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Pros: Blade Material, Blade Sharpness, Ease of Opening, Handle Feel, Handle Material, Lock Type, Overall Quality, Pocket Clip, Weight
Cons: Lock Ease of Use
Nice, but fiddly liner lock
I was so hoping this would be a 5-star review. This Iona V2 with just-barely-sub-3-inch blade (scale-to-tip) in MagnaCut, with southpaw-friendly reversible wire clip, sculpted micarta scales, bronze washers, all in a package that's not too lightweight nor too heavy. Lots of Goldilocks going on. The downside is that, as shipped, the liner lock doesn't always engage smoothly, and it's often sticky trying to release the lock. More detail below. — PRO: Sturdy blade, with pleasantly surprising convex taper at the top of the spine; even though this is a flat grind, the tip profile is very nearly that of a scandi grind and should provide great tip strength. Arrived light-saber sharp. The handle feels great in my not-terribly-large-yet-not-amazingly-tiny hand, and the curve from pivot to clip feels almost like I'm holding my favorite New Zealand-made Bavarian peasant knife (in a good way). Bronze washers mean I can adjust the pivot such that there's no play in the blade, yet it's still one-hand openable. Nearly everything I would expect for this knife. —CON: Only one big con, and one resulting small one. The liner lock is stubborn in both directions; it doesn't want to engage consistently unless I give the blade a solid flick while opening, and it sticks nearly every time when I try to release it, requiring more force even than normal for my minority southpaw dominant thumb. I ended up having to disassemble the knife completely and file down the unexpectedly rough end of the liner lockbar in order to improve this (and even now the liner lock is still a bit more stubborn and sticky than I'd prefer). —This brings me to the minor con, which the Right-Handed Hegemony probably won't notice: When disassembling the knife, I reversed the wire clip for left-side carry. The natural way to do this was to unscrew the clip from the one side and screw it into the other ... except that Giant Mouse decided to use Chicago-style fasteners, where the male-threaded end has a Torx T8 head, but the female sleeve end is simply rounded off, and to avoid slipping in the hole when loosening or tightening, the shaft of the sleeve is keyed, as is each hole in the steel liner. The minor thing is that, since I expected to reverse screw and sleeve with each other at the clip, I went ahead and reversed them at the pivot and at the center of the handle as well ... only to find out when reassembling that the liner is only keyed on one side! The other side has holes that are just round. So, fiddly liner lock, and fiddly reassembly if you're a southpaw. I suppose I could have loosened the sleeve side of the Chicago fastener and slipped the wire clip in under it instead of exchanging the screw and sleeve, but ... really, Giant Mouse, there ARE southpaws in the world, and we want you to sell us knives that work for us, so please pay attention to how symmetrical and reversible things are. One star off for the fiddly liner lock.