I’ve found that many knives that have wobble, off center blades or poor deployment can be fixed by disassembling the entire knife, G10 grips and all, and cleaning everything with alcohol.
By removing factory grit and shavings and applying fresh lube, the knife can be radically improved.
All in all, the CRKT M16 is a great knife. I have several in different sizes. I was only buying high end knives, and picked up one of these on a whim. Slim, pocketable and razor sharp. Like I mentioned above, I clean off the factory grime and add fresh lube to improve speed and centering.
WD40 is not a lubricant. W=water D=dispersal. It’s basically the same stuff used to spray on car distributer and wires when they’re wet.
I used to use Benchmade “BlueLube”, but now I only use Finish Line ” Extreme Fluoro” pure fluorinated grease. Fluorinated grease is what Chris Reeves uses on his sebenzas.
It’s not expensive, and one tube will last forever. You can find it on eBay or Amazon, but the main retail source is high end bicycle shops. This is the best stuff I have ever used on my knives, and being grease-like, it doesn’t dispipate like oil.
Exactly what I do if needed, also add a pair of phosphor bronze washers if you can get some to fit, they seem to only be available in the U.S.A. so not in metric sizes, also the shipping makes them a bit expensive.
If anybody is interested and wanting to buy but not sure which thickness to get, every large, EL, L series Enlan has 0.020” each side and I’ve converted ten or more. worthwhile doing it to your users but a good clean and re-assemble and lube is, as Ouchyfoot says, a very good way to improve the action and feel of quality in most folding knives.
You could think of it as a pre assembled kit of parts.
Sometimes I’ll buff the copper washers with jewelers rouge and a Dremel until they’re smooth and shiny. A lot of budget knives may have copper washers, but they can be scratched up and oxidized from being stored in large bins.
I buy them from USAKnifemaker be sat down when you see the price of shipping though. Same with KnifeKits , eye watering shipping charges. I’ve not been able to find them in the U.K. but Brisa in Finland stock some.
For the EL-01 Enlans I have done 10 now and they have all been 0.020” on each side but you may want to buy 0.005” and 0.10” in case the specs have altered, I haven’t done any for a while, I’ve completed my collection, but I think they were 3/16” ID and 0.5” OD. All the larger Enlans have this size but the smaller sizes and SanRenMu’s I can’t find any to fit as the washers interfere with the action of the lock, too large O.D. and the pivots are slightly larger than the nearest imperial size of 1/4”.
You can still use wet/dry on the washers, they are seldom 100% flat, just a clean-up will do.