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My first spyderco.

I've had this one on my radar for quite a while. I never really liked the blade design on these knives, but it has grown on me. The black coating was an accident, but I decided that I liked it after all. The entire knife is coated in black hardware, so it sort of comes as a package.

This knife has a flat grind on both sides of the blade, which is new to me. So far I like it.

The thumb hole is also something that I was initially averse to, but works better than I thought it would. The ergonomics of the knife in general are also really good - dare I say, better than most of the knives I have.

Jimping on the thumb ramp and finger choil is nice and grippy. Very functional in my opinion.

The only thing that I do not like about this knife is that it is longer than it needs to be. There is a huge lanyard hole at the bottom of the knife that extends the handle. Dear Spyderco, please make a lanyard hole-less version of this knife.

- Compression lock mechanism
- G10 scales with steel liners
- S30V blade
- "leaf" shape
- thumb hole

only bloom on our plant.

not a knife, just a bad ass nail clipper.

yes, that is correct. you heard "bad ass" and "nail clipper" in the same sentence.

My first real pocket knife.

this knife was a gift to me that I had asked for. I chose it based off of a recommendation from a fellow internet nerd. My father had always carried a pocket knife, so I thought I would give it a try.

We learn a lot of things from our first. This knife helped me establish an understanding of what I wanted from a pocket knife, and what I thought made a pocket knife useful. Here are a few things that I learned from this knife:

- Coated blades aren't all that. Sure, they help fight corrosion, but in all honesty I sit a desk and the knife sits in my pocket. I'm not slicing open animals or working in saltwater. I also believe the coating causes more friction on the blade when slicing, which is something that I don't like.

- Serrations suck. At least on a knife of this size. The serrations consume almost half of the blade, which is already relatively small.. making the belly and the serrations less useful than if there were more of each. I tend to slice more things, so i want more belly to the blade. I don't encounter many tough objects that I need to saw (rubber, leather, meat), so I'll stick with non serrated blades for now.

- Thick blades are harder to sharpen. I've had a bitch of a time sharpening this knife. Part of it is because of the serrations. It's nowhere near as thick as the Strider, but still thick. I learned a lot about sharpening from this knife.

- Plastic / composite / whatever handles are shit. this is my only knife with any blade play. It might be because I have used this knife harder than any of my others, but this sucker developed some serious blade play -and I blame the handles. The handles are lined almost all the way, but the knife still feels broken in the middle.

- Light weight is good. Despite the size, the weight of this knife is relatively light. It doesn't drag your pants down.

- Benchmade is good. This knife inspired me to stick with the Benchmade name, and they have yet to let me down.

All in all, it is a decent knife, but I no longer carry it as I have so many other superior options. I'm tempted to send it into Benchmade to have them re-haul it, but I'm in no hurry.

Also, this knife inspired me to give the mini version of it (which is superior) to my groomsmen as a gift. Hopefully those knives will help them as much as this knife has helped me.

- AXIS lock mechanism
- Noryl GTX scales
- 154CM blade
- drop point shape
- dual thumb studs

Best bang for buck knives.

I do not own two because I like them so much, however. I own two because one was extremely cheap (~$35), and the other had higher grade metal for cheap (~$70). Both are assisted open knives, and deploy very fast.

The top one has a 420HC blade. There are less angles ground on this blade, and it is definitely less fancy. I keep it in my car for whenever it might be needed. It is meant for heavy use, and is very sharp.

The bottom one has a S30V blade. There is an additional top swedge grind on the top of the blade. You might notice that almost all of my knives are made from this steel -that is because it is high quality and awesome. Unfortunately it has the downside of being more expensive. I use this one to trim my gardenias and slice cardboard boxes for recycle.

- liner lock with SpeedSafe
- anodized 6061-T6 aluminum scales with Trac-Tec inserts
- 420HC / S30V blade
- drop point shape
- dual thumb studs