Columbia River Knife and Tool (CRKT) M16-10KZ knifeI originally bought this knife at WalMart because I was looking for a beater EDC knife that I could use the heck out of and not shed any tears over if it got broken, lost, stolen, etc. That's been a few years ago now and this knife is still going strong.
The high-carbon steel blade takes an edge easily and holds it for quite some time. Unless I'm hacking up fairly heavy material with it I can usually go for a while between sharpenings. I use a fine stone with Hoppes No9 oil to start off with and then strop it with a piece of an old belt. I generally keep it sharp enough to shave with as is evidenced by the bare spots on the back of my wrists. Even with such a sharp edge on it, it holds up fine for daily tasks like opening clam-shell packagaing, boxes and envelopes, cutting strings, twine and rope and lobbing off the occasional twig. For heavier or more frequent tasks it might need sharpening every couple weeks, which is still pretty good. The partial serrations make it great for cutting through rope, webbing, canvas, etc. and the tanto point makes for good poking.
The opening system was a little weird at first and it took me a little bit to get used to, but now I love it. This series of knives have little thumb-stud looking knobs on either side of the blade where you would expect them to be on most knives of this style; however, they're not meant to be used for opening the knife. The blade is opened by flicking the tab (the "Carson Flipper") that protrudes through the back of the folded knife. Once open, this tab makes a nice little guard to keep your fingers from sliding forward on to the blade and hampering your counting ability. The "thumb studs" are really just stoppers that keep the blade from flopping all the way back when you flip it open. When I first started using the M16-10KZ I had to consciously think about what I was doing to open the knife and it was a fairly slow process. After a couple week it was a lot easier and now it's just sort of magically open when I take it out of my pocket.
The blade locks open with, what I think, is a sort of goofy apparatus they call AutoLAWKS. It's got a regular liner lock on it which shifts its way over when the blade opens but it's got another little gadget that pops down to prevent the liner lock from actuating. It was a bit of a pain at first, but I'm used to it by now (although I'm still not sure it's a feature I'd request on a knife). I've taken this knife apart and put it back together a few times and, somewhere in the process, the AutoLAWKS has gone a bit screwy and doesn't function quite as well as it did from the factory but I'm not worried about it.
If that was the sort of thing that you'd worry about, CRKT has a great warranty on these knives. You can order just about every spare part for this knife except for the actual knife part (e.g. the blade, scales or the actual frame). That way, if you damage your AutoLAWKS, bend or break the clip on it, lose a screw or pop off your "thumb studs," you just ask them for replacements and they ship them to you gratis.
Pros - cheap, looks cool, takes and holds an edge decently, clips on your pocket, has a cool name, fantastic warranty, takes a beating
Cons - the opening and locking mechanisms are strange at first, I had a few screws that would work their way loose (which I fixed with some blue lock-tite) and the "thumb studs" kept coming loose (I put lock-tite on them and squeezed them together with channel locks). Although I think some CRKT knives are made in the USA, I don't believe this one is.
From the
website:
Here is Kit Carson's M16® Every Day Carry (EDC) with our Zytel® InterFrame build. Our knife users told us, "We want an affordable work knife that we can give hard use without feeling guilty, and one that won't break us up if we leave it on a job site or drop it in the river."
We heard you. So we set about to make the Zytel EDC the best value in the work and sport knife world.
That starts with textured Zytel® scales and a dual 2CR13 stainless steel liner InterFrame. Assembled with Zytel back spacers and Torx® fasteners, the result is amazingly rigid. Zytel is a fiberglass-filled nylon that offers excellent toughness and resistance to solvents. Teflon® bearings at the blade pivot and an adjustable pivot screw allow for perfect blade action.
The blade is 8CR15MoV high-carbon stainless steel which gives an ideal combination of toughness and edge-holding ability in a work knife, and also allows easy field-sharpening.
The M16®-10KZ features a dual hollow grind Tanto-style blade with Combined Razor-Sharp and Triple-Point™ Serrated edges similar to our "Big Dog" M16 models. The result is maximum blade strength and ability to saw through cord, webbing, nets or vegetation quickly. It has a black EDP blade, black frame and hardware for a non-flective tactical look.
Of course, it features the Carson Flipper, which speeds opening of the blade and acts as a blade guard when the blade is open.
The real breakthrough was our ability to engineer our patented* AutoLAWKS™ knife safety into all models, which automatically actuates when the blades are open, making these folders into virtual fixed blades when locked.
Add to these features the standard removable Teflon®-plated stainless steel clothing/gear clip plus the CRKT limited lifetime warranty, and you have one of the truly great knife values of our time.
*U.S. Patent Nos. 5,596,808 and 7,437,822
Topic: CRKT M16-10KZ knife (Read 4884 times)