Enlan EL-01. Outstanding knife

Ahh these look lovely. I think I need one with these handles. >.<

P.S. Isti, I love your blog! Always nice photos!

Thank you! :slight_smile:

hi there,
where could I get an Enlan El-01 for a …say…decent price ? Decent, as in “lowest possible” ?
I live in Europe, so a free shipping website would be cool (at least it would make S&H fees easy to calculate !) :slight_smile:
TIA :slight_smile:

Doing Outdoor? I've not ordered there myself though. Actually, I would go with Ebay seller "Chinese Knives" (he's on BLF too). I've had good experience with him. Here's his "Enlan EL01" store page.

-Garry

Exduct (unfortunately currently down), Doingoutdoor , Manafont

Hello Gift Limited, or Exduct EDC Gifts on AliExpress are also good suppliers and have free shipping on most of their products.

New big Sanrenmu, with orange G10.

I believe he is also Ebay seller "Chinese Knives" aka "Hello Gift Shop".

-Garry

Yes, David. A good dealer.

Sandvik 12C27 too!

I’d be highly suspicious, I recall the 910 was the large version of the 710, branded “LAND” and was discontinued some time ago. There have been unofficial fakes floating around as the 910+ and the Mingren 910. Especially coming from Aliexpress, I’d be extra weary.

Might be a nice knife though, even if it isn’t official SRM. The price doesn’t make it an attractive option just to try it out

Yeah, that $30 plus price is too much. I’d order one to try out for under $20.

That seller posts occasionally on BLF. I’m inclined to trust him.

I’d like to know what Jacky of Exduct thinks of the Mingren. He did warn of fake Sanrenmu etc.

Great price here. $11.99

I picked one up off an ebay seller in the US. $15.87 shipped and it is an Enlan marked version. I like it, but still prefer assisted knives. Time will tell, great deal for the money. It worked fine right out of the box, tight lock up. No issues after a month. I got it from sirjoban, the price has increased, the seller wants $14 plus $3.24 shipping currently. I got it in three days….

+ $4.99 for shipping with China Post….

Oh man I missed the shipping part. Bummer.

I have a bunch of Chinese imports, including the Mingren 910.

Is it worth the $38 I paid?

Who knows? It’s a knife. It works fine. It is really sharp. The steel says Sandvik.

How would you know if it’s really Sandvik or not? Many Chinese knives that claim to have more exotic steel are just made with Chinese steel.

That is the problem with all these inexpensive imports. They may be a good deal for the price but how do you really know what you’re getting in materials? Anybody can write anything on the side of your blade.

If you have a problem there is usually no one to complain to. Unless you count whining to those of us in these forums.

Sure, you can always resell your bargain, if you don’t mind recycling your problem to someone else.

I got an earlier version of the 910, the so-called 910 plus. It was designed with a secondary lock which fell off after I opened it a few times. I got rid of it because I didn’t trust it and considered it potentially dangerous. I refused to recylce it.

Why did I buy the more-recent Mingren version? I’m a sucker for stonewashed blades and this one looks pretty decent. Who knows, maybe it really is.

SanRenMu/Real Steel use Sandvik 12C27 so I see no reason to distrust Mingren. I’ve always thought of Land/SanRenMu/Mingren to be from the same source manufacturer and they seem to be tied into Real Steel -


Same designer, the Real Steel is larger all round and uses Sandvik 12C27 bladesteel so the steel is available for use, the Mingren is an upper end knife as is the Real Steel family of knives. Great Wall Outdoor sell all three, there is an interesting Poll on the right hand side of the product pages -

Community Poll

What do you say about Sanrenmu T08 ? (Bold my editing).
Haven’t got a grip yet. Definitly gonna try one.
Worth every penny. Highly recommended !
No way to pay more than forty bucks on a Sanrenmu knife.
Not sure about the blade profile. We’ll see.

They call the Real Steel the T98 the T08, wrongly. - There are SanRenMu T08 knives, I was wrong, I’ve just seen one for sale on Amazon.com for $45, it had the SanRenMu logo on the blade along with T08, very like the T98 though same Sandvik 12C27 steel.

Real Steel Knives With these and Kizer
as well as the Mingren the Chinese are showing that they are willing to step into the higher priced higher end (the Kizer on the left is £100, the one on the right£200) knives and still give excellent value and build quality.
I have a Sanrenmu 7046LTE-LKR and it is a damned good knife, different but a lot of thought has gone into the design, I like it so much that a Real Steel T98 ($41) is only a matter of time for me, after that a T3000 ($60) perhaps.

A bit of twisted logic there but it works for me.

Apologies for getting off topic.
The Enlan (or Bee, I really don’t care which) is a classic design, one like the SnRenMu 710.

It’s probably introduced the West to the high quality low price China made knives, they are tough as hell and will repay some tinkering with pivot screws and phosphor bronze washers with a silky smooth fast opening knife but the point is, you don’t have to, just lubricate and work in, it will get smoother the more you use it.

So far I have the KH, GY, B, A, 2xD and will get an AB and BA soon. The first one I bought was an AB but I got “creative” with the serrations and it’s now waiting for me to get round to finishing a re-curve on the blade and possibly some Glow in the Dark work on the scales.

My current favourite go-to house knife is one of my EL-01Ds, the scales are darkening nicely and it came with it’s own pouch so it stays protected in the “knife place”. :slight_smile:

Seriously if you don’t get any other Chinese knife get one of these, they are still very good value but have doubled in price since I bought my first and will continue to rise in price so grab one now.