Autonomy review/impressions
Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2017 9:32 am
You can expect this to get long winded so if this isn't your thing, you've been warned.
It's a little soon to give a true review since I've only had the knife a couple days now, but the blade is quite similar to my D'Allara 2 so I believe I already have a fair idea of what to expect, so the majority of the impressions part will be about the lock/action and the ergonomics.
So, let me start by just rambling a bit. Spyderco are obviously not an "auto brand" since their thing is the thumb hole opener. That's really a shame in a way because they obviously know what they're doing. Unlike the flipper ordeal, where some might say their flippers have been so-so, it seems that when they decide to make an auto, they throw down with the best of them.
Now, a bit of disclosure, I can't say I have the most experience with automatic knives, so my opinion there isn't worth much. I have however had a whole slew of assisted openers, which have a similar action at least. I'm sure there are some differences and expectations regarding the button and how smooth and easy they are to operate that I can't really have an opinion on. What I can say is, being a newcomer to autos, the button design is so intuitive and easy to find, I can draw the knife from my pocket while multitasking and not even looking at the knife, find the button, and deploy the blade without any effort...basically the same as you would open a thumb hole knife that you're very familiar with. It's easy to see that Spyderco and/or the U.S. Coast Guard put a lot of thought into the design and wanted it to basically be "idiot proof" in function, and believe me I'll put the idiot part to the test
I suppose I'll try to break this down into some parts...
The Blade...
I guess we'll start with the easiest part. I have to say, this is one of my favorite Spyderco blade designs to date, and there was only one real surprise that I missed when researching this knife, and that's the thickness, or rather the thinness. The blade is advertised on Spyderco's site as 2.9mm and 3mm on some other vendor sites. Compared to a Manix 2 blade (3mm) it is definitely a little thinner, and compared to a Dragonfly (2.5mm) it's just slightly thicker. It feels more like 2.75mm to me. For some reason I was expecting a 4mm blade and this was one detail that got by me. When it comes to SE blades, I really prefer them to be on the thin side especially with H1 due to the hollow grind, which usually comes ground very thick behind the edge/serrations. Compared to my D'Allara, it's ground noticeably thinner, and I like that. I don't need to pry with this knife, and I'm sure it's still plenty thick enough for hard use in an emergency. I like that it has a bit of negative blade angle, and it has a generous amount of PE at the tip which I find very useful (I wouldn't mind if it had a wee bit more actually).
The Safety...
Well, it has a safety. Not much more I can say here because I doubt I'll ever use it, but it's a nicely done safety compared to some that I've seen on assisted opener knives. It has a nice button that has plenty of traction so your thumb doesn't slip off when moving it, and it has a nice tactile and audible feel when moving it. It doesn't feel like it can accidentally get engaged or disengaged, which I think is the most important part. I don't feel the least bit concerned about it accidentally opening in my pocket, because it takes deliberate force on the button to initiate opening.
The Firing Button/Lock/Action...
This is a really interesting part of the knife for me. It looks like it works sort of like a compression lock. I really like how the button doubles as the fire and unlock, as opposed to having an additional unlocking liner or something. This means the unlocking is just as intuitive as the firing. My only complaint here, and this applies to pretty much every auto/assisted opener, and that's that you have to physically force the blade closed since there's a spring that is always working to open the blade. My go to method here is to fold the blade against my thigh just like I would do back in the day when I carried Case slip joints, and the end result is pretty similar. One thing I've noticed is there's an odd notchy/gritty feeling when the blade is closing against the lock button. That's kinda hard to describe...basically if you press the button ALL the way in, the blade pivots very smoothly (impressively smooth) but if you just press the lock in enough to disengage the lock, then let off the button and push the blade closed you can feel the blade riding on the lock button or something and it's a pretty terrible feeling. The lock bar/button has a lot of force behind it so you really feel that through the blade if you don't have the button pressed in while closing. The coolest part of this knife might be that the spring assembly can be replaced/serviced without taking the entire knife apart. That's really handy since taking a knife completely apart out in the field is asking to lose parts. It's also cool that Spyderco sell a spring replacement kit, so you don't have to deal with mailing them a restricted item.
The Clip...
It's a wire clip, not much to write home about here. I do like wire clips, but honestly I think this one should have had an hourglass clip. It isn't the lightest (5.35oz) or smallest knife, and I feel that once weight and size increase, the clip really should be an hourglass clip. I don't see why this knife didn't come with the titanium Salt clip. I may also swap the clip out for a deep carry wire clip.
Construction/Fit & Finish/Disassembly...
