Lightning OTF Review - How long do they last?

what's going on YouTube metal complex here today we're gonna talk about OTF or out the front automatic knives the one that I'm going to use as an example today is called the lightning OTF and many people will be familiar with it let's go ahead and open it up here the actuator switch is on the top it is dual action slide it forward to deploy slide it back to retract so that's how that works nothing new nothing no buddies or nothing nothing people on line I've never seen before so two reasons I'm showing this one one I no longer own a micro tech I traded it a while back and number two this is another knife that is owned by a employee at the dealership that I work at and he's had it for three years and I want to kind of use this as an example because the Lightning OTF being as inexpensive as it is for an out the front automatic knife does have a reputation for being yeah actually fairly dependable considering it only cost between I don't know I think they run thirty to forty five dollars still so I want to kind of show this one off here and real quick I want to talk about pricing and what to realistically expect with this being more of a dark horse in the category so straightforward a high quality american-made out the front automatic knife if it's the real deal it's probably going to run you know $200 plus and $200 is kind of the like the beginning of the price point on the really high quality ones I'm referring mostly to micro tech if you go check out their combat Troodons those are I want to say mid for hundreds your scarabs mid to high 500s and of course your halo 5s which are single action my gosh they probably run close to $600 now so those are the real deal if you are purchasing and out the front automatic knife for less than $100 it is likely not made in the United States it is likely not made with premium materials and really mystery materials for that matter which this is I don't even know what the handles are made out of I have no idea what the blade is made out of I have no idea if this is a dlc coating or if it's painter or whatever this clearly resembles a micro tech scarab there's no doubt in my mind that this is what they were going for with this knife so that's where they went with it but you know I don't generally I don't generally make purchases like this but when I purchased my combat Troodon I loved it I thought it was is really cool you know it's a it's an helped affront automatic knife mine was double-edged and I realized after playing with it for a little bit that I couldn't carry it even though they are legal in Kansas here I didn't want to deploy that in front of people there's very few people that are comfortable seeing that kind of thing deployed and it was also really expensive so like many who make a purchase like that they they don't they don't want to take that out and use it this one had you know two obvious reasons not to use it so I ended up doing a little bit of research and buying one of these long time ago and great because then I get the satisfaction of deploying it and playing with it and I did carry that and it still had the it still left a negative impression on people whenever I'd use it so I barely ever took it out of my pocket but I felt a lot better carrying that thing around my impression of it regardless of what the internet said at the time was that it was cheap and it would eventually fall apart and whatever it was 35 bucks Casey at work saw mine and said it you know that's really cool how much is it and I told him the price and he said you know what I'm gonna get one so he did and this is his and I asked him about it just yesterday and I said you still have it and he said yeah and he handed over to me and this this has clearly been used for three years okay see I know if you're gonna watch this video but I have to assume that you haven't really done anything as far as maintenance with this which is great because this gives me a good opportunity to show it here in work to give people an idea of what to realistically expect from it and this isn't this is an oddball for multiple reasons you know one it's a no tf2 it's a cheapo TF and three somehow it actually you know is still working I was really kind of shocked by that I mean you can see here and I'll tell you right now the edge is dull and that's to be expected with a you know lower quality blade steel but whatever it can be resharpened he's got you know paint coming off of the scales here and and all over the place pocket clips got scratches all over it but it's held up but I mean look at this seriously three years old no problem I'm really impressed I you know I'm not all for everybody going out and spending a whole bunch of money on Chinese knives but there's a lot of people out there who can't afford 500 or 550 dollars for a micro tech scarab and if you really really really want one of these then I gotta say I you know this lightning OTF is actually a pretty good buy if you have to have a no TF and let's be real about these okay these aren't even the really high quality ones even the ones that run four or five six hundred dollars these are not hard use knives you know with even with the most premium materials that you can get in these OTF they're not hard use knives they scare people they're generally viewed as weapons and you know like this one you can hear that that blade play that's common in fact I don't I think there's only one out there one that was reviewed by Jim Skelton maybe that doesn't have blade play and I don't even even want to know what that runs but that's to be expected so I love micro tech I think they do make a premium product and if you really want the real deal if you really want the separation between your common low end and your premium high end then I think micro Tech's the way to go but understand that this is really more of a novelty even if it in its most professional form or a toy and that'll make people mad but seriously this is more of a toy than anything else it's more of a conversation piece than anything else there's no I mean people say stuff all the time about you know well that split second of quicker deployment you know can mean the difference between life and death life and death excuse me that's a that's absurd to me that number one someone thinks that the time between getting it out of your pocket and deploying it is really any different than even a manual flipper or folding knife that you can deploy with a thumb it's really an awl honestly it's it's the same amount of time and number two life and death you know how often are people actually having to defend themselves with folding knives let me tell you it's it's not often there there is a statistic out there I remember reading about it on blade forms it's it's unbelievably low like now I mean it's it's it's not a circumstance really where you need to consider that I I really don't think knives for the most part should ever really be considered weapons I mean I guess self-defense I guess so but really that's now what this channel is about I just want to be clear and open about what these are there are many many men are in fact most folding knife choices cheap mid-range or high-end are going to be a better choice in terms of utility knife than this but I got it I got a hand it to this little