What is the feeling on alternate brands for EDC?

[Wanderer]

I am wondering if you carry anything other than a Spydie, what is it and what is your opinion on it.

I would also like to ask an opinion: what is the general feel about the M16 series by CRKT?
Thanks guys.

[Jarhead90]

I also carry my 5' Ex Lrg CS Voyager, & a Tops Wolf Pup. I never handled
any thing by CRKT but the M-16 seems to be a nice looking blade.

[nathan310]

I've heard bad things about them recently. I would go with Spyderco over CRKT any day.

[StangBang]

Well, my main spydie edc is my Bob T. Slipit. Love it to death :)
and my non spydie edc is my Strider SnG Tanto. Love it to death :D

I use to carry my benchmade griptilian and kershaw (blackout i think?) forever. Spyders kicked them, and all my others right out of my pocket. The only non spydie that I carry religiously and don't ever see that changing is my Sng.

No experience with the m16 CRKT sorry.

[tpro68]

I've had a few CRKT, but not the m16. The stubby razel is a blast and very stout with nice f & f. The Lake P.A.L. is nice too. Most of the non-Spydie knives that I choose are for the scales or weight.

[Donut]

By other brands, do you mean Byrd? :p

[sarguy]

I EDC'd an M16 for years before I got my first Spyderco. It's a good knife at a good price. The Carson Flipper was a great little feature that I still miss. I recommend getting one with an anodized handle, not the zytel ones. I had the 4.5 inch one w/ the tanto point, and so did a friend. His was in zytel and seemed really unbalanced to the front compared to mine. I think I paid 30-40 dollars on ebay for it. I dunno about bad things that have been said recently, but 7 years ago it seemed like a decent buy.

[Jimd]

I had an M-16 by CRKT, and it was a decent knife - it seemed strongly built and I believe it would serve its purpose well. The knife just didn't "do" much for me, though, and I sold it. However, I have nothing negative to say about it.

In addition to my Spydies, I carry a few other brands of knives: Strider, Emerson, Buck, Lone Wolf, Ontario, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.

[vampyrewolf]

I actually gave one of the crkt m16's away on here a while ago :p a CF one IIRC.

I've got 4 leatherman, 3 boker, 4 SAKs, and a laguiole that get rotated with my spydies.

The boker subcom lives in my rear/left pocket with my spare keys, and I rotate my multitool according to my expected work the next day (back to the spyderench again tomorrow) just like I do with my main carry (lil temp rotated in last night for more reno work, kris is tomorrow's carry).

I've got a 2 layer SAK in my leather coat and a 3 layer SAK in my fall/winter coat.

[mikebandw186]

Personally, I never liked the LAWKS/AUTOLAWKS feature. I like closing my knife with one hand, and I could never quite master it with the M16 series. Plus, why would I buy a knife for ~50 bucks with AUS 4, when i can pay ~60 for a knife with VG-10? And G-10 instead of Zytel with holes in it?

I like the Rollock, and the My Tighe. But that's about it for CRKT.

[npueppke]

If you get an M16 don't get the Zytel version. I had an Aluminum M21 and I thought it was a solid knife. I also had one of the $20 M16s, and it was a piece of junk... no smoothness at all, no strength in the scales, and unbalanced. CRKT has some neat designs, but they are expensive, considering the steels they use.

I've never really been happy with any non-Spydies except for my Boker Exskelibur. I used to have a los Banos M-Type but I thought it was unrefined and didn't think the quality was quite there, but the Exskelibur is just... truly amazing. Highly, highly recommended. I also have an Al Mar that I like quite a bit but I still carry a Spyderco over it most days..

You also can't beat Victorinox knives for value, and their quality and warranty is very very good.

[araneae]

I have pretty much given up on other brands. Some of the CLB Bokers are nice, but in the end Spydies displace everything and end up back in my pocket. I had an M16 and it was built fine, but was pretty dull out of the box and had poor ergos for me. Sold it.

[Switchback]

I usually carry two knives.

My byrd Robin is always in my pocket and about 80% of the time the other knife is a traditional slipjoint of some sort.

Slipjoints remind me of a simpler time in my adolesence when I thought all I needed to conquer the world was a bicycle and a pocket knife.

When my other knife is not a slipjoint, it's almost always my Sprint Run Rookie.

I have no experience with the M16 except that I carried one in the military. But it was a lot heavier and bullets came flying out the end of it. :D

[Sequimite]

I've decided to start carrying the Kershaw Junkyard Dog with the composite D2 blade. It fits my hand perfectly and at $35 for a blemish second, I can be as rough as I want with it. A guy at a local gun and knife show has hundreds of them, so replacing it will be easy.

[defenestrate]

Sequimite,
That JYD would be the one with the copper accent between layers of steel, right? I think those blades from Kershaw look pretty neat - I was thinking of getting one of the ZDP-189 laminates as I really liked the look of the two steels. I think I might prefer D2 though - will have to check out some of their other options.

I carried a Kershaw chive regularly for some time - I found it to be well-built, good-looking, and I liked the flipper (though I'd take a Spyderhole over a flipper mechanism in almost any circumstance) - it made a nice small companion to my larger spydies, and was the only PE blade I carried for some time. Now that I have a PE Tenacious, I don't have so much use for the Kershaw. It's cute, but it just doesn't really do anything the Tenacious doesn't (other than perhaps not freak out certain NKP who would be more comfortable aronud smaller knives).

[rosconey]

i love my ti zdp mini cyclone-i have a s110v scallion and a ti leek with a damascus blade

[CanisMajor]

I carry a Swiss Army Cadet on my keys, thats the only other brand I carry. Though it doesn't really matter to me.

Canis

[THG]

I've always wanted to get a pocket knife from other companies, but every time I go out shopping, I start to think, "Yeah, but I could get X Spyderco knife with much better specs for about the same price..."

That's why almost all of my pocket knives are Spydercos.

[Kuolema]

I know a guy who carries an M16 Tanto, and it's been his EDC for a long while now. Granted he isn't the hardest knife user, he said it's been a great knife. So take that with a grain of salt.

I have carried prior a Benchmade, a CRKT and a Kershaw. The Leek is a "great" knife if you like not particularly using your knife. If you leave the knife Assisted Open, it causes some nasty NKP stares and causes lots of problems. Great little gentleman-esque knife though. The BM was... Well, it lasted me a day before the blade chipped... So that's about my experience with BM. CRKT is pretty good, it gets the job done.

Oh, also, I carried for a brief period a Cold Steel knife, I believe it was the Pocket Bushman... And I will say this: Misleading Marketing. I don't know about all their other knives, but that thing failed me VERY quickly, and in the woods too. Luckily I always bring backups.

That's my limited experience, in the end I'm sticking almost exclusively to Spyderco. Just personal preference, I guess.

[dsmegst]

I still have a couple Kershaws, some BMs, RATs and Ontarios. But my EDC knives are all Spydies these days.

Aside from the Grips and Mini-Grips, sub $100 BMs just don't have the quality I get from Spyderco and I still prefer Spyderco FRN over the Grips.

There's nothing bad about the Kershaws but I've been giving them away instead of acquiring any more. I still like my Leeks and Blurs and I won't be getting rid of them any time soon but the ergos are not as good.

The rest are fixed blades and don't really fit the EDC role.