Where does the Tenacious stand at 15 years old?

[araneae]

I'm curious about everyone's thoughts on the Tenacious as 2023 is nearing its end. In 2008 the Tenacious debuted and not without some controversy. Many declared this Chinese Spydie as heresy or junk with a Spydie bug on the blade. For a lot of others it was an introduction to Spyderco, a favorite and a trusted work knife. In 2008, 8Cr13MoV was a somewhat unknown knife steel, looked at with some skepticism. Spyderco put it on the map with the Tenacious and it became the standard entry level Chinese knife steel for almost anyone making a decent bargain price knife in China. It has had it's detractors, but many including myself found it serviceable as a working steel despite somewhat modest edge retention.

Steel aside, the Tenacious brought many of the things Spyderco was known for to the budget market. 4 way clip carry, one hand opening, quality build, ergonomic design and a warranty to back it all up. Pricing put the Tenacious within each of almost everyone. It seemed to be a hit, and was probably the budget knife king for a lot of years. Since that time we've seen variations of handle and blade materials, and even several limited runs and exclusives, something that tends to signify positive sales figures. The Tenacious line grew into a family, with a size to fit almost everyone, another indicator of good sales.

That brings us to today. The market today is much different than it was in 2008. The budget market is huge, with entire brands/sub-brands devoted to this segment. Nick Shabazz declared this year that excellence is now the lowest bar in knives. The market generally expects a great knife at a great price. So my question to you forumites is this, in your opinion, how does the Tenacious stack up today?

Is a $60 Tenacious a good value today? How does it hold up against competitors like Ontario's D2 Rat ($45), Kershaw and their variety of D2 options, Civivi Praxis ($42), Kizer Swedge ($47), Vosteed Raccoon ($59), etc.

What would you like to see if there was a Tenacious 2? Upgraded budget steel? Different lock? Ball bearing pivot? Different handles? What is a competitive price for this knife?

My thoughts are that the Tenacious has been a bit lost in a sea of excellent budget options. 8Cr13, while still serviceable doesn't stack up well against 14C28N, or even D2 or 9Cr18MoV. There are great lock mechanisms like cross bars that are perhaps more interesting. And they can be had at lower prices. I'd love to see Spyderco up their game in this area of the market. What are your thoughts on the Tenacious at 15 years?

[jmj3esq]

Well they're just about to release an M4 version with tan G10 scales any day now. I personally love the tenacious, especially for the price. It was my first Spyderco.

[aicolainen]

I bought my first Tenacious a year or two ago, so it’s still quite new to me.

It’s a SE LW in 8Cr and I haven’t used it much. It serves in kind of a backup role and has already been superseded by a Resilience CE LW in S35VN bought at disco-discount.
So despite very little use so far I already have 2 knives from that family. The reason is simple; they were cheap enough to justify as backups and the build quality is very good on both. Of all the competition you mention I’ve only ever owned a RATII in AUS8, and I much prefer the Tenacious line over the RATs. Both serving a similar purpose for me - backups, beaters and stash knives.

Because of weight I don’t see this line moving beyond that use case for me, so the blade steel isn’t that much of an issue. I’d probably choose 14C28N if the price difference wasn’t too bad. The S35VN and M4 versions miss the mark for me. It pretty much has to be a primary knife at those prices, and even then it’s not quite as affordable an option as I would have hoped with a Chinese made knife from the value line.

Conclusion: still a very relevant choice for how I use them, but not at any price. S35VN and M4 is not for me at their current pricing. Very good designs and a build quality to match, help it stand up to to a competition that’s offering more sexy steel options at similar or better prices, but you may have to have an affinity with the design and/or the company to still lean toward the Tenacious line in todays market.

[apollo]

The Tenacious is a very good design.
I have owned several over the years and still have one today.
Its one of those knives you take with you as a spare or as something you can loose while still beeing a quality knife.
I think its in a good place still. Personally i would not change it at this current moment.
But some sprints would maybe be a good idea.

