Honestly see no good reason for an Auto or Spring Assist with the Spyderco THUMB HOLE

[akapennypincher]

The time has come to ran on the Posse who is pro auto, and spring assisting opening knives. I just returned from a friends home who has a very large collection of auto, and spring assist opening knives. In excess of 200 knives.

I am a South Paw, but do have good hand coordination in my WRONG HAND, that being the Right Hand where I can shoot a pistol, almost as good as LEFT HANDED.

So I played with about 20 of his high & low dollar Auto, Spring Assist opening , and Butterfly knives for a couple of hours, as I have been in the hunt for an Auto, Spring Assist, or Butterfly Knife for EDC.

My impression is my Spyderco with its Thumb Hole is FASTER, and more Reliable for EDC because less parts to be effected by Dust, and Dirt.

Tell me I am wrong, and why.

[The Deacon]

As a general rule, you are right. I'd even go so far as to say I find flippers and Emerson openers less reliable than the Spyderhole. My "inner 13 year old" (or possibly inner 3 year old) finds my Mircrotech DA/OTF autos quite the fun toys. but for serious work, I'd take a Stretch over them any day.

[Studey]

Autos are more likely to suffer a catastrophic failure than a manual knife. The question is whether the likelihood of an auto failing is high enough to be concerning.

In my experience, autos CAN be faster than a manual knife in experienced hands. My buddy and I were testing this last weekend. We used a shot timer to test our speed in drawing our knives. My fastest time was with an auto. I could respond to the buzzer, draw, and open the knife in 1.06 seconds. On average, I was 2/10 of a second faster with my auto than the manual folder I was carrying. On the other hand, my buddy, who is not used to autos, was about 2/10-3/10 of a second slower. Does that time matter? Probably not. I'd like to test this more, using a wider range of folders, waved folders, and fixed blades.

I trust manual knives more, but autos are so much fun! Now that I can legally carry them, I do from time to time, but it is backed up by another knife, either a manual or a fixed blade.

Where autos do have an advantage, I think, is with gloves on. Of course, if you're wearing gloves, are you in an environment that would cause the auto to be less reliable?

[Cereal_killer]

Wait the shot timer picks up the sound of knives opening? That's a neat trick to know, I'm gonna have fun with that.

[TBob]

The only advantage that autos had years ago was one-handed opening. Now, the Spydie hole is the most efficient and reliable one-hand opening system. Spyderco makes some very nice autos, but IMO they have no operational advantage over the Spydie hole.

[Jazz]

I absolutely agree with you, pennypincher. And we're talking Spyderco hole, not studs or disks.

[Evil D]

Is it just me or are we actually splitting hairs here with 10ths of seconds? My thoughts are that if a few 10ths of a second are all that stand between you and death, you should have prepared better and/or you're a gonner anyway. I only own one assisted opener which is a G10/S30V Leek, which I got used for a great price. If I had to choose one or the other I'd go with the thumb hole simply because I don't like the possibility of a knife opening by accident, and it's less likely with a manual opener. That said, I don't see anything wrong with enjoying a AO or automatic. All good, just different.

[3rdGenRigger]

I prefer the simplicity and reliability of the thumb hole in all situations.

[Jazz]

I just think AO tend to make us look bad. Almost everyone I see in videos (any one hander) is flicking, using exaggerated arm movements and what have you, and in general looking like a jackass. That's not everyone, so don't be mad at me. Maybe it's just the "showoffery" I don't like. I'm sure even autos and AO's can be opened civily. That being said, I just prefer the sureness of a Spydie hole, and it is just as quick. To each his own. Variety is the spice of life. :)

[Mako109]

I don't perceive any significant advantage of auto-assists over the Spydie hole, unless you are wearing gloves...there it can make a difference. I do have fun playing with the different mechanisms. For my practical purposes, the Spydie hole is more than adequate. In other words, I'm sure I'm faster than that tomato I'm about to eat.

[pc87]

I also prefer the simplicity of the spyder hole and or the flipper (southard, domino). I hope Spyderco does not adopt assisted knives, as it lends itself to another level of failure. I loath torsion bars and have kept buying spyderco's because they do not change things based on fads.

Thanks Sal for making awesome knives that will always open when I need them to, un-assisted of course.

[springnr]

But then little delights are where you find them.
Machines are neat, be it a spring powered airgun using sail boat fuel to fling a lead pellet or the simple sound of a steel blade thunkin' home after the button is pressed.

[suedeface]

Are we talking about side-opening autos or OTF autos? IMO autos (especially my mini microtech UTX-70) are faster to open when held side-by-side with a similar sized dragonfly for example. However, when you factor in reaching into the pocket or waistband, drawing the knife, gripping and indexing the knife to where you have a decent hold on it, and then opening it (by whatever means) I would say the spyderco is overall faster. I have been carrying a ffg delica since they were introduced and am very experienced with it. After much use and familiarity with it, I could easily have my knife out and opened faster than any auto knife. The large hole opener just naturally rests against my thumb when I go to retrieve it and with some carry experience it becomes muscle memory. Having said that, the fastest folding knife I can deploy is my kershaw OD-2. The "flipper" on the back is amazingly fast, and with just a short carry time I was amazed at how fast I was able to open it.....like 1.5 seconds from pocket to open and ready. definitely my fastest knife ever....and pretty cool blade all around too..

