Just received my first Stedemon knife. The price on Amazon showed it was $22.29 for the orange one, but it came out to $19.39 with tax included at checkout. That was a nice surprise! Would make a good budget gift.
I like the knife. It is good for the price. A 3.3” 440C very sharp blade, and good quality plastic (FRN ?) scales. Feels good in hand, like a quality budget knife. Has a good strong lockup. The blade can be deployed by a quick shake of the knife. The detent is on the weaker side, that’s my only con on it.
Just be careful. There is elastic deformation, inelastic deformation, and straight up snapping. Some liner steels are more forgiving than others. You also want to apply pressure evenly so the lock bar continues to mate up properly with the blade.
I’ll only try this on inexpensive knives. If it’s an expensive knife, I’ll either return it or send it in for warranty work.
I am hesitant to do any bending. I am not confident enough to do that.
I opened her up, instead, and adjusted the pivot screw. This knife is unique to me, in that the pivot screw in under the scale. I really enjoy fidgeting with the Stedemon, now.
This is the pivot screw. It lays hidden under the show side scale.
Nice ball bearings for the price point. Wiped it down, and used mineral oil for the re-lube.
Is the Kalashnikov available as a button lock knife without the spring installed?
I always pictured it as an automatic knife.
The only button lock knife I own is the RealSteel E776 Griffin, but I’ve seen some other ones around lately.
(I like the Griffin but the blade could be really ground thinner like 0.2mm 0.3mm behind the cutting bevel.)
There’s also the Kizer Tangram Vector, some William Henry and Rockstead gentlemen’s jewlery, Spartan Blades Pallas…
The MTech MT1118BK is looking interesting, a button lock flipper with anodized AL handles but with 3Cr13MoV (!) blade.
Sounds like a tin can blade to me
Google ‘CRKT Tighe button’ and you’ll get some more knives, the design doesn’t appeal to me,others like it.
I’m liking the crkt and griffon. I’m not sure about the alu scales on the griffon, are they very slick?
And the style of the crkt is not really for me but that knife looks very figgitery and that’s what interests me the most.
Thanks guys
Sorry I was getting the Boker and the Gerber mixed up. I forget the name of the Gerber. Had another not so budget one if I can remember the manufacturer. Well aren’t I full of useful info.
You can convert all automatic knifes with a button into a button lock by removing the spring inside. My only automatic Ganzo is now one because the spring broke. But why not using an axis lock? I find it superior while kind of similar.
The difference between an automatic and a manual button lock is that on the automatic you have to press the button to release the blade for both opening and closing.
On a manual button lock knife there’s versions that you can open with either a hole/cutout or a flipper tab so you don’t have to press the button to release the blade.
To be honest, if you got used to a Spyderco blade than this one could feel like a stick to you.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the knife, but the blade is way too thick behind the edge.
I was thinking about to regrind it but their stonewashing is really great.
It’s actually looking like frosted, I’d say they polished the blade before etching and tumbling.
A great toy and it came scary sharp but it’s not a scalpel like the (only Spyderco I own) Caly 3.
By the way, there’s also a titanium version of the Griffin, maybe that one has a thinner blade
The Kalashnikov comes in both auto and manual button lock.
Yes, the scales on the Griffin are a bit slick but boy, is the action ever amazing (at least on mine), especially given the price point, just press that button and the blade comes falling shut with no resistance, yet, no blade play. It is very fidgety and a very nice EDC IMO.
I liked mine so much that I ended up selling my Alu/14C28N and got the Ti/M390.
This only thing I hate on the Ti version are those cheap CF stickers (yes stickers, about 0.5mm thick) they’ve put on this otherwise awesome knife, so I removed them and IMO the knife looks better without them and have been using it like this for about 2 years. However, last week I decided to buy a small sheet of black micarta on Ebay and I’ll try to make and glue micarta inserts in its place.