Hey everybody, Seth V here for the KnifeCenter.
Today, we're talking about knife locks. (KnifeCenter.com) We see a lot of conversations
happening online in the comments and elsewhere about which knife lock is best, which knife lock
is strongest, which is easiest to use. And while we may not be able to definitively answer those
questions, today, I pulled just about every knife lock we have on our shelves, so we can
look at them and compare. So let's jump into it. First up, this is the Opinel number 10. These
are $20 with almost four inches of blade, and this is standing in for our friction folder. The
very first folding knives were much like this, no real lock to speak of even though the Opinel
does have this rotating ring, which we'll get to, you simply push the blade closed and pull it
open. And there's really nothing stopping you from doing that other than the friction in the
pivot. Now what makes Opinels special is this rotating ring. And this is a rudimentary locking
mechanism. I say rudimentary because there's no spring loaded, automatic engagement or anything
like that, you have to do it yourself. But by rotating this ring, you put a block in the path
of the knife closing. So now, it's essentially locks in place, open it up close, and there we
go. So the big drawback to something like this is that it doesn't engage automatically, you
have to do it yourself. And depending how tight you twist that lock, it's going to change the
strength of your lockup, not ideal for when you're on the go, when you don't wanna have to
think about your lock. So despite the drawbacks of a friction folder, they're still very popular
today, simply because of their simplicity. These are super affordable, dead simple, very few
parts. They work, they work great, but there are certainly other options now. So before we get to
the rest of the knives, let's talk about a slip joint slip joint is not a locking knife. But
because the back spring provides a fair amount of tension, it does kind of automatically open
and close, meaning that it snaps into place and there's a good amount of resistance, that will
even push it back. If you happen to put a little force, that right there is a half stop. Another
safety feature that catches the blade before it goes all the way closed. And there we go. Also
stays closed on its own because of that back spring tension. And from here forward, every
single one of these locks is going to operate off of spring tension. This little Boker
slipjoint comes in at $104.96 on the site right now. Beautiful slipjoint made in Germany, but
not a locking knife. So let's move on to the next lock I wanted to talk about is back lock
dependable. I couldn't not bring out a Buck 110 here this really defined the category for over
half a century. Now this is the back lock knife when we think about Buck knives. USA made this
special edition one comes in at $199 with marble carbon fiber scales s 45 v and steel, a pocket
clip. But let's talk about the lock. So kind of like a slip joint. A back lock does have a
sprung back spring here, but it's independently movable and you can on you can disengage it by
pressing on the back here and pushing the blade close with the other hand. Like a slip joint, it
has a good self close which means that the knife springs back into the handle should you pull it
out just not quite far enough. Back locks are great. Despite the age, they have a lot of
advantages. First of all, they're very strong, because there's actually a fair bit of contact
here between the blade and the back spring. It's almost like a little deadbolt in a way that it
snaps into place in a little notch in the tank and it really holds the knife close with with
great strength. For years these have been among the strongest locks and while more modern locks
may have eclipsed them now. Still can't go wrong with the back lock, dependable, strong. The one
disadvantage of this back lock as it's implemented here on the book is that it's a
little hard to close one handed because of how far away this disengagement point is from where
you're normally holding the knife. You kind of have to reposition it and use both hands to
close it. Again, feels a little old fashioned at this
point. That's where this comes in. This is also a back lock. But if you'll notice the
disengagement point has moved From the back kind of to the middle of the handle, we call this a
mid back lock. This was made famous by Al Mar. This really just a simple change of where you're
disengaging that lock makes these a lot more usable in my opinion, especially because you can
very easily with one hand, disengage that lock. And if the knife is designed well as it is on
this Gerber Gator, which comes in at $50.95 on the website right now, you can actually close it
one handed by catching the unsharpened part of the blade with your finger and closing the rest
of the way. Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy. But it's not exactly fidget
friendly, which is where liner locks come in. Michael Walker is credited with inventing the
liner lock. But he didn't quite invent the liner lock. And let me explain. So before Michael
Walker came along, liner locks did exist, but they look more like this. This is a case
RussLock, which comes in at $79.99 on the website right now. And it does have a liner
lock. However, it does not have Michael Walker's key innovation, which was the detent ball. And
because of that this liner lock does nothing to hold this blade closed. Instead, there's a back
spring here just like that slip joint, there's a back spring that provides the tension to pull
the knife closed, the liner just acts as a sort of secondary lock that holds that locks the
knife in place when it's open. So in order to disengage it, you have to push that liner lock
to the side and then overcome the back spring tension to get that knife closed. works okay,
but because there's nothing protecting the liner from the blade, it's not very smooth in
operation, you kind of feel the friction of that whole face of the liner rubbing on the blade. So
what Michael Walker did is he put a little detent ball inside the liner which allowed it
both to move more smoothly over the face of the blade. And this is the key thing holds it close
at a single point. So that detent ball falls into a little round hole drilled into the blade,
rather than a spring pushing against the back of the blade like on a back lock. A detent ball
holds the blade close in exactly one position. So once you get the blade open, there's nothing
pushing it back closed again. But because it's so tightly held right here, what you can do
manually flip it open so you push against that detent ball and it overcomes it all at once in
the blade snaps open. It seems so simple and obvious. Now we use it. Almost every brand has a
liner lock that they make. But man, that little detent ball is what is behind flippers and thumb
studs and all the snappy fun action that we like to fidget with these days. It's all thanks to Michael Walker's key detent
innovation. This knife before we move on is the Ferrum forge Stinger comes in at $90 right now.
