Hard-use test of the Spyderco K2, Manix 2 XL, and Military

[GoldenSpydie]

For this test, I wanted to find the overall-best large, outdoor hard-use folder from Spyderco. I decided to test three of the seconds I picked up at the SFO sale last weekend--the Farid K2, the Manix 2 XL S90V, and the Military Cruwear. (The fact that they are seconds should not affect results, as blemishes are only cosmetic.)



Specs:

Farid K2
Blade steel: CPM 10V
Handle material: Titanium
Lock type: RIL (Framelock)
Sharpened blade length: 4.3 inches
Length overall: 10.3 inches
Weight: 6.125 ounces
____________

Manix 2 XL
Blade steel: CPM S90V
Handle material: Peel-Ply Carbon Fiber
Lock type: CBBL
Sharpened blade length: 3.5 inches
Length overall: 8.9 inches
Weight: 4.75 ounces (no clip)
____________

Military
Blade steel: CPM CRUWEAR
Handle material: Gray G10
Lock type: Liner Lock
Sharpened blade length: 3.75 inches
Length overall: 9.5 inches
Weight: 4.5 ounces

Tests:

Each knife was touched up on a UF stone to achieve a level playing field. They were tested in a random order and all three knives completed any given test before moving on to the next one.

Each test has 20 points to be distributed between the three knives. The knife with the most points at the end of the tests wins.

1. Light chopping on dry (hard) cherry. Millie 4 points, Manix 6, K2 10. The Millie and Manix are really just too light for this. I prefer to use a 3 finger grip for increased leverage, and while this works well on the K2 and Manix, it is very uncomfortable on the Millie. I had to use a standard "hammer" grip on the Millie, which decreased the efficacy of chopping. The K2 takes the medal for 3 finger grip and substantial forward weight.



2. The infamous batoning test through dry Russian olive slabs. Manix 8 points, K2 6, Millie 6. The Millie worked better than I had envisioned, although it got stuck fairly often. The K2 would have done very well, but the trailing tip got stuck in the baton on every strike, making it very slow work. The Manix wins due to the dropped tip and full liners, which made striking the handle less likely to damage the scales.



3. Cross batoning through hard cherry. K2 10 points, Millie 4 points, Manix 6 points. Sorry Millie lovers...it didn't even make it all of the way through the stick after 20+ hits. The Manix needed fewer than 10 hits, and the K2 went through in 2 whacks.



4. Fine work/whittling dry cherry. Millie 9 points, Manix 8, K2 3. The Millie and Manix benefited greatly from the choils. The Millie was slightly better at this due to the finer tip. The K2's lack of a choil and swept point made it very difficult to complete this test.



5. Ergonomics (subjective, of course.) Manix 10 points, Millie 6, K2 4. The jimping on the Manix combined with the overall shape made it the winner. The Millie won out over the K2 due to the chamfered scales. Although the K2's shape is good, the hard edges make it less than comfy, at least for me.

Misc.: I'll leave things such as sharpening/edge retention up to the experts. As for lock strength, none of the locks failed at any point. I spine whacked them and pounded the blades into stumps, but they wouldn't fail. I gave the Manix an extra test by pounding it into a stump and then hitting the handle several times with a hatchet, but it still didn't fail. :eek: (Yes, I know, well beyond "hard use," but that was the point.)



Conclusion:

Points are as follows:

First place: Manix 2 XL S90V, at 38 points
Second place: Farid K2, at 33 points
Third place: Military CRUWEAR, at 29 points

"YMMV"

The Manix is the best choice if you could only have one "do-all" woods knife for batoning, light chopping, and whittling.
The K2 is unparalleled as a folding "chopper," or if you really want the extra blade length. I think that a K2 + a PM2 would make an amazing outdoors combo.
The Military is not the best choice for challenging bushcraft activities, but it excels as a large, light blade for whittling or food prep.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my tests, and please comment! :) :spyder:

[Ankerson]

Nice. :)

Thanks for the review. :D

[Cliff Stamp]

The K2 would have done very well, but the trailing tip got stuck in the baton on every strike, making it very slow work.

People often default to putting the blade into the wood near the choil and hitting the tip. It can just as easily work if you do the opposite and for a folding knife that is likely a lot easier on the lock.

--

Interesting work, I would likely pick the Manix for that work for almost the exact description you noted.

Did you notice any difference in the locks after the work at all?

[Invective]

Hey, I gave my K2 and a few other knives this weekend for some hard use stuff as well! No where near as ordered and structured as yours but still some points of data. I used my K2, Hossom Woodlander, TAD Dauntless Mk3 and Strider CMFK to process some bamboo and boy is bamboo an edge killer. Didn't have all that much bamboo, maybe 15 stalks and as I was cutting the leaves off, and then just cutting them in half, the edge sharpness fell significantly on all the knives. The 3V held up best, followed by the 10V with S35VN of the TAD coming in last. They all held up well and were printer-paper sharp and if coaxed, could shave leg hair but not arm hair. And the 10V was still able to carve the turkey on Thanksgiving since my grandparent's house has knives that are in desperate need of sharpening.

One thing I noticed, the K2 handles are extremely uncomfortable, at least for my hands. They're so wide and yet thin that it feels awkward trying to grip it. The Dauntless was my preferred knife out of these four because it is so much more comfortable and easier to choke up on. I might make some G-10 scales for the K2 non-lock side just to give it more width and grip. I saw someone who modded their K2 custom like and it looked good and functional.

