Hello fellow budget fans. Tell me....as I do not know and am not a hardcore knife guy....can you get a hardcore, high quality knife on a budget or is this a real case of you get what you pay for? Think Kershaw ZT knives.....can you get a China version @ a China price or is SRM knives as good as it gets? Thanks for the help.
Have you looked at Enlan and Bee? This is a good start:
http://www.exduct.com/Bee-Enlan-Knives/EL02B-Enlan-Pocket-Knife.html
I'll write more tomorrow, but had to answer cause I love these brands :). Also SRM, but Enlan and Bee have som larger models.
(I'll introduce myself tomorrow also, been lurking for ages on a flashlight forum and now I registred to talk about knives :))
Welcome Endy
Welcome Endy
Good to have you here.
Hi Endy,
Welcome to BLF.
Hello there, welcome to this great forum.
Welcome to the forum!
Its no secret that I still rate the Enlan EL01 as the absolute overall best large folding knife in my collection... bar none. <--- Link for $11.99 includes shipping to the US.
The Kershaw Tremor is a Chinese-made assisted opener that weighs 6 oz. I think it's pretty heavy duty. $25 shipped to the U.S. You can read more about it here.
Absolutely you can buy heavy-duty knives on a budget. SanRenMu's 9xx series (of which a few seem to be making a comeback) and the Enlan El-0X series are great for under $20 shipped from most places. The 939, which is a modified sheepsfoot blade with a framelock just showed back at Exduct for $10 and is a great deal on a large, heavy-duty folder.
If you're willing to pay up to $30 (which is still pretty cheap for a heavy-duty folder) for American makers with budget lines, you can look at the CRKT Lake Thunderbolt and Lake 111, or the Kershaw Scamp, Tremor, Nerve or Brawler. They're Chinese made, and the big difference isn't so much quality as warranty. CRKT and Kershaw have lifetime warranties, as opposed to three months from SanRenMu and one year from Enlan.
Hi s1mp13m4n,
I'm always curious, how we sometimes come by our screen names. Maybe you will share yours.
About knives, I am without a doubt a way bigger knife-aholic than flashaholic. I do think that your choices should be made carefully.
What kind of knives do you like? I like pocket knives and kitchen knives, because I can use them. Above all I like sharp things. My pocket knives are on the small side due to local laws, (3" - 3 1/2"). My kitchen knives are chosen by task, and a couple are 12"+.
If you like sharp knives, think hard steel, usually the harder the better. Knives are not twisting or prying tools.
I don't buy "multi-use" knives. I only cut things with knives.
I've got a Spyderco that I bought about 12 years ago, and it's still a great knife. Great steel, really holds an edge.
It's dinner time, gotta "cut-it" short, get it, gotta "cut-it", any way, good luck.
+1, Dang...you beat me to it!! :) If you don't mind a large "tactical" knife this is a must have!
I thought it's supposed to read "simpleman" but in that leet language. I haven't used it myself but read about it once when I was curious.
Is the assisted open feature reliable on a well made knife or is there always potential for failure at any given moment?
Most assisted opening systems use leaf springs for the assist mechanism - they're quite reliable. Kershaw uses a spring-tempered torsion bar in the handle scale instead. This system will wear out faster than a standard leaf spring, but Kershaw provides free replacements (and will do the replacement for you if you send the knife in to their factory). Even so, you should still get 4+ years of usage easily.
Some Buck knives use circular springs in the pivot handles, and those are the ones I've found that have failure problems because circular spring are easily fouled by dust, lint, dirt, etc.
Spyderco Tenacious and Ontario RAT-1 are the best value knives I think, they are about 25-30 bucks...
I own two Rat-1 and they are very tough ones, there are a lot of videos and reviews about them...
Enlan EL01 is one heck of a knife!!!!!!!!!! Get one and you will be very glad you did!!!!
i still stunned anew periodically by the quality of the Bee EL-01. at 9.95usd its a remarkable deal.
i have given away a half a dozen and would buy them 10 at a time if Exduct would stop with their stupid shipping scenario which charges for each individual knife, i ordered 7 knives from them at one point and shipping was 25 or 30 dollars. extortion.
decent steel. pretty good g-10. takes an edge without too much trouble. opens quick. solid lock-up.
Thanks for the welcome guys!
As someone pointed out earlier: A knife is a cutting tool. It's no prybar. So for me two things is important: sharpness and ease of sharpening. I rather have a steel and grind that makes it easy to sharpen, than a steel that is super hard and have a grind that supposed to never wear out. Cause it will wear out, and then it's hard to sharpen it (I like to be able to sharpen it while in the bush). I've seen so many $200 knives performing really bad compared to my $10 knife just because of this. Learn to keep a blade sharp with a diamond stone, and you will be all set with whatever knife you choose.
http://www.britishblades.com/forums/showthread.php?124538-Enlan-EL01-modded-by-Wolf67
I like the color .
some one send me one