[ladybug93]

i wish the resilience was as popular as the tenacious. i think it's a far more comfortable knife to use. i also wish it was 4" instead of a little over. i haven't carried mine since moving back to florida because we have a 4" blade law.

as far as value goes, i agree you can get good knives for less, but i think spyderco does the best job with 8cr13mov out of all that i've tried. you can also get them in s35vn now and m4 soon. people seem to love them, so i doubt they're going anywhere anytime soon.

[Wartstein]

Admittedly I haven´t been buying any folders but Spydercos in a long time, so I am not really placed to do valid comparisons (of other brands options to the Tenacious).

That said:

I had the S35VN "lightweight" (rather FRN version) and a custom olive wood scale 8CR one (not too much real life experience with the latter though, so I´ll focus on the former).

The S35Vn Tenacious is a great knife and worth every cent to me!

Mine was of perfect, flawless built quality (even the centering was perfect, something I actually don´t even care for at all).
Great action, great lockup (MY example was like this, from what I read not every piece necessarily is).

I really like good linerlocks, they are so natural and convenient to use, and while a choil-less linerlock is by far not as "naturally" safe for the fingers as one with a choil, whenever I closed mine it was always that short, hidden ricasso that would have hit my finger and not the edge.
I´d actually take a good linerlock over crossbar locks like the Axxis lock (but NOT over the CBBL!) or also a comp.lock any day of the week.
So no need for a change here in my book.

I also really like the endura-ish edge length in a package not much longer (when closed) than a Delica (just by 3 mm).

Handle / grip area also JUST long enough for my L to XL hands.

S35Vn worked great for me too.

One thing I still wished for:
A "real" lightweight Tenacious, so with just partial liner(s) and bringing the weight down to lets say Manix 2 LW dimensions.,

[vivi]

Spydercos heat treatment is better than a lot of their competitors in this range that use steels people consider superior on paper.

They also don't use bead blasting as often as other companies, which trashes corrosion resistance.

Two things I think rarely get mentioned in these talks.

[Coastal]

I love the Tenacious as is, and consider it one of Spydercos best designs. I have only one, an old but like-new pink-purple G-10 version. My favorite features are the liner lock and the choilless blade with its cutting edge almost reaching the handle. Said handle fits my hands as perfectly as any knife I own other than the Stretch 2 XL, and I prefer the Tenacious to the vaunted Jumpers and Lil Temperances for that reason.

To me the Tenacious is so good that, like the Resilience and Astute, it's not so much a budget knife as it is an outstanding knife at a really low price. It's really good!

What would I change? I dunno, for me the steels are fine: 8Cr, S35VN and M4 pretty much cover it. I'd like more handle materials and colors, but just for fun; G-10 and FRN are perfectly adequate. If it were me I wouldn't change the lock, but if a backlock or CBBL were available I'd probably pick one up.

If we want to get really insane, how about a Ti framelock version in 15V or K390? That would get my attention!

[cabfrank]

Admittedly I haven´t been buying any folders but Spydercos in a long time, so I am not really placed to do valid comparisons (of other brands options to the Tenacious).

This for me as well. Therefore, the Tenacious family gets compared mostly with Seki FRN knives for me, and you can imagine how that goes.
I have owned, and enjoyed a Tenacious and Resilience. I still see them as decent entry options in today's market, but I would much prefer the Resilience.

[zhyla]

The Tenacious is just as good a knife now as it was in 2008. But the competition has improved drastically. Spyderco generally loses any “for the money” comparisons these days.

One thing about Spyderco is you can pick any of their sub-$100 knives and get good ergonomics and a well thought out design. That is less true of budget competitors. Civivi makes so many knives that one of the reasons I don’t own any is I can never figure out what I should buy.

Spydercos heat treatment is better than a lot of their competitors in this range that use steels people consider superior on paper.

I don’t know if this is still true. Plenty of Chinese knife factories cranking out great knives these days. I think D2 is popular in part because it’s easy to heat treat. I’ve seen random FUD thrown around in this area but haven’t seen any articles exposing poor heat treatment of name brand knives.