Anyways, I'll post some pics as well because why not!



Bamboo stalks, with a CMFK for scale. Ended up cutting most of them in half so they'd fit in the car, although the longer ones were used for a few days to help knock pecans out of the tree. And some of the shorter straighter ones were turned into spears and then got stuck in a persimmon tree. The K2 was definitely a great knife at sharpening the end of the bamboo and then splitting it so I could make it a 4 pronged spear though, much better than the TAD because the FFG vs the saber flat grind. And between the CMFK and my Hossom Woodlander, the Woodlander cut through the bamboo much easier. But I hadn't had a chance to use the CMFK yet and that 3V is pretty amazing still.



Here's one of the aforementioned pecan trees and in the circle is where a dead branch used to be. We had already pulled out three dead branches while gathering nuts and this one was hanging there ready to fall so I scampered up there with the Woodlander and gave it some help. At least this way we can control when it fell instead of maybe falling when someone was underneath it. The Woodlander did fine at this chopping task, although there was a branch about a foot and a half directly above the dead one so I couldn't get any decent swings and I was around 15 feet above the ground so I was trying my darndest not to fall but it probably took 3 minutes to get the branch out. Not the prettiest though, and a saw would have looked better, but it's more fun to use a knife, as we all know.

At the end of all this use, pretty much all the edges were much less sharp than they had started out, but the Woodlander, K2 and CMFK were brought back to arm hair shaving within 5 minutes on the diamond stones. The TAD was a different story though, it took around 2 hours (or however long Game 7 of the 2014 World Series is, sorry Royals fans but that is one of my favorite games) to reset the bevel so I'm thinking I hadn't set it correctly the first time I sharpened it up.

Anyways, wow looking at this post I really need to take more pictures of my usage. I barely got any pics haha, hope this post was informative though!

[sal]

Very nice Golden. We'll turn you into a scientist yet. :cool:

sal

[IG-88]

Nice review! Thx!

I must say I'm not surprised the Millie isn't the best for this kind of use. It's not really designed for this. The K2 on the otherhand is an robuust knife so I thought it would handle the job fairly well and you confirmed this. But the Manix 2 XL is the biggest surprise for me. I always thought it was a good camping knife but the XL out performed the K2 on several occasions and came out winner! This sheds a new light on the capabilities of the Manix 2 XL S90V :)

[PayneTrain]

Cruwear Military last?! Nonsense! Where's my pitchfork?

Actually, I do agree it's not for chopping. I had to split a small chunk of hardwood for smoking and had my Cruwear Millie on me. The blade just doesn't have the mass, but once I got it wedged I just smashed the two together on the ground and that drove the blade through pretty easily. I would have grabbed my pocket hatchet (Ontario Ranger Falcon, .25" thick 5160), but I was too lazy.

[Surfingringo]

Nice info. Thanks GS! I would choose the millie all day long for my hard use knife. But that's only because pretty much all my hard use comes at the fish cleaning table and the millie has the most attractive blade profile for that kind of work.

[farnorthdan]

Great write up GS, very informative and well executed, especially like your choices of knives as a couple of these I have been looking at lately. Thanks

[GoldenSpydie]

Thanks guys! Thanks Invective for the mini-review. :) They're all great knives; they're just designed for different uses, as the tests showed. However, I was surprised how different the Millie and Manix were. I thought that they would be closer.

The K2 would have done very well, but the trailing tip got stuck in the baton on every strike, making it very slow work.

People often default to putting the blade into the wood near the choil and hitting the tip. It can just as easily work if you do the opposite and for a folding knife that is likely a lot easier on the lock.

--

Interesting work, I would likely pick the Manix for that work for almost the exact description you noted.

Did you notice any difference in the locks after the work at all?

I don't follow you about the batoning... :confused: Do you mean hitting the handle? But then where would you hold the knife? I'm not skeptical, just confused. Maybe you could explain this more? Thanks!

As for the locks, the Military's liner lock moved from 10% to 15%, the K2 moved from 70% to 80%, but the Manix didn't change at all, at least not that I could tell. They're all still rock solid.

Very nice Golden. We'll turn you into a scientist yet. :cool:

sal

Thanks Sal! You've got a much nicer breaking machine than my batoning tests...although they both prove the same point, which is that Spydercos rock! :) :spyder:

[Cliff Stamp]

Do you mean hitting the handle?

The blade in front of the handle, between the blade and the wood. It didn't look like the wood you were cutting was wider than the blade.

[GoldenSpydie]

Oh, ok, that makes more sense. I'll have to try that--thanks!

[Doc Dan]

Thanks for the review. I am not surprised by the results for the Millie or the Manix but nice to see it confirmed.
Was there any blade play in the knives before and/or after?

[edge-e]

Thanks for the review!

[Donut]

Cruwear Military last?! Nonsense! Where's my pitchfork?

LOL, someone get the tar and feathers. :)


Thanks for the testing. Those are some nice knives to be hard using.

[GoldenSpydie]

Thanks guys!

Doc Dan: No, none of the knives experienced blade play before, during, or after the tests. All three are very well built and solid.

[MountainManJim]

Nice pics. Thanks for the review,

Jim

[WorkingEdge]

Wow! Great read. Thanks for the effort. I haven't been carrying my Manix XL but need to restart after your tests.

I wonder how a Tuff would fair in your test?