lightning this thing is really tough and really resilient and the fact in this case that it does have a cheaper steel makes it easier to sharpen I mean this I have no idea what this is but it's got to be pretty soft but you can sharpen it up and it'll cut you know these retracts straight into the handle these do this one does rub and the other ones I've seen rub you can see right there on the blade or it's been rubbing right here has it retracts and goes back in even when it's out it's not perfectly straight it's hard to tell here you've got six screws on this side some jimping I guess or some some sort of texturing up top and you've got a very simple yet functional pocket clip on this side so really simple construction on the outside on the inside you know there's two springs one that fires it and one that retraction retracts it and that's that's how that works but I don't know these are not legal everywhere in fact I think they're there for the most part I think where Kansas is one of the few places where you can carry this legally though you'll always even if you are carrying in a place where it's legal you'll always have that person you know say hey can I can you cut this you flip that out or fire that out they say that's a switchblade that's illegal that's gonna happen no matter what I mean that's just the general consensus on these things is that they're legal and they're weapons and you know you you're a specific type of person if you're gonna carry that so you know not everybody is gonna think that it's cool just just bear that in mind but and seriously don't buy this don't buy one of these making that you have some sort of advantage in utility over another knife because it deploys this way because you really cannot use this thing super hard there is an amount of pressure that you shouldn't apply to this blade let me let me also point out that these you know switch blades most people know this by now because it's all over online you can't just hold one of these up to something and fire it and expect it to go through that material that's just not that's not gonna be how that works so let me demonstrate it here I'm gonna use my my one of the cards on my keychain here okay this is unfortunately this is the only thing I have within reach but I'm just gonna fire it into this card you see that that's what happens this is just thin plastic so it derails and then you just pull it out to here see where it stops pull it a little harder and it clicks and then it's reset I still wouldn't fire it into my skin you know you're definitely gonna you probably draw blood honestly probably the most powerful ones out there are the the ones that are single action like the Halo 5 where it's just one big spring that's that's prime then fires it forward but again I mean unless you're just thinking of it as a weapon why would you need it to do that these are they're novelties they're not they're not ultra utilitarian tools they're fun eyes they do have a convenience about them and they're neat and if you you are on a budget and you just want one you want something to have around the house or you know throw in a drawer or something I think this is great for that just to you know just to have an adjunct role around the house like inside your house and you're just gonna use it for little things that III think in that sense it's perfect because he's clearly just thrown this thing in a drawer not cleaned it not done anything with it and I'm sure there's tons and tons of gunk inside of there honestly I'm sure there's tons of in there and it's still fired no problem so yeah I I gotta hand it to this little thing it's it certainly has held up and I know that the less expensive the other less expensive models out there and there's tons of them are notorious for failures or misfires I've had this thing I've been carrying it just for a day just to play with it and make sure that it was what I what I thought it was that it was still functioning the way I thought it was and it hasn't misfired at all so that's pretty cool so if you were curious what a lightning looks like after three years of being used this is what it looks like oh yeah these two little holes back here sir drainage holes my understanding so if liquid or anything gets in there or if you fill it full of oil I guess it can drain back out as per Microtech I believe they recommend REM oil for this or like a Teflon based oil as what they use in that I think REM oil is what they use in their factory so if you are going to get one of these and and you're gonna actually try and take care of it and maintain it I think REM oil is probably the way to go for that so I don't know you know take this for what it is I wanted to get one OTF on this channel and I think it's I really enjoy showing knives that have actually been used so that I can demonstrate what they look like and whether or not they still function I think this is a great example and as many of you probably have noticed if you have been watching this is the first video I've done where I'm not trying to hold the camera with my hand I have this really awkward setup I'm not going to go into detail about it but it is my phone is stationary and I've actually got to wait it got both hands-free where I can talk about these and show them without shaking everything around so still not the best lighting but anyways I'll try to do these like this from now on unless for any reason people don't like this but I hope you guys enjoyed every time I do one of these videos I watch it and I realized I left stuff out or I misspoke or I used the wrong terminology and I just want to point out again I do I do not take myself so seriously that I think that everything that I say is set in stone and neither should you guys because really I'm just a collector and I use some knives and I have a general idea of what is higher quality versus lower quality and that's about it I'm not a professional in any in any other aspect or in any aspect really at all so I just want to make sure people know that and you are welcome to correct me or point out when when I say something or when I use an incorrect terminology or something like that please do please do because I don't want to keep saying the wrong thing over and over and over again if I don't know what I'm talking about so anyways thank you so much for watching this video if you are a current subscriber thank you so much for staying with me I really appreciate that I love seeing new likes and more views on my videos every day if you are new to this channel and you enjoyed this video please leave a like and check out my other content and and if you enjoy all of it then subscribe because it makes my day even if I only get one subscriber every two or three days it really does make my day so I will be uploading more content on a regular basis so stay tuned and have a great rest of the day

Channel: Metal Complex

Views: 36,543

Rating: 4.6301885 out of 5

Keywords: Lightning OTF, OTF, Switchblade, Automatic knife, OTF switchblade, lightning switchblade, china switchblade, china otf, chinese otf, lightning knife, edc, edc knife, best otf, best knife, Microtech, Scarab, Scarab OTF, How to, Tutorial, Overview, knockoff, metal, steel, blade, usa switchblade

Id: a1rqMZc5GJg

Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 22 2018