quick use of a knife, but without bogging down my hands. But even without the safety, I’ve never had a quality knife pop closed on me. It really doesn’t make much sense anyway as there are all those old pocket knives and swiss-army knives that have no lock at all. You simply cut against the action of the blade. Sometimes I pry or mess with things with the spine of my blade, a lock is good, and I’ve never had it fail.

With the Autolawks you suddenly need a complex maneuver to close the blade for a “Safety Feature” I never had a need for in the first place.

Pass!

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0 Responses to Easy there CRKT

  1. RobertM says:

    I’ve got one of these that I recently replaced as an EDC with a Spyderco Endura. I liked it, and the autolock thing was never an issue with me. The reason I replaced it was because you could use the flip studs to open the knife while drawing it out of your pocket. This is a cool feature, and I like it a lot…except it don’t work in some of my pants. I want it to work the same every time I use it. I can open it manually just fine, but I can do that with the Spyderco faster.

  2. Old NFO says:

    Gotta remember, this was designed for ‘field’ use, not pocket carry per se… I know a lot of military folks that are carrying these in their vests in place of ‘survival’ knives (POS) issued by the military. I HAVE had a liner lock fail, and damn near lost a finger to it, trying to do something I really needed a fixed blade knife for. I do have one, and I like it, and have no problems with the additional requirement. YMMV, INAL… etc… 🙂

  3. Wolfman says:

    I hate to be THAT GUY, but I had one, and I was a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad knife. I didn’t have this exact version, but the biggest difference is probably size, and the style of the serrations. I got used to the autolock system pretty quick. The reason I stopped carrying it was it started to fail. After 3 or so years of daily carry and plenty of random abuses, the nylon handle got soft, and the liner got flexible. When cutting against the blade, the liner lock would bypass the blade, which required tools to correct. I can’t say I recommend against it, as I loved it for the several years I had it, but be prepared to replace it when it wears out, and it wears out sooner than I had expected. YMMV.

    • Old NFO says:

      Wolf, just out of curiosity, did you contact CRKT? Guys were sending them back in and getting them reworked at CRKT for little/no $$. Sand DOES eat any lockblade knife.

  4. Kurt P says:

    When I’m not carrying a multi-tool, I go back to the old school Buck 110.

  5. Ted N says:

    I have 2 of the older versions, an M16, and M14 IIRC, that don’t have the spring loaded safety, don’t carry them as often as I used to, but never had a problem with the lock. Always liked them, I think the spring loaded lock is a annoyance though.

  6. Joel Bornzin says:

    Thanks for the feedback Weerd Beard, we appreciate everyone’s point of view. A lot of people prefer the feature, the AutoLAWKS safety mechanism creates a virtual fixed blade. This was also an interesting video that I found last year. This guy has the system mastered, check it out! Thanks, JB CRKT

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyifmnabv-8

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