collection from production folders to mainly customs. The high price for production knives these days has meant that I
would rather hold back, save a little more and then have a custom knife from a European maker made instead. This way,
you also have actual control over materials and the final out come of the commission.
The few production knives I do have are Spyderco's, mainly being work knives and a UKPK lightweight for the obvious reasons.
Not much has tempted me of recent, until I saw the aluminium versions of the Lion Steel SR-1 on Hennie's website.
This represented a good chance to own an SR-1 at a cheaper price. Yes Alu is not in the same ball park as Ti but Benchmade
have been using it as a scale material foryears and having read, that a prototype was test run for a year, without any issues
I felt confident the knife would be fine.
So the trigger was pulled on a Green satin blade version. The knife comes in a nice little box with the pivot and pocket
clip/glass breaker tool taped to the inside bottom (hmmm does this work on an Elan-EL-01?) The first thing I noticed was
that the knife was not as big/chunky as I first thought it would be. Here it is next to my Manix 2, although it is a little heavier
(Manix 2 118.5g SR-1 156.5g) The blade is 4.5mm stock flat ground D2, (Manix 3mm stock) the grind and
blade edge are perfectly done on this example.
The finish on the scales is very good, i see no bubbles or flecks on the green anodizing and its actually a nice shade
(Hennies photos made the green look to bright and flashy) The pattern work on the scales looks pretty but does not offer
much added grip. It's fab how they have made the frame out of one piece of aluminum, this surely can only add to its
overall strength and the drilled out holes in the spine allow for a flow through design to aid cleaning, since you can't take
the scales apart.
One of the most interesting parts of the knife is the added steel insert on the lock bar face. The two screws suggest
that this is a replaceable part, which should extend the life of the knife. There is also the rotoblock feature which when
twisted locks the locking bar into position, therefore giving some added reassurance when using the knife hard. There is a
very nice low ride pocket clip which is held in place by the glass breaker. Both can be removed with the provided tool.
]
Overall I was very impressed with this offering from Lion Steel. It actually makes me consider buying the Ti version,
however after a little more thought, I feel the Alu version is good enough to convince me that I don't need to pay the
premium for it. The knife is solid, the fitting and finish is very good, it came very sharp out of the box. The are only a few
draw backs for me. firstly, why nylon washers instead of ph.bronze? Maybe something to do with the coating coming off?
But if its only on the area between the washers and the scales I wouldn't thought it would matter. secondly the odd
opening curve of the knife. A few others have noticed this also, were you need to push upwards on the thumb stud
instead of outwards. This makes it a little hard to open the knife smoothly. Its a minor issue in my view though and it
hardly bothers me.If you ever found the original SR-1 too expensive, this could be just your ticket. I would most
certainly recommend it.
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