Should You Buy a Microtech UTX 85?

[Music] hey guys welcome back and thanks for tuning in to my review of the micro tech UTX 85 then I talked all about my experience and using this knife over the past year or so cover some specs and also talk about why you may or may not choose to put one of these knives into your collection stick around [Music] so like I said at the outset I've been using and carrying this UT x85 for roughly a year probably closer to 10 months or so but in that time I've used it quite a lot carried it quite a lot and I have featured it in a number of other videos prior to this one always promising I'm gonna get around to the review of this knife very shortly and that I never do but here it is finally and I've got lots to say about this knife and about I guess micro Tech's customer service we'll get to that story here in a little while as well as kind of how this fits in an EDC role why I like OTS in general and we're also going to compare it to a few other really good EDC knives for a bit less money maybe a bunch less money this one in particular with that sort of blue and the bronze finish on it this was like many of the UT X's or the ultratex they kind of run a very specific color and specific sort of blade shape and combination that keeps sort of running running them in little batches and little specialized batches which is something that makes micro tech at least the ultratex extraordinarily collectible there again you can just get so many different varieties you kind of got to be on the ball when they come out when they drop but you can find some really really cool varieties and we might as well show you one other one now that I'm thinking about that while I'm on the subject here's one that is from the USN gathering in Las Vegas u.s. n 10 I didn't go to that gathering I think I know some guys that did but I would never have so in any case the knife that was released in honor of that gathering is this guy right here check that out black Spartan blade see the holes going through you can see my shirt through it isn't that awesome I had to have this one when I saw it come out saw it on blade excuse website and had to go ahead and pick it up this one in is in m390 steel fantastic steel gonna last for a long time as far as edge retention haven't done much cutting with this one as you might be able to guess it's not quite as utilitarian as my original which is just their standard drop point which again is a fantastic EDC cutter I say again but I hadn't really said that yet it is a fantastic EDC cutter and that blade shape just lends itself so well to EDC and to be used in so many different ways but again because of how collectible these knives are you can get ones that are more utilitarian and more decorative and this one right here is just an aesthetic beauty and I had to pick it up so that is a good look at that guy right there we're gonna go ahead and put that one back in Pocket speaking of I guess while we're still on the subject of collectability whether it's the ultra tech or the UTX 85 and we'll mention real quickly that UTX eighty-five simply stands for ultra tech times 85 so that's where the name comes from ultra tech being the full-sized OTF also by micro tech this guy right here and once again back on the subject of collectability this is their Bounty Hunter ultra tech that I picked up what a couple of years ago I got a low number on it it's number 41 yeah so this guy is also freaking sweet really love it but hardly use it hardly ever carry it it's basically just something that I've got to be a collector as I said there are so many that they make and that they release that are just aesthetically cool and so ecstatically special as compared to other ones that they this line just lends itself so well to collectability so once again whether it be the ultra tech or the utx 85 there's gonna be so many different varieties this guy right here you may never see again because that's just how they operate they kind of create a small batch of pretty interesting ones then move on and do something else that's also very cool and interesting but different and that's kind of the deal so whatever you're interested in is as you know colors and designs you can find them but they're going to be gone pretty quickly after you find them so you pretty much have to jump on them okay so we'll move away from the subject of electability reluctantly it's a very collectible knife and let's talk about utility to me these knives are extraordinarily great it's far from utility standpoint so use that knife it's just pressing that button forward a little sliding button like so out pops the blade do whatever cutting chore you have to do and then you retract it just like that there is no folding of the blade okay there's no getting it in the way of your fingers that getting your fingers in the way of the blade there's no using two hands for any reason unless maybe your thumb is not quite as strong and you do need to use two hands to pull it forward or or to push it out and I've met some folks that can't quite do it one-handed because it is fairly strong little switch but but back to the subject of utility it's extraordinarily good because of that easy out easy back back in pocket kind of a thing it's faster than just about any