Pros: Blade Material, Ease of Opening, Handle Feel, Handle Material, Lock Ease of Use, Lock Type, Overall Quality, Weight
Cons: Blade Sharpness, Pocket Clip
Amazing do-everything folder
Easily my favorite folder so far, and largely because of the less obvious things about it.The blade is the almost perfect profile for 95% of what I need to use it for: Tanto blades being typically flat in a few places actually make it hard to do things like scrape materials off of flat harder surfaces since the flatness tends to be flatter than the thing you are attempting to scrape things off of which means it will catch a lot on unevennesses which scrapes things you don't necessarily want. Not so here, the curve with fine point gives you an excellent shape for doing everything from finer work like hollowing out freeze dried minnows, to scraping caulk off previously used lumber. The blade's thickness, or lack thereof, is key to its utility and the fine point can get places it's chunkier tanto bladed siblings can't go.The blade I'd call "kinda sharp" from factory, I suspect I need to blame lawyers for this. Whatever the case, don't expect razor sharp: it will cut, but not nearly as easily as it maybe should. That's what knife sharpening tools are for though. Normally you'd knock off a star for this, but it's the off-label uses that give it an extra one to bring us back to 5.First, it's thin. No, not just the blade, the entire handle. So thin in fact that it sticks onto my magnetic body camera mount and fits under the camera, but sticks out enough to be easy to draw: just slides out to the side, and with trigger finger on the opening nub and thumb atop the top of the blade (when folded) you'll never have it open on you while drawing (though I don't suggest drawing it off magnets any other way). You do need to remove the pocket clip to do this, but well worth it to have the most easily accessible and surprisingly secure location which also isn't concealed.The only con to this, which I suspect will vary between individual examples of the knife and the tolerances thereof, is that the screws holding the frame together can stick up above the frame just enough to scratch the mount it is stuck to when drawn. Not a huge deal and frankly the knife was never designed to be magnetically mounted to anything, so something to be aware of.This thin handle profile has some other benefits as well: the blade-tip of the handle makes an excellent gentle prying tool when folded, for example, opening paint-can lids. My thicker handled M16-13SFG won't do that, but this one will. CRKT will probably tell you not to do this, and I suspect you'll probably find other off-label uses for handle they don't want you to use it for like this, but just be gentle and aware that this may void any warranty. I don't know if I care, I certainly got more than the price of the knife in off-label utility already. I will note that it's not a bottle opener, I tried and I was really hoping it would work, but the bottle lids are a bit too thick when on the bottle for the gap between the frame pieces to pry them off. That may be for the best, all things considered.On more borings notes, the locking mechanism is solid, the opening nub and design of the handle is quite sufficient for keeping my hands from creeping up onto the blade in combination with the frame design, and the actual flip-open does require a bit of flick to make it lock since it is unassisted, but nothing that's caused me issues by any means. Also the large holes in the handle are excellent: not just weight cutting but great index points so you can move the knife around in your hand with confidence. That applies to all the M16s with the holes though.One final note: the pocket clip I would describe was "way too grippy". It really feels like it's a bit too secure and tends to try to take whatever it is clipped to with it. Not enough to knock a star off for, but something to be aware of.Overall, great design, perhaps unintentionally so in some cases, but if you want one folding knife that does almost everything well, I'd argue this might be it. As a bonus, it won't break the bank.I just wish they made a longer version of the same thickness, no need for a limited blade length if the knife isn't concealed.
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