This knife is built like a flippin tank. As I mentioned before, the blade may not be the thickest, but the grind is only about 50% high so most of the blade is full thickness, and H1 is a fairly bomb proof steel that can be bent quite far before it will snap. There's a lot of meat in the tang around the pivot too. The liners are full and not skeletonized, and the handle is on the thick side compared to most (which I love). I found it interesting how far inward the handle scale screws are compared to most knives that have the scales crews right at the edge of the handle. This no doubt makes the handle less likely to flex. In total there are six pillar/screw points throughout the knife including the pivot and lanyard tube, so flex is a non issue. F&F wise I can't find a single flaw throughout this knife, It may be that because this knife was originally intended for the Coast Guard, Spyderco really went above and beyond to make sure the knife was flawless in every way. I've sort of gotten away from DLC blades despite my love of how they look, because I often grind on the spine and change the shape of my blades, but the overall blacked out theme is pretty striking. The only part of this knife that isn't coated black is the blade stop pin, I would assume because any wear of the coating on that area could result in a change in lock up and induce blade play. Speaking of blade play, there isn't any, and the centering is perfect. I will say though, the pivot is far tighter than what you'll find on a thumb hole opening knife and the blade is nowhere near loose enough to fall shut with gravity, even if the auto spring weren't in play. It's quite easy to over tighten the pivot screw and prevent the blade from firing all the way open, and the sweet spot between full opening action and zero blade play is pretty small. I haven't had mine apart yet, but there's a nice thread on BF showing the inner workings https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/aut ... y.1448444/
Ergonomics...
I think I'll end this with ergos. You might know by now how much I loath finger grooves, so it came as a surprise to me how much I like the grooves on this knife. Finally a knife with finger grooves actually fits my sausage fingers. Apparently the grip was designed for gloved use, which happens to fit my bare hand just right. The grooves may be a little wide/big for people with small or skinny fingers though, so the whole issue with finger grooves does go both ways. For my hand size however, it feels fantastic. My hand is so locked in place with this knife, it's as if I squeezed a lump of clay and Spyderco designed the grip around it. The handle is on the thick side but also not very tall in height so you can get your fingers all the way around it in a full fisted grip, and your hand just locks in place. There isn't any jimping whatsoever on this knife so the overall feel is really smooth, but this knife isn't coming out of your hand even if you're covering in blood/grease/oil. The grip feels good in saber and Filipino grip. This knife would be a great candidate for a non auto version with a larger thumb hole, it's an all around amazing design and it's a shame that not everyone can own/use one. It would be really interesting to see the lock tweaked a bit so that it worked on a manual opening knife, I dare say I like the unlocking action even more than a compression lock, though other people may not want a large button sticking out of the handle for unlocking purposes.
It's a little soon to give a true review since I've only had the knife a couple days now, but the blade is quite similar to my D'Allara 2 so I believe I already have a fair idea of what to expect, so the majority of the impressions part will be about the lock/action and the ergonomics.
So, let me start by just rambling a bit. Spyderco are obviously not an "auto brand" since their thing is the thumb hole opener. That's really a shame in a way because they obviously know what they're doing. Unlike the flipper ordeal, where some might say their flippers have been so-so, it seems that when they decide to make an auto, they throw down with the best of them.
Now, a bit of disclosure, I can't say I have the most experience with automatic knives, so my opinion there isn't worth much. I have however had a whole slew of assisted openers, which have a similar action at least. I'm sure there are some differences and expectations regarding the button and how smooth and easy they are to operate that I can't really have an opinion on. What I can say is, being a newcomer to autos, the button design is so intuitive and easy to find, I can draw the knife from my pocket while multitasking and not even looking at the knife, find the button, and deploy the blade without any effort...basically the same as you would open a thumb hole knife that you're very familiar with. It's easy to see that Spyderco and/or the U.S. Coast Guard put a lot of thought into the design and wanted it to basically be "idiot proof" in function, and believe me I'll put the idiot part to the test
I suppose I'll try to break this down into some parts...
The Blade...
I guess we'll start with the easiest part. I have to say, this is one of my favorite Spyderco blade designs to date, and there was only one real surprise that I missed when researching this knife, and that's the thickness, or rather the thinness. The blade is advertised on Spyderco's site as 2.9mm and 3mm on some other vendor sites. Compared to a Manix 2 blade (3mm) it is definitely a little thinner, and compared to a Dragonfly (2.5mm) it's just slightly thicker. It feels more like 2.75mm to me. For some reason I was expecting a 4mm blade and this was one detail that got by me. When it comes to SE blades, I really prefer them to be on the thin side especially with H1 due to the hollow grind, which usually comes ground very thick behind the edge/serrations. Compared to my D'Allara, it's ground noticeably thinner, and I like that. I don't need to pry with this knife, and I'm sure it's still plenty thick enough for hard use in an emergency. I like that it has a bit of negative blade angle, and it has a generous amount of PE at the tip which I find very useful (I wouldn't mind if it had a wee bit more actually).
The Safety...