other knife I have or have ever used I don't know if that's really a point you can argue there's certainly some I guess startled factor to it when you pop that out anybody that sees you pop that out who's gonna be like oh is that even legal and that's I get that reaction a lot when I show it to folks but then when I explained to them that Utah knife laws at the very least are quite sensible and they understand that knives are for utility they're for using their for making and doing stuff and cutting stuff with and people are pretty forgiving about seeing knives around I don't think you covered price yet so let's go ahead and jump to that the UCX 85 and the ultra tech are right near the top of my personal spending ceiling on knives so I think this guy right here costs close to 300 it was either in the tie twos or around 300 when I bought it and most ultratex are in the high twos now the UTX I don't remember what I spent on this one but it was if you look for one similar to this it's gonna be around 260 right now and I think that that was probably what this USN one costs as well pretty close to that so 260 it's very high I've seen some other ones for about 225 it's about as low as it gets for a UTX if you want Microtech quality and you do want to save some money and you also want something that's a little more pocketable a lot of folks will choose the UTX over the original Ultratech once again because size-wise the ultra tech is a little easier to carry and price-wise it's also a little easier to get into it's worth pointing out that the UCX 85 that I have in my hand is an updated version of the UTX 85 which has been out for quite a while so the button has changed a little bit in its texturing there's some more rounding on here that wasn't there before and some other things have kind of evolved but the current iteration of it the current version of it very sweet very deluxe very handsome just a great gorgeous looking knife all the different versions I've looked at again outstanding aesthetically and great ergonomics do [Music] a couple of basic specs on the knife we've got a blade length of about 3.125 cutting edge of about 2.8 7/5 blade thickness of about 0.1 3 the blade material on this one is l max again I showed you that the other one is m390 the weight 3.1 ounces overall length of about 7.5 inches handle thickness about 0.47 so not too fat in pocket very easy to carry aluminum handle scales on there or body I should say 6061-t6 aluminum body and generally just steel otherwise Hardware on it as far as the screws and whatnot Microtech proprietary so you need to get into their sort of their special screwdriver if you want to be able to take this knife apart I don't recommend you do it because you can mail this back to Microtech for any maintenance that you need to have done might as well jump into maintenance now and talk about the mishap that I had with this particular knife so I was stopping by my friend Brandon's shop modern threat response in American Fork to take a look at his u TX 85 he got one with the carbon fiber handle scale I think in m390 and just wanted to get a little extra footage of that to be able to roll into this video so I'm rolling some that in right now and giving you guys some some eye candy as far as that's concerned but as we were looking at that knife comparing his to mine playing with the action on both I noticed that mine was getting stuck as I tried to deploy it it would not shoot out all the way would not retract all the way it was having a serious issue when I noticed that I decided look I need to send this back to micro tech give them a chance to address whatever issues going on with this thing and try to get this sorted out before I feel my review I did that shipped it over to them I think it was maybe two weeks later I had it back in tip-top condition I assume they had taken it all apart that they had given it a thorough cleaning maybe they changed something out I'm not sure but it was also razor sharp so I sent it back to them pretty sharp but they sent it back to me sharper which was awesome so they did fantastic service work on the knife while they had it which is stellar it's great to see that you know it didn't what did it cost me just a little bit to ship it to them and they cover the shipping cost back so that was fantastic I did I think email them to let them know about the problem got their permission to send it to them and you know made sure that they would take care of it before I went ahead and just mailed it to them blindly so you know they treated me right they took care of this knife well and I'm happy as far as what that problem was I think it could largely be attributed to dust building up inside the the body or maybe some other kind of gunk and that brings me to sort of one of the possible downsides of the OTF design any other knife let's just bring how about this guy right here bench made mini grip Tilian 154cm just about any other knife folding knife can easily be maintained by the user the reason why is it's wide open the body is wide open so I can blow that out with the Steichen stuff like a shop towel down there and wipe things out if I really need to it's really easy to maintain yeah certain areas can accumulate dust that is maybe a little more difficult to reach but