super great action on this really showing off that detent can flick it open. Anyway, let's
move on frame locks. A frame lock is just a liner lock on steroids. Maybe it's thicker. You
can see it from the outside. Because it's not a liner hidden by scale it's part of the frame. It
works identically though it's still just a sprung liner that kind of kicks in to hold the
blade in place when it opens. The blade stops against a stop pin back here. And like that
liner lock. Fantastic snappy action. detent holds it close very tightly, and then boom, it
flips open. So this frame lock here is the ZT 0452 CF this is designed by Dimitri Sinkevich.
ZT does a fantastic job. They're well known for their frame locks and their flipping action.
Super snappy, super fast. Now some people will tell you that that a frame lock is stronger. And
while that might be true some of the time it's not necessarily true. It really depends on you
know the particular knife and its lock face geometry and spring tension all those little
things that can help make a knife more stable and secure. At best, it's going to be a marginal
improvement over a liner lock. They are generally not as strong as a back lock but I
can't do that with the backlog. So before we get into the proprietary stuff, we have one more
lock that pretty much any company can use. And that is the button lock. So button locks have
been around a good long time but they seem to be kind of having a moment right now. This is the
CRKT Brian Tighe Fighter $49.95 on the website. And what you get with a button lock aside from a
dead simple interface, I mean, it doesn't get any easier than push the button to unlock
incredible fluid motion. When done well like on this Brian Tighe Fighter button locks have
phenomenal action. So fun, so satisfying, almost silky smooth. The way they lock up though, is is
pretty similar to some of these other locks. So we have a stop pin that catches the blade in the
open position. And the button is sort of just a plunger that wedges itself between the stop pin
and the tang to hold the knife open. Next up is the crossbar lock. Now this one I had to show an
AXIS Lock because the Benchmade AXIS Lock was the one that started at all. invented by Bill
McHenry and Jason Williams. The AXIS Lock is something different for sure. But Benchmade
makes a lot of axes knives. This one though, is the 945 Mini Osborn
coming in at $17.25. On the website, the AXIS Lock is no longer under patent by Benchmade. But
Benchmade is definitely the company that did it first made it famous and made it kind of
essential, I really think an AXIS Lock is one of those locks every knife guy should try. It's
really fun, really fluid and a number of key advantages. Number one, it's ambidextrous, you
can actuate this axis bar on the right or the left hand side exactly the same. It doesn't
require you to move your hands or put them in the path of the blade as you're closing the
knife like you do for a liner lock or frame lock. Because simply pull it back, put the knife
close. So the way this works similar to other ones you've seen, we've got a stop pin here. And
this bar that runs all the way through the liners on either side and out to the scales,
sort of wedges itself in the tank there. The AXIS Lock is also very strong, because we get a
round bar that's holding the blade open essentially. So in order for this blade to
close, the AXIS Lock needs to be pulled back, or an entire liner round bar interface has to
crumble, which is takes a lot of force to happen. Ever since the Benchmade AXIS Lock
patent expired other brands have been doing their spin on this type of lock. And we've come
to call this type of lock across bar lock to give it a generic non branded name. So when SOG
does it, they call it the XR lock. But they're all kind of functioning the same. They're all
crossbar locks. And it all started with the Benchmade AXIS Lock. So next up is a proprietary
lock from Spyderco. That looks a lot like an AXIS Lock. But is not this is the ball bearing
lock on a manix 2x l coming in at 185.50 on the website right now. So it looks a lot like an
AXIS Lock, we got a sliding kind of bar, what looks like a bar here. But actually what this
what's visible is a plastic cage, which sort of cradles a steel ball bearing that's pushed by a
coil spring, in this little piece right here, the coil spring is pushing tension that way,
pushing the ball forward so that when you open the knife, it snaps into place. And because it
functions so similar to the AXIS Lock, a lot of the advantages are the same, it's ambidextrous,
you get to keep your hands out of the path of the blade. It's pretty snappy, very fluid
motion, like that AXIS Lock, it's also very strong. In order for this lock to fail, that
ball bearing needs to crumble or the lock interface needs to slip. And with spring
tension. It's just not super likely to happen. So with a lot of these modern locks, what's
going to fail first is actually gonna be the blade. Usually they're kind of over-spec'd for
