Anyone ever have problems with the liner locks on the Milis?

[Kaizen]

I was on another forum today and a guy said that he had the liner on his Mili fail with moderately hard cutting. Anyone else have these issues? If so, please described what you were doing.

[The Deacon]

Pick a make, pick a model, and someone will claim they had one fail. Some of those claims are true, some pure fiction. Among the true ones, ideas of what constitutes "moderate cutting" or "moderate use" differ almost as much as the meaning of "down the road a piece".

The Military has been on the market for over ten years now. I think if there were any legitimate, serious, on-going issues with it, Sal would have either redesigned it, or taken it off the market. Liner locks, regardless of make or model, will fail if batoned with sufficient enthusiasm. Screw construction knives of all lock types are subject to owner disassembly, incorrect reassembly, and subsequent failure. So, without further details as to how this failure supposedly occurred, if I were planning the purchase of a Military, I would certainly not allow the mere suggestion that "someone" on "some forum" had one fail affect my decision.

[Tom v S]

Do a search on the forum with: 'Military Failure'
Then you find a thread with a video with my Military.
If you are planning on buying one, do it! You won't regret it, because it's the best knife you can find! And I mean that! :) I only know one more person that had a problem with his Mili. There can always be a failure on a knife, from the thousants that are made 1 or 2 fail. Thats normal I think. And if it fail, Spyderco will fix it for you.

Buy one, they rock! :D

[Echo63]

i have a 440v millie that has lock trouble, spinewhacking it i can make it fail with a tiny little tap, however it needs to be whacked exactly the right way to fail.
i dont carry the millie though, it has only seen very light use, i tried spinewhacking it one day and it didnt pass, so i carry somthing different (i would probably also get arrested if i carried it in public)
it is a nice blade, but i dont like linerlocks, its right hand tip down only (and i like left hand tip up), and it is too big to carry out of my house.
if you like one, buy it, if you are worried about the liner failing, dont
if it does fail on you under normal use, spyderco will make it right

[psimonl]

2 weeks ago, I was doing a silicone job in the shower. I had to take out the old ones before putting new one.

Like everythime I have to do work around, I clipped the C-36 to my pocket.

And there I go, on my knees, scrapping the silicone. It was really sticky and well into all the cracks.

Anyway, at one point, I hade to slip the blade between two plastic pieces about 3/4 of an inch deep and pull for 12 inchesto pull the old goo out. After a couple of passes, realizing I was more making a mess than pulling it out, I tried the impossible:

I put the blade backward :eek: Soo when I was pulling, all the force was on the lock and not on the backpin.

I don't know how much weight I used, but to let you know how hard I was pulling, I had to block my foot on the opposite wall so I didn't slide on the floor from my force.

It was not a wack type of force, but a strengh kind of force. I was gentle at first, but it didn't take long before I put enough force on the lock so It could drag me on the floor.

So, for me, the Mili lock strengh is more than enough.......

Simon

[Kaizen]

2 weeks ago, I was doing a silicone job in the shower. I had to take out the old ones before putting new one.

Like everythime I have to do work around, I clipped the C-36 to my pocket.

And there I go, on my knees, scrapping the silicone. It was really sticky and well into all the cracks.

Anyway, at one point, I hade to slip the blade between two plastic pieces about 3/4 of an inch deep and pull for 12 inchesto pull the old goo out. After a couple of passes, realizing I was more making a mess than pulling it out, I tried the impossible:

I put the blade backward :eek: Soo when I was pulling, all the force was on the lock and not on the backpin.

I don't know how much weight I used, but to let you know how hard I was pulling, I had to block my foot on the opposite wall so I didn't slide on the floor from my force.

It was not a wack type of force, but a strengh kind of force. I was gentle at first, but it didn't take long before I put enough force on the lock so It could drag me on the floor.

So, for me, the Mili lock strengh is more than enough.......

Simon

I thought you were about to give me a nightmare story :) . Thanks for sharing.

[Kaizen]

Pick a make, pick a model, and someone will claim they had one fail. Some of those claims are true, some pure fiction. Among the true ones, ideas of what constitutes "moderate cutting" or "moderate use" differ almost as much as the meaning of "down the road a piece".

The Military has been on the market for over ten years now. I think if there were any legitimate, serious, on-going issues with it, Sal would have either redesigned it, or taken it off the market. Liner locks, regardless of make or model, will fail if batoned with sufficient enthusiasm. Screw construction knives of all lock types are subject to owner disassembly, incorrect reassembly, and subsequent failure. So, without further details as to how this failure supposedly occurred, if I were planning the purchase of a Military, I would certainly not allow the mere suggestion that "someone" on "some forum" had one fail affect my decision.

One would only assume that Sal would fix it if there were really a problem in the design. I figured it might be worth a shot to see if there are any more stories like the other guy.

[dRider]

I've had one for years and never had any sort of problem with it. The only issue I can see is that the liner lock is pretty wide open on the Military... really easy to close, but if you happened to be pushing hard and twisting to the right hard at the same time, you might accidently unlock it. But that's something any careful operator could avoid...

[Kaizen]

I've had one for years and never had any sort of problem with it. The only issue I can see is that the liner lock is pretty wide open on the Military... really easy to close, but if you happened to be pushing hard and twisting to the right hard at the same time, you might accidently unlock it. But that's something any careful operator could avoid...

I've read that hard twisting or lateral stress for both liner locks and frame locks may cause the knife to accidentally disengage. I've never come across a situation where I had to do anything close to that. The only situation where something like that may occur is in the very unlikely situation that I use it for SD.

[Plowboy]

I really think the general dislike of liner locks is unjustified. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just plain like them. The liner lock on my Captain is as solid as they come. I don't have a Millie, but I hear great things about them.

The thing that confuses me is that folks will knock liner locks and latter on talk about how much they love their Millie.

My experience with the Captain gives me great confidence in Spyderco's liner locks. I have some knives from other manufacturers that have liner locks that are solid too. None of these knives, however, are cheap imports. Of the knives I have with liner locks that I have complete confidence in, two are made in Japan (Captain is an example -- the other has initials of AM) and the other knife is US made.

You can count on Spyderco's liner locks. Given what I know about Spyderco's management team, if there was a real problem it would have been fixed or discontinued.

Don't let the liner lock hold you back from getting a Millie.
:)