[zinczinc]

Spyderco attracts me of how its open, which stand out from others knives.

Also, IMO the lock does make the different of how fast the knives deploy.

compassion lock > linear lock/ frame lock > lock back.

it is due to the resistance from the lock and the blade.

[bdblue]

I certainly don't have 200 knives but I do have a few and they include a variety of brands and opening types.

I find that my knives that are the most reliable to open are the Para2 and the Kershaw Blur. It takes a big thumb stud that is easy to get to, or a big thumb hole that is easy to get to before a knife is reliable for me. I have a number of Spyderco knives with smaller blade holes and some that the blade holes are harder to get to than the Para2 and this makes them less reliable for opening. And "less reliable" means slower or even a lot slower. I also have a number of knives with thumb studs and find the same thing- if the thumb studs aren't done just right then they are slower to use and less reliable.

I was carrying my Manix 2 today and it is fast to open because I can flick it open by using the tip of my thumb in the thumb hole. It may not be all that much faster than a Para2, or the assisted Kershaw Blur, and it is certainly less relaible, but it is fun to open that way.

[bengaiser]

Spyderco should make a hybrid auto-manual opener. I got to play with one once (don't remember the brand) and it was a little freaky. Push the button for auto, or use the thumb stud for manual. Every time I manually opened the knife I felt as if it would spring to life in my hand at any second :eek: Pretty cool though.

[BadFish]

What is a compassion lock? I usually use two hands to open a knife anyways I'm past the days of the coolness of fast opening. As someone said if I need a fast opening knife in life or deAth I wasn't prepared to begin with. In that situation screw the folder give me a fixed blade. I can see the purpose of auto my sister has cerebral palsy and doesn't have one hand dexterity, in the case an auto suits her much better and causes less pain in her hand

[zinczinc]

What is a compassion lock? I usually use two hands to open a knife anyways I'm past the days of the coolness of fast opening. As someone said if I need a fast opening knife in life or deAth I wasn't prepared to begin with. In that situation screw the folder give me a fixed blade. I can see the purpose of auto my sister has cerebral palsy and doesn't have one hand dexterity, in the case an auto suits her much better and causes less pain in her hand

My bad , it is compression lock

[The Deacon]

Are we talking about side-opening autos or OTF autos? IMO autos (especially my mini microtech UTX-70) are faster to open when held side-by-side with a similar sized dragonfly for example. However, when you factor in reaching into the pocket or waistband, drawing the knife, gripping and indexing the knife to where you have a decent hold on it, and then opening it (by whatever means) I would say the spyderco is overall faster. I have been carrying a ffg delica since they were introduced and am very experienced with it. After much use and familiarity with it, I could easily have my knife out and opened faster than any auto knife. The large hole opener just naturally rests against my thumb when I go to retrieve it and with some carry experience it becomes muscle memory. Having said that, the fastest folding knife I can deploy is my kershaw OD-2. The "flipper" on the back is amazingly fast, and with just a short carry time I was amazed at how fast I was able to open it.....like 1.5 seconds from pocket to open and ready. definitely my fastest knife ever....and pretty cool blade all around too..

I'd agree with you on the UTX-70/D-fly comparison. But, even among MT OTF's it's going to vary from model to model and knife to knife. The thumb pressure needed to fire my UTX-70 is light enough that it opens, and closes, very easily and very fast. OTOH, my Combat Troodon probably takes 10X the thumb pressure to fire, so I'd rate it slower than a Stretch.

Not to mention that, in most cases, we're talking fractions of a second and, as David pointed out, that's rarely going to matter and, if it did, could almost always have been compensated for by situational awareness.

Spyderco should make a hybrid auto-manual opener. I got to play with one once (don't remember the brand) and it was a little freaky. Push the button for auto, or use the thumb stud for manual. Every time I manually opened the knife I felt as if it would spring to life in my hand at any second :eek: Pretty cool though.

Never played with one myself, but I know they're called "dual action" automatics, and that a fair number of companies make them. As for Spyderco, if memory serves me correct, they've had the prototype for one designed by Butch Vallotton "in the works" since before the Citadel and Embassy were released. Still, they're more complex than a "normal" Spyderco folder, more difficult to close one handed, and carry all the same legal baggage as any other automatic.

[dbcad]

Assisted and auto opening knives have a "cool" factor with some folks. The hole is just as effective and a much more elegant solution to opening a folder. The assisted flippers I've played with give a bit of a rush opening because of your wrist geting torqued , it has little or no practical value to me :)