[Frozenspyder]

I don't think it's fair to consider the Tenacious or any of Spyderco's Chinese made knives to be budget knives anymore. Whether anyone likes it or not, China's manufacturing has advanced so much in the last ten or so years. So, for me, the real question is: how do the Chinese knives stack up against the Japanese ones? Can the Tenacious and Endura coexist in the current market? I personally hope so, as I enjoy and use knives from both lines.

[Bemo]

I agree there are some amazing knives in the sub $100 range from a number of Chinese manufacturers. I've had some dalliances with Civivi, Sencut, QSP. Truthfully I'm loving the 14C28N steel I've been getting. But at the end of the day there's a Spyderco design ethic that none possess. Nothing feels as good in my hand as a Spyderco. Haven't seen a design from the any of the Chinese brands that feels as good in the hand as the Polestar or Alcyone, nonetheless the Tenacious family.

[kennethsime]

I bought an S35VN tenacious last year and have been carrying it with some regularity.



Here are my thoughts on the knife itself:
- Handle is a little small
- The handle-forward design is impeccable. I love it for slaying cardboard.
- I like the knife in FRN better than G-10. I do wish both models were lighter.
- The lower price ($100ish) does encourage me to abuse it a bit more than a PM2.

I think that the price comparisons break down quite quickly when you get the knives in hand. The biggest thing for me is the round hole - I don’t care if the Rat 1 is $20 cheaper, it doesn’t come with a round hole. I don’t care if Civivi has a micarta elementum, it doesn’t have a round hole.

I do really wish that Lynch NW would make a clip which accommodates the FRN of the LW model. I don’t really want to put micarta on this knife.

[Frozenspyder]

Nice points about the design of Spyderco knives. And that round hole is important. The materials and quality of the other Chinese knives might be just as good, but it's the design of a Spyderco that keeps me from buying those other knives.

[apollo]

I think that the price comparisons break down quite quickly when you get the knives in hand. The biggest thing for me is the round hole - I don’t care if the Rat 1 is $20 cheaper, it doesn’t come with a round hole. I don’t care if Civivi has a micarta elementum, it doesn’t have a round hole.

The statement above hits the nail on the head for me. Not only do i love the round spydie hole so much in my budget knives i also love it on every other spydie no mather the cost!
I tried other brands i even got to use a sebenza and eventough i can find quality besides spyderco its the opening hole that keeps me from spreading to other brands. I dislike thumpstudds and flippers and all others in between so much that if i buy a non spydie 99% of the time it gets sold within the year and is hardly used.
The spydie hole is for me far superior to all the rest of the opening methods.

[zuludelta]

I like the Tenacious. It feels really good in my hand, and is quite robust in its construction, with a thick liner lock leaf spring & a good-sized stop pin. Even in 2023, I think it still falls squarely within "good knife" territory.

Where I think it suffers the most is its public perception (for lack of a better term). There is, of course, the stigma associated with being made in China. I do believe that "quality is about effort & not geography" as Nick Shabazz is fond of saying & I think we have more than enough evidence at this point that select Chinese OEMs produce quality knives that can absolutely hold their own against the best American, European, and Japanese factories.

But there are other reasons that keep some people away from Chinese-made folders, and those tie into political, humanitarian & international standards-compliance issues that go beyond the knife industry. I will admit to having qualms about buying Chinese-made folders but it's never been a hard & fast rule for me as obviously evidenced by the fact that I own a Tenacious & a number of other Chinese-made folders. All that said, the ethics of modern consumerism (not just in knives, but in general) is something that I can't seriously & realistically litigate because of how complex current logistics & supply chains are, but I try to be informed & responsible about the stuff I buy, & make an honest effort to compensate for what I can.