Well, it has a safety. Not much more I can say here because I doubt I'll ever use it, but it's a nicely done safety compared to some that I've seen on assisted opener knives. It has a nice button that has plenty of traction so your thumb doesn't slip off when moving it, and it has a nice tactile and audible feel when moving it. It doesn't feel like it can accidentally get engaged or disengaged, which I think is the most important part. I don't feel the least bit concerned about it accidentally opening in my pocket, because it takes deliberate force on the button to initiate opening.
The Firing Button/Lock/Action...
This is a really interesting part of the knife for me. It looks like it works sort of like a compression lock. I really like how the button doubles as the fire and unlock, as opposed to having an additional unlocking liner or something. This means the unlocking is just as intuitive as the firing. My only complaint here, and this applies to pretty much every auto/assisted opener, and that's that you have to physically force the blade closed since there's a spring that is always working to open the blade. My go to method here is to fold the blade against my thigh just like I would do back in the day when I carried Case slip joints, and the end result is pretty similar. One thing I've noticed is there's an odd notchy/gritty feeling when the blade is closing against the lock button. That's kinda hard to describe...basically if you press the button ALL the way in, the blade pivots very smoothly (impressively smooth) but if you just press the lock in enough to disengage the lock, then let off the button and push the blade closed you can feel the blade riding on the lock button or something and it's a pretty terrible feeling. The lock bar/button has a lot of force behind it so you really feel that through the blade if you don't have the button pressed in while closing. The coolest part of this knife might be that the spring assembly can be replaced/serviced without taking the entire knife apart. That's really handy since taking a knife completely apart out in the field is asking to lose parts. It's also cool that Spyderco sell a spring replacement kit, so you don't have to deal with mailing them a restricted item.
The Clip...
It's a wire clip, not much to write home about here. I do like wire clips, but honestly I think this one should have had an hourglass clip. It isn't the lightest (5.35oz) or smallest knife, and I feel that once weight and size increase, the clip really should be an hourglass clip. I don't see why this knife didn't come with the titanium Salt clip. I may also swap the clip out for a deep carry wire clip.
Construction/Fit & Finish/Disassembly...
This knife is built like a flippin tank. As I mentioned before, the blade may not be the thickest, but the grind is only about 50% high so most of the blade is full thickness, and H1 is a fairly bomb proof steel that can be bent quite far before it will snap. There's a lot of meat in the tang around the pivot too. The liners are full and not skeletonized, and the handle is on the thick side compared to most (which I love). I found it interesting how far inward the handle scale screws are compared to most knives that have the scales crews right at the edge of the handle. This no doubt makes the handle less likely to flex. In total there are six pillar/screw points throughout the knife including the pivot and lanyard tube, so flex is a non issue. F&F wise I can't find a single flaw throughout this knife, It may be that because this knife was originally intended for the Coast Guard, Spyderco really went above and beyond to make sure the knife was flawless in every way. I've sort of gotten away from DLC blades despite my love of how they look, because I often grind on the spine and change the shape of my blades, but the overall blacked out theme is pretty striking. The only part of this knife that isn't coated black is the blade stop pin, I would assume because any wear of the coating on that area could result in a change in lock up and induce blade play. Speaking of blade play, there isn't any, and the centering is perfect. I will say though, the pivot is far tighter than what you'll find on a thumb hole opening knife and the blade is nowhere near loose enough to fall shut with gravity, even if the auto spring weren't in play. It's quite easy to over tighten the pivot screw and prevent the blade from firing all the way open, and the sweet spot between full opening action and zero blade play is pretty small. I haven't had mine apart yet, but there's a nice thread on BF showing the inner workings https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/aut ... y.1448444/
Ergonomics...
I think I'll end this with ergos. You might know by now how much I loath finger grooves, so it came as a surprise to me how much I like the grooves on this knife. Finally a knife with finger grooves actually fits my sausage fingers. Apparently the grip was designed for gloved use, which happens to fit my bare hand just right. The grooves may be a little wide/big for people with small or skinny fingers though, so the whole issue with finger grooves does go both ways. For my hand size however, it feels fantastic. My hand is so locked in place with this knife, it's as if I squeezed a lump of clay and Spyderco designed the grip around it. The handle is on the thick side but also not very tall in height so you can get your fingers all the way around it in a full fisted grip, and your hand just locks in place. There isn't any jimping whatsoever on this knife so the overall feel is really smooth, but this knife isn't coming out of your hand even if you're covering in blood/grease/oil. The grip feels good in saber and Filipino grip. This knife would be a great candidate for a non auto version with a larger thumb hole, it's an all around amazing design and it's a shame that not everyone can own/use one. It would be really interesting to see the lock tweaked a bit so that it worked on a manual opening knife, I dare say I like the unlocking action even more than a compression lock, though other people may not want a large button sticking out of the handle for unlocking purposes.