this. And I'm not saying it can't happen alocs certainly can and do fail, but you get so much
safety and security with a modern lock like this. I don't find myself ever really worried
about it. Next up another one from Spyderco. This is their famous compression lock here on
the kapara. This knife comes in at $203 right now and showing off that compression lock. So
I've heard the compression lock described as a reverse liner lock before and that's kind of
descriptive of how you use it. But it's not it doesn't quite capture how it actually works. So
it is indeed part Have the liner here just like a liner lock. And you'll probably notice it's on
the spine side of the knife rather than on the inside of the knife like a liner lock. So I can
see why people call it a reverse liner lock. But a liner lock kind of just works like a
kickstand, it just sort of props the blade open. A compression lock, however, works more similar
to an AXIS Lock or this ball bearing lock or even this button lock where there's actually
physically a piece of the liner wedged in between the Tang of the blade and the stop pin.
Unlike a liner lock, you get a ton of strength from this, that piece is really stuck in there,
that piece of the liners is is truly wedged in there. It's in compression. So as forces are put
on this blade, that liner is not being pushed back like it would be on a liner lock it's being
squeezed for steel in compression is much stronger, which is what allows this compression
lock to be rated for much higher strength. Like a liner lock, it has a ball detent so you get
that super snappy opening that you get with a with a liner lock or a frame lock. I think
that's part of the popularity of the compression lock. It's snappy, like a liner lock, but you
can operate it without ever putting your hands in the path of the blade so you can just fluidly
operate it open and closed. can even if you want to kind of pull pull the liner to the side,
filling it out. Super fun to fidget with and definitely a staple of Spydercos lineup. Okay,
let's move on to some weirder ones, these locks these next two locks are locks that are actually
only seen on these models on the table right now. And the first one is from Steel Will This
is their ant lock. And this is the Tasso which comes in at 159.99. This is an interesting one.
It Again it kind of looks from the outside a lot like an AXIS Lock, there seems to be a little
bar that you pull on. And indeed, it feels a lot like an AXIS Lock. But you'll notice the
direction of travel of the ant lock is not back and forth like it is on the AXIS Lock. It's up
and down. And what you're doing here it's difficult to see from the outside but what's
happening here is you're rotating a almost like a miniscule back lock in there. That's snapping
into the Tang of the blade. And by pushing this up, you're rotating it around the stop pin and
disengaging that lock interface that when it's open. It's locked into place against the Tang of
the blade, push it up and it disengages that and the blade comes close. So because this is the
only model with the ant lock, I can't confidently say exactly how strong it is
compared to other locks. But I will say it's a whole lot of fun to use and demonstrates one of
the key advantages of a lot of the rest of these modern lock designs on the table which is that
they don't require liners or big back springs in the back spacer. The whole lock mechanism is
sort of located right around the pivot here. And so everything else on this knife is just nice
lightweight g 10. There's no full liners backspacer's fully G10 the handles are sculpted
g 10. It allows you to make a knife it has a nice strong modern lock but it's lightweight,
it's well balanced. It is not overburdened with springs metal and handle. Hopefully we'll see
more at locks from Steel Will in the future. Alright, let's move on to another weird one from
Spyderco. This is the STOP LOCK. This is this knife is called the prorata. It comes in at
$196. And this lock is quite similar to ant lock. But you know different in the details
different in the details. It is a patented mechanism so it according to the government it's
meaningfully different. So by pushing up on this little arm here, you are rotating the locking
faces that hold the blade in place, rotating them out of the way so that the blade can swing
close. And like the ant lock, this knife really shows off how little metal you actually need for
this type of lock. to safely hold the plate. You take a look at this handle, it's just it's just
two slabs of G 10. The whole way through, no liners, nothing It gives this knife even though
it has this massively wide curvy blade. It's got a real kind of featherweight feel because of how
little they've had to put into the handle to make this lock work. Like an AXIS Lock or a ball
bearing lock, it's ambidextrous too. So righties and lefties get the exact same experience out of
it. You can even flip it open close with a little
