I have the Ambitious, the Cat, the Urban, the Robin, and the Roadie. I threw the Urban and Roadie in since they are non-locking if you will be traveling internationally. The Urban is essentially the slipit version of the Cat. Exact blade and handle profile. The Robin is the Byrd version of a Dragonfly but the handles do differ considerably. The Wharncliffe Robyn is really an excellent knife and even better value. The Cat, Urban, Robin all have choils. This provides my medium/small male hands a 4 finger grip at the expense of some blade length. With the Ambitious, there's more blade for sure but my pinkie wants to slip off. And the thing is chunky both in girth and in comparative weight. The liners are substantially thicker than the Cat. I never carry the Ambitious. Now I LOVE the Persistance. To me it's a choil-less Native 5. Great knife. All are just IMHO, hands and preferences vary greatly.
What are your thoughts on the Cat vs Ambitious? Do you have any feed back on the 8Cr steel? I don’t need a super steel but for the price you want a steel better than a Buck knife you buy at Walmart.
The Persistence might be a good middle ground for me, a bit bigger than I want but also a bit more useable. I might also use this knife when I am in a suit for work. My Manix tends to weigh down my pocket.
Ambitious weights 83 grams and the Cat 74 grams. Cat has a wire clip versus the bigger chrome classic Spyderco spoon style clip on the Ambitious. Were I back in the office environment I would take the Cat over the Ambitious. But (and yes I know this is mean) I used to carry the Chapparal as my office knife 90% of the time.
I have the Ambitious, the Cat, the Urban, the Robin, and the Roadie. I threw the Urban and Roadie in since they are non-locking if you will be traveling internationally. The Urban is essentially the slipit version of the Cat. Exact blade and handle profile. The Robin is the Byrd version of a Dragonfly but the handles do differ considerably. The Wharncliffe Robyn is really an excellent knife and even better value. The Cat, Urban, Robin all have choils. This provides my medium/small male hands a 4 finger grip at the expense of some blade length. With the Ambitious, there's more blade for sure but my pinkie wants to slip off. And the thing is chunky both in girth and in comparative weight. The liners are substantially thicker than the Cat. I never carry the Ambitious. Now I LOVE the Persistance. To me it's a choil-less Native 5. Great knife. All are just IMHO, hands and preferences vary greatly.
What are your thoughts on the Cat vs Ambitious? Do you have any feed back on the 8Cr steel? I don’t need a super steel but for the price you want a steel better than a Buck knife you buy at Walmart.
The Persistence might be a good middle ground for me, a bit bigger than I want but also a bit more useable. I might also use this knife when I am in a suit for work. My Manix tends to weigh down my pocket.
You raise an interesting point. I have not tried Buck steel since Paul Bos joined the team, but I like Spyderco 8Cr13MoV more than the older Buck 420HC. Spyderco offers us so many steel choices so I tend to choose steels a step up from 8Cr13MoV in PE, but in SE it's pretty dang good to go.
I have the Ambitious, the Cat, the Urban, the Robin, and the Roadie. I threw the Urban and Roadie in since they are non-locking if you will be traveling internationally. The Urban is essentially the slipit version of the Cat. Exact blade and handle profile. The Robin is the Byrd version of a Dragonfly but the handles do differ considerably. The Wharncliffe Robyn is really an excellent knife and even better value. The Cat, Urban, Robin all have choils. This provides my medium/small male hands a 4 finger grip at the expense of some blade length. With the Ambitious, there's more blade for sure but my pinkie wants to slip off. And the thing is chunky both in girth and in comparative weight. The liners are substantially thicker than the Cat. I never carry the Ambitious. Now I LOVE the Persistance. To me it's a choil-less Native 5. Great knife. All are just IMHO, hands and preferences vary greatly.
What are your thoughts on the Cat vs Ambitious? Do you have any feed back on the 8Cr steel? I don’t need a super steel but for the price you want a steel better than a Buck knife you buy at Walmart.
The Persistence might be a good middle ground for me, a bit bigger than I want but also a bit more useable. I might also use this knife when I am in a suit for work. My Manix tends to weigh down my pocket.
You raise an interesting point. I have not tried Buck steel since Paul Bos joined the team, but I like Spyderco 8Cr13MoV more than the older Buck 420HC. Spyderco offers us so many steel choices so I tend to choose steels a step up from 8Cr13MoV in PE, but in SE it's pretty dang good to go.
8Cr13MoV gets trashed a lot here in America because it's a Chinese steel. Some knife AFI's refuse to buy anything Chinese if there are other choices. It's their dime. World wide it may be a different story among your average Joe's. The huge number of 8Cr13MoV knives sold wouldn't be so if it didn't do Yeoman's work at a third of the cost of similar knives.
Just like AUS-8, the quality of 8cr heat treat can vary. Not every maker does a good job on heat treat. If you get a bad one, you may never trust it again.
LC200n offers much greater toughness and corrosion resistance, so I can see why some choose it over something like 8cr.
"...it costs nothing to be polite." - Winston Churchill
“Maybe the cheese in the mousetrap is an artificially created cheaper price?” -Sal
and again, I think Spyderco does 8cr13mov better than Kershaw and others. One Youtuber tested is at 60hrc which is significantly harder than most companys.
I saw the Efficient is the size of the Persistence but comes in a good looking brown with a combo edge. Any thoughts on the Efficient vs the Persistence and having a combo edged on a sun 3” knife?
I hate saying it but the brown and stainless combo edge Efficient just looks cool.
I love the ergos of the Efficient. It was actually my gateway Spyderco. I gave that one away to a very deserving nursery worker and missed it. I finally got a new one this year. I was shocked at the weight of that versus the Persistence. It's the solid steel back spacer. Persistence LW is 94 grams, Persistence G10 is 103 grams, and the Efficient is 121 grams. Larrin at first didn't have solid numbers on BD1N for toughness and that chart reflected his educated guess. Later he was able to test BD1N for toughness and later said in a post here that he'd rank it a 4 in that category. I think most folks experience with BD1N is that it is superior to 8CrMov. As far as a combo edge, I'm personally not a fan of them unless it's a longer blade; like in the 3 1/2 inch range. But others may have different opinions.
UKPK or Urban and call it a day. The 2 step, half stop on those knives is plenty safe in use. You utilize the finger choil on those models and it's virtually impossible to close on your finger. I've used mine in the warehouse plenty of times over the years, never once had an issue or even thought about it.
15 's in 10 different steels
1 - Bradford Guardian 3 / Vanadis 4E Wharnie
1 - Monterey Bay Knives Slayback Flipper / ZDP 189
1 - CRK Small Sebenza 31/Macassar Ebony Inlays
1 - CRK Large Inkosi Insingo/ Black Micarta Inlays
1 - CRK Small Sebenza 31 Insingo/Magnacut
At just $110 with a 2.8 inch blade, CTS-XHP, and Taichung build would be a shame not to consider the Chaparral LW.
Absolutely, I am looking at the Alcyone hard for $77. But I keep reminding myself I want a cheaper knife in case I lose it, need to ditch it or need to turn it over. I lost a Griptilian getting on a C17 10 years ago and hate taking my Manix in fear of losing it too.
I refuse to carry junk but I know even a cheap Spyderco is still a great knife I can depend on.
's in 10 different steels