you generally can either take it apart yourself or get that dust out yourself and do that cleaning yourself without having to send it in when it comes to something like an OT f if any gunk is building up inside that body it's really really hard for the user to try to get any of that out it's so tight in there and so completely enclosed how do you do it how do you get access to that stuff it's not real easy which is why you may have to end up sending it back to the manufacturer in those cases and that to me is the biggest potential downside to using an e DS using an OT f as your EDC cutting boxes cutting packages getting taped getting gunk on your blade all that stuff when you retract it if you don't clean it off first thoroughly can get stuck down in the body follow the blade down and stay down in the body causing future problems so I do see that one major downside to having and using an OTF as your EDC short of that it's just fantastic and I love it all right so I compared the UTX 85 to one or two knives already but let's bring in a couple more compare them for price compare them for size and so forth so again there's a UTX 85 and one more time here is the benchmade mini grip Tilian checking out the blade shape and size you can see that they're both going to be great for EDC they're roughly the same length right around 3 inches I think the UTX is just over that the benchmade just under that but practically speaking they're about the same the match made it again 154cm steel and that what do they call that GTX handle I think this one comes in at about $95 usa-made and two and a half ounces for this one versus the 3.1 ounces so more or less the same so benchmade fantastic EDC knife yeah that's how they stack up okay let's bring in another excellent EDC once again there's the UTX and this is you spider coat delica this in the zom-- a pattern handle which I ex absolutely love I think it's just gorgeous make a whole wide variety of those they're really really cool now this particular one is an s30v steel but generally it comes in vg10 so that puts it at a much lower price point then particularly this Lmax and a little bit lower than that benchmade the delica generally comes in right around $75 again it varies depending on the steel type depending on a bunch of other factors but as far as size you can see that those two knives are extremely close once again the blade lengths are practically the same though not identically the same they will get some of the same practical cutting done they're more or less just as effective as each other in regards to general EDC tasks after the delica has one more I have the show here and the delica right around 75 bucks is a pretty good middle-of-the-road option if you're looking for something much much less expensive nearly half the price of the delica I would recommend the Kershaw leaked excellent in this case usa-made knife again practically speaking very very close in size very very close in utility and the things that each knife will be able to do this particular leek in 14 C 28 in steel and I think about two and a half ounces I didn't mention that the delica is roughly about two and a half ounces as well and the cost on the leek goes anywhere from about forty to fifty dollars depending on the variety you're choosing whether it's going to be sort of a frame lock like this or one of the aluminum liner lock versions they're both equally good and equally effective and equally easy to carry for EDC in my opinion and that around once again 40 to 50 bucks is a great option [Music] and that is about everything there is to say on the Microtech utx 85 it's an excellent OTF yes there are cheaper OTF out there however the high performance the high quality that you get with micro tech in my opinion is definitely worth it and when you buy one when you carry one you will be happy that you have it I can guarantee you that yes it's a bit spendy at about 225 to 260 sometimes more and that costs just seems to be creeping up and up up over the years but I don't think you'll regret buying one if you choose to do so keep an eye out on blade HQ they get in an awesome selection of these knives both the UT X's as well as the ultratex so if you're looking for some particular type or you just you know waiting for something to really catch your eye kind of like I waited for this one to catch my eye as well as that guy no no him that's the that's the leek as well as this guy right here waited for that one to catch my eye was all the lookout for some version of a Spartan blade UT X for a long time when that one came up I jumped on it and I recommend that if you see a version of either the ultra tech or the UT X that you really really dig jump on it while it's there because they sell out fast that's my review I'm late boy scout thanks for watching see you later [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Late Boy Scout

Views: 51,604

Rating: 4.8128953 out of 5

Keywords: thelateboyscout, the late boy scout, knives, review, testing, knife, edc, everyday carry, concealed carry, microtech, ultratech, utx-85, otf, out the front, switchblade, knife collecting, usn, usn gathering, microtech spartan, auto knife

Id: y-_MmwS3RVg

Length: 18min 20sec (1100 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 30 2018