Complicating matters further is the choice of 8Cr13MoV as the Tenacious' base steel. Personally, I think 8Cr13MoV is a decent "user steel" when viewed in isolation. If you look at Dr. Larrin Thomas' steel comparison charts, 8Cr13MoV isn't too far off from the much more vaunted Nitro-V in terms of its physical properties. But as with the "Made in China" label, a tang stamp of 8Cr13MoV is a bit of a black mark in today's market. A big part of that, I think, is due to the knives featuring poorly heat-treated & questionably-sourced 8Cr13MoV that absolutely flooded the North American market earlier this century. I've had a couple of non-Spyderco 8Cr13MoV knives (from a popular American brand) purchased in the early 2000s that lost their front-end sharpness & working edge a lot quicker than the 420HC blade in my Leatherman Wave while doing the same amount of work (if I had to guess, I would put their hardness in the low 50s). If my opinion of 8Cr13MoV was informed solely by that company's knives, I would think that 8Cr13MoV is an inadequate blade steel, too.

I have had no such issues with Spyderco's 8Cr13MoV, however, and it does seem that there is a consensus that Spyderco does 8Cr13MoV better than just about anybody else out there (I know it's just a single data point extracted under non-laboratory conditions, but here's a video of someone doing hardness testing of Spyderco's 8Cr13MoV & coming away with a reading of 60 hRC).

There is no question, however, that in 2023, there is a "bang-for-your-buck" gap between Spyderco's Value Line of knives & its Chinese-made competition in the budget knife category. Materials aren't everything, of course—to put my own spin on the Nick Shabazz quote mentioned earlier, "quality is about effort as much as it is about materials". I will take a C$70 Tenacious in 8Cr13MoV & FRN with its function-forward ergonomics & Spyderco's CQI & customer relations over another maker's shamelessly derivative C$60 folder in D2 & G10. A lot of other people will look at the tang stamp & dismiss the Tenacious as the inferior knife, though, & I think it is in Spyderco's best interest to move on from 8Cr13MoV as the standard Tenacious steel whilst sticking close to the original price point in order to better entice those potential buyers. I think 9Cr18MoV (which is basically "Chinese 440C") from a reputable foundry represents the best upgrade in this regard. Is this realistic? I don't know, I'm just a guy who likes knives.

[vivi]

Spydercos heat treatment is better than a lot of their competitors in this range that use steels people consider superior on paper.

I don’t know if this is still true. Plenty of Chinese knife factories cranking out great knives these days. I think D2 is popular in part because it’s easy to heat treat. I’ve seen random FUD thrown around in this area but haven’t seen any articles exposing poor heat treatment of name brand knives.

When it comes to D2, in the earlier days of D2 chinese folders, a lot of them weren't really D2. Not much of an issue these days from what I've read, but I haven't personally purchased a chinese D2 folder in the past decade.

My post regarding 8Cr and HT was more comparing my Resilience, Cara Caras etc. to other 8Cr and 9Cr knives from China.

Not naming names, but I've had absolute garbage performance from 8Cr from other companies.

If you go buy one of the $5-10 8Cr kitchen knives on the market and compare edge retention, edge stability and the stubborn persistence of burr formation when sharpening to a Tenacious, you'll see what I mean.

Either way country of origin doesn't determine quality. My chinese Spydies have been good to me. I've had US made knives from other brands that'd have their liner lock fail if I gently tapped the spine on a counter top.

[Wartstein]

I definitely miss my two Tenaciouses, especially the S35VN FRN one.

Only let them go cause I really, really wanted to slim down my array of Spydies, and so I made up a rather arbitrary "rule" "only backlocks " (exception: REX 45 Manix LW )

But if I could not get another one anytime i want anyway (since it is still regular production) I would never have sold my S35VN Tenacious.

[kontei]

My first Spydercos were a Tenacious and a Grasshopper. They are good knives. But since I bought Spydies from Seki and Colorado, I never went back to the Chinese ones.

[Wartstein]

.... But since I bought Spydies from Seki and Colorado, I never went back to the Chinese ones.

May I ask: For what reasons?

Cause I have to say: The two Tenaciouses I had were of better quality / fit and finish than most of my Seki knives (which are perfectly fine already too, don't get me wrong)

Two is of course not a representative sample though.