practice. So maybe we'll see more of this lock for Spyderco in the future. But who knows. Next
up, we get to the Andrew Demko section of this video. Andrew Demko designed three locks on the
table here, he kind of looms large in the knife lock designing scene, if you want to call it
that. This first one here really wasn't important innovation for Cold Steel. In
particular, this is the triad lock. And, you know, it functions much like an old school back
lock. And it's a very, it's just a simple addition that he made to this old school back
lock design, to get us to this triad lock, is right here the stop pin. So one of the drawbacks
of a backlog I didn't get into saving it for this section is that both the blade and the
piece that's holding the blade in place are movable. So the blade pivots around a pin and
the lock bar pivots around a pin. And what that means is that unless your tolerances are really
dialed in, and your lock geometry is just perfect, you're gonna have some wiggle, you're
gonna have some wobble, it's, it's just how it is. Making a backlock without any flex in the
mechanism is, is hard to do. companies do it all the time. But it's difficult. The triad lock
kind of solves that problem by putting a stop pin here a fixed stop pin that does not move
between the blade and the back spring, you eliminate all that blade play and make the lock
a lot stronger besides and Cold Steel have taken the trade lock to its limit. This is the rajgarh
two, six inch blade $104.95 this knife could not be the size really without the triad lock. The
security and strength you get from this lock gives you the confidence to use a massive
folding knife like this hard. I did own one of these and I've I've chopped with it, I even
baton with it. And the lock. The triad lock just kind of shrugged off the abuse. One of the
things that it's particularly good at, aside from just the raw strength in here is its
ability to lock up securely over time. There's a lot of kind of extra space built into this lock
bar so that even if the lock face of the blade gets a little deformed from some from some
abuse, it can still kind of reset itself into the lock face. So these trade lock just last and
last and last and it's very familiar. But this simple innovation kind of kind of changed the
game for him. Next up from Demko and Cold Steel we have the ad 15 this knife comes in at $172.95
and it features Demko's Scorpion lock, you can see it right here on the handle it is this kind
of integrated bar that lifts up a pin from the blade to allow the knife to close. Kind of like
the triad lock, it's a bit of a twist on a back lock mechanism. It's just instead of a square
shaped back spring, sitting into an arch. It's this little round pin here that's embedded in
this lock bar. And the spring tension comes from a hidden spring in this Backspacer portion right
here. Again, it's ambidextrous. The way that you operate, it takes some getting used to because
you have to kind of pinch and lift up this bar. But does you have to do I would almost describe
this as like the frame lock of back locks because they've taken an element of the backlog
that was hidden and made it integral to the handle. Arguably you can even say this has some
extra security because kind of like a frame lock. If you're gripping the knife hard, you're
putting extra force into that locking mechanism and wedging it even tighter closed. So far, the
8015 is the only knife with the scorpion lock but maybe we'll see more time will tell. Next up
is the newest from Demko. And this is actually not a Cold Steel. This is the ad 20.5 it come at
149.99 when they're in stock. Unfortunately they're not at this moment. I pulled this one
from one of the employees here just to show it off on camera. This is Demko his latest lock.
This is the shark lock and you can see the little shark fin right there. They're sticking out of the back, pull it up and
back. And then I've swings closed. Lots of people are really excited about this lock,
because it does so much of what Demko does well, even better, it's strong. We've got the same
kind of stop pin and lock bar thing going on that we get on a triad lock, where we're really
wedging everything together against a fixed stop pin. But you also have the ease of operation of
something kind of like an AXIS Lock where you, you know, you don't need to put your hands in
the path the blade, you can hold the knife quite naturally. Pull it back, simply let the blade
closed. really satisfying action. Strong, totally ambidextrous. I think we're gonna see a
lot more knives from Demko with the shark lock, definitely as a hit with this. Again, it's a
killer combination of strength, ease of use, and finish stability, let's be real. I think you
hand this to a knife guy haven't played with it for a while. They won't want to put it down. So
next up another fun strong lock. Also new to the market. CRKT deadbolt. This lock mechanism was
designed by Flavio Ikoma. And it has a lot of the key advantages of many of this modern locks.
