but, I would like to see them wear one to church, post office, school, movie theaters, athletic events, and not be just weird in doing so, and needlessly riling folk, even if legal. All four knives are circa 9", and circa same weight, to which must be added sheath extra thickness and weight. Yes, I carry sheath knives, but the folder is world's easier, and nearly as tough.

will see a nice place that seems to treat folk working there more than decently, relaxed pace and maybe even a cool place to work. Compare a video of a Hinderer knife assembler vs a video of a Reeve knife assembler, and see who seems well practiced at needing to work warp speed.

And they turn out a first rate product, only maybe two dozen employees, doing small runs of this and that, whether knives or parts, with quite finite supply. He baldly states, and truthfully that nobody can set up a knife both for a gravity slinger, and flipper trigger type, and knives easily adjusted to personal likes, and info all over the net.

I suppose folk can have a problem with such a guy. I do not.

save your cutter. This is the one you break out to use on stuff that would wreck the nice cutter, or digging/rooting/prying, and only an adequate cutter. This the one used to cut a seat away to free an accident victim. Not an office paper cutter.

by quite a bit, 0.185" vs 0.160" and actually thinner than the next size down Hinderer 3.5" blade 0.165". So, if you thought THAT one not your fave cutter....

powdered metal may show fine in an engineer designed test for structural elements, as for notch test and etc.

But, that is not knife use, and powdered metals generally chip and break edges and tips when stressed. They are no manner of spring, once the stuff starts to flex, all bets are off. And they are very stiff, and resist that flex...to a point.

So, a hard use knife of the stuff, where its main advantage is edge retention in controlled cutting of abrasive substances, needs to be stout. Stout as in edge and tip, to resist, as well as possible, that flex which leads to failure mode.

So, Rick has the recipe correct, as for powdered stainless use. The best steel for such a hard use knife would be in the 80CrV2 class with salt bath, second choice 5160...
..but everybody wants stainless. So, we are back to square one, and better make it stout and poorer knife, rather than lose edge or tip.

personally, I do not see this type of knife as any manner of "pocket knife"...a ball and chain swinging in the breeze, to me, or pocket full of scrap metal on which to sit, and I have worked too hard in my life to voluntarily now sit on uneven hard metal objects.

To me, it is an IWB proposition, protected from snags, clips hung and bent, knives yanked out of pocket, clothing torn. Safe and snug IWB and weight far better supported, and nearly forgotten unless needed.

something else for folk to obsess and argue over. Rick uses nylon/teflon, others do, and then others use phosphor bronze.

The plastic is slicker, very low compressibility, while bronze adds friction, and lasts longer. Both can be swapped for other, with zero problem, and easily found.

And in machinery, BOTH are considered consumables to be replaced periodically. To me, arguing over them is akin to arguing over trash, and whose trash takes longer to hit the trash can.

Use whatever pleases you. I was a fan of bronze, until I saw how frictionless this knife is, with MY set-up just enough detent pressure to hold blade closed, but can be shaken open with a flip, and normal opening simply boosting blade open with flipper and finishing with a light flip, and blade falls closed when lock disengaged. And all frictionless.

And Rick sells an $8 package of what I assumed was a set of washers and clip screws, but which turned out to hold circa 4pr of them, and about a dozen small clip screws, none ever actually counted. And original installed washers holding up fine. If I were low crawling anymore, it would be different, I am sure.

Rick's handy $75 field tool a great gadget, as it has the non-marring perfect fit pivot spanner, and equally perfect slotted bit for pivot cap, along with a proper hex drive for handle screws. You need more than than for total teardown (such as a 0.050 hex for stabilizer and #1 phillips for clip), but for field cleaning, an excellent gadget.

I have yet to find a single problem with the washer choice, and have yet to find a single thing not perfectly executed on the knife. The Ti scale a late addition, and is perfection when installed as for spacers circumference inside knife the same paper thickness from scale edge on either scale, screws install seamlessly but without marring sides of screws, lanyard holes precisely aligned. THIS is modern manufacturing.

Another subject of often mindless argument in proclaiming superiority. Totally dependent upon use, the edge able to power through knots in wood while stripping limbs or cutting thick dirty rope, generally not the edge you want for effortless paper slicing, and visa versa, although I own some fine knives which can do both, for a mighty ling time.

The Hinderer edging is relatively obtuse for holding up to hard use, and also left a relatively rough finish. Rick explained why in an anecdote from years back, making knives in a chicken coop. He wanted to do an ultimate sharp edge, able to literally split a human hair, and he succeeded, using a microscope...and that fine polished thin edge would cut nothing else. So, he leaves the production knives edges toothy, for best general purpose hard use cutting.

While again discussing design, the mindset behind his knives arises from an anecdote of trying to free a trapped woman in an auto accident, cutting free chunks of seat for clearance for one reason or the other, and the rescue knife lock failed, and the genesis of his stabilizer idea, and his knife builds, in general. His motto is dependable knives....not best, not ultimate weapon carried by ultimate warriors, no blasting of names of who uses them and where (and quite a list that would be)....simply, dependable.

The stonewashed solid Ti handle beats out the already quite good G10 plus liner, at only 3/10ths oz weight gain. The G10 is not stonewashed to slightly break edges of bevels as with the titanium, and titanium a soapy tacky unslick metal very unfriendly to uncomfortable temperature changes. You can heat one end of a piece to red hot, and hold opposite end with bare hand. Plus, I plain wanted roughest possible.

Again, the spearpoint version a better cutter, and always one of the thinner blade "slicer" versions, but that seems rather counter to original design for military/civilian abuse, such as breaking airdropped ammo pallet straps or digging evidential empties out of asphalt.

nt