Another advantage of this is you can actually set the detent to your own tastes. So a lot of
these locks, the locking mechanism and the detent mechanism that is the thing that holds
the blade closed are the same thing with the deadbolt, they're actually different. So the
locking mechanism is here just around the pivot and the detent is adjusted with this little set
screw right here. You can make it stronger or weaker to your taste. And it allows you to
really tune flipping action, the deployment exactly how you like it. So the deadbolt works
and kind of see on the other side we've got this bar here, there are two welcome bolts that when
the knife opens the two bolts sink into the Tang of the blade and set it in place against the
stop pin which in this case are the thumb studs pushing against the frame. A lot of the same
advantages with this deadbolt and you get with a lot of these other modern locks. You don't have
to put your hands in the path of the blade as you close it. And even though it's not
ambidextrous, it's not lefty unfriendly, just well lefties are already used to living in a
right handed world. Oh, awkward, but I could do it. So I figure lefties who've had lots of
practice will have no problem. The deadbolt is a super strong, super fun lock. definitely glad to
see it on more CRKT models. And I'm sure we'll see more from them too. Next up, we got one kind
of from the archives. This is the Kershaw speed bump on sale as a matter of fact at the moment
for 32.95. Now this locking mechanism is easy to see exactly how it works because it is
completely visible. Rather than being kind of hidden in the handle somewhere. This lock is
just embedded within the blade. Kershaw calls this the stud lock and I believe it was invented
by Ken Onion. You can see the little coil spring here in the blade and the little ledge that
these stop pins snap into. So in order to disengage the lock, you just push it forward and
the blade comes close. This is a speedsafe knife. So you're gonna have to overcome that
spring tension when you close it. But it's really fun to be able to see the whole locking
mechanism in action here. I think Kershaw used to make more knives with this lock, but this is
the last one still in production. It's on sale. Now I don't know how long that these will be
around. But if you like interesting locking mechanisms, definitely check this one out. It's
a lot of fun. And this design is pretty cool too. Very old school Ken Onion. Nice curvy.
Sweet. Well And last but not least, we've come full circle to I don't know what to call this, a
fixed folder, a funny folder. I'll just show you how it works you can maybe come up for a name
with for yourself. This is a little small custom folder from Fred Perrin and it opens like so. So I don't really know how to
describe this. I mean it's not a lock like anything else here on the table. But Matt when
this is open, that blade is fixed in place. It's completely surrounded on either side by folded
metal handles. There's no way to disengage this without Opening up the whole thing again. Pretty
fun, nice little package certainly doesn't look like a knife in your pocket. There you go. It
is. This is called the Le Petitri by Fred Perrin, a custom made and believe it or not only
$32.95. Pretty great price. But that lock might take some getting used to. So I tried to pull
just about every locking mechanism you're likely to encounter off to show to you guys today. But
there are new locks happening all the time. And there's no better illustration of that, than to
show you an old new lock that has been lost to the sands of time I pulled this from Jason our
buyer's office, he's got a lot of old kind of curios in there. And this old thing is that a
demonstrator of the Neeley lock, probably something you've never heard of was not
something I was familiar with before I found this, it is patented. This design is the timber
light, in order to actuate the lock, you actually have to push this blade forward in
order for it to be able to rotate closed. It's easy to operate to open with one hand. Or you
could close it with one too. But super simple. In fact, I don't know if I've seen a more simple
lock than this is there's not even any like lock bar to speak of. It's just a Tang with a unique
shape that kind of springs back into place. Pretty cool. I don't know if he's ever made a
market. Let me know down in the comments if you've seen one of these in real life. If you've
used one, I'd love to know how it held up if you like it, and I'd like to know what locks I
missed here. I tried to pull everything I could but I know for a fact there's stuff I didn't get
to. So if I missed your favorite, drop down in the comments, let's hear about it. So that just
about wraps it up for this lock type overview video. I hope this was interesting. If you want
to get your hands on any of these knives, and any more besides check out the links in the
description head over to KnifeCenter.com and be sure to sign up for our knife rewards program
while you're there so you can get some free money to spend on your next dive. With that, I'm
Seth V for the KnifeCenter I'll see you next time.
