Knives from DX

[LaZeRz]

Hellooo fellow LPF members!

Since I have a attraction to anything dangerous I have decided to pick up a knife from Dealextreme... There are about 6 or so knives that I am deciding between and I would like your input on which one YOU think looks the best and has the most use....

I know there is a risk of customs getting it but worst case scenario, im out 7 bucks or so.

I will try to stick to manual opening knives instead of flick/spring assisted types but if I have to have something, well, I have to have it

I will be buying the knife along with other things like a DMM and soldering iron tips so it will hopefully have a higher chance of arriving at my front door. Or in the case of a few lazy mailmen...On the front brick fence just waiting to be stolen :yabbmad:

Here are the choices:

$9.76 - Steel Folding Knife - Black (9CM-Blade) - Knives & Tools

$9.28 - Carbon Steel Manual-Release Folding Knife with Clip (22cm Full-Length) - Knives & Tools

$8.49 - Carbon Steel Manual-Release Folding Knife with Clip (21.5cm Full-Length) - Knives & Tools

$7.42 - Classy Manual Release Folding Knife with Holster - Knives & Tools

and finally: $5.90 - Steel Manual-Release Folding Pocket Knife with Clip (17cm Full-Length) - Knives & Tools

Feel free to buy yourself a knife aswell

I appreciate all imput
:thanks: in advance


EDIT: Wow, those pics turned out bigger then expected...Sorry guys

 

[laserpyro]

Let me know how it goes with customs.
FYI i'd go with the second one

 

[LaZeRz]

Forgot 2 knives...

$5.13 - Steel Manual-Release Folding Knife with Glass Breaker (16.3cm Full-Length) - Knives & Tools

and...
$7.72 - Carbon Steel Manual-Release Folding Knife with Glass Breaker and Clip (16.5cm Full-Length) - Knives & Tools

Thanks for your suggestion pyro

If customs confiscate it I will strongly hate them... lol

although if it is'nt a flick knife it should be ok... hopefully...

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

I was/am a bit of a knife nut. I'm very familiar with this knife in particular, but most of these knives follow the same template:

The knife is a blatant ripoff (and trademark infringement) to the Gerber Kiowa. The genuine article can be had for about $40 and IMO it is an excellent compromise for a budget tactical knife.

The difference between the real knife and the Chinese Ripoff (which all of these are):

1. Quality of the steel. Not sure what variety of 440 is being used for these cheaper knives, but it's nothing special. The Steel used by Gerber holds edge a lot longer.

2. Coating: Supposed to be friction reducing teflon coating. Let me assure you, it is not. The blade does look nice, but the coating is kind of crappy IMO. It feels like it would actually add resistance.

3. Biggest reason I don't like these knives: There is a lot of play in the blade. The blade itself tends to be quite a bit thinner than the area between the knife handles. What these guys do is put in a lubricated piece of rubber to eliminate the problem. End result is a rather wobbly knife. Might not feel like it right away, but after a while the lubricant dries out.

The overall build quality is also not comparable. These are cheap knockoffs.

Personally I like the Kiowa a lot. There is one in my car... along with a spyderco fully serrated police edition.

If you plan to use the knife on any regular basis, consider spyderco, crkt, benchmade, cold steel, boker. Gerber is a bit more budget imo, but they also make pretty decent quality knives.

Edit: Here's a side by side, top one is the real knife. I bought 4 of these off of ebay... they were being sold as the genuine item with a markup. Got the ebay seller to basically disappear:eg:

The real knife, after two years or pocket carry, and quite a bit of use, is still working perfectly and I often take it as my edc. 2.99" means it's legal to carry just about everywhere

Looking over the pictures a bit closer... all the blades look to be of the same exact thickness. An analogy in terms of quality would be the 5mW ebay green pens vs nichia pens.

 

[mikeeey]

$8.49 - Carbon Steel Manual-Release Folding Knife with Clip (21.5cm Full-Length) - Knives & Tools

I have this one. It's VERY nice. surprising build quality, I really like it.

 

[Weltall]

Whoa! actually i've been a little curious about knives at DX, and since there are many cool models and such i ended up with only the most "appealing" to me :tinfoil:, currently i wanna order these:

This one with titanium oxynitride coating

However since im not 100% sure of what could happen if i get caught by customs in my country, i ordered this one 1 week ago. Hope everything goes well :can:

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

@Weltall

Just an FYI for the first two, the blade may be completely flat on the other side, without the curvature you see on the visible side in this picture. Definitely see if there are any pictures of this knife from the other side...

The third one looks like a kershaw leek knock off (the original is also one of my favorites) and the fourth one... not sure what that is, post a review when you get it

 

[Weltall]

@InfinitusEquitas

Thanks for the info!, there are pics showing the other side of the blade and they arent flat, also did read ur previous post which was helpful cuz i was wondering about their quality and if they were originals, copies or any other, u never know with the chinese.

Here are the links for them:

Mini Steel Manual-Release Folding Knife (21.7cm Full-Length)
Mini Steel Manual-Release Folding Sawtooth Knife with Clip (22.2cm Full-Length)
Cool Stainless Steel Folding Pocket Knife with Carabiner Clip & Carrying Pouch
Mini Stainless Steel Manual-Release Folding Knife - Blue (15.8cm Full-Length)

I ordered it along with a tripod/clamp combo to cover the $15 for the tracking number, so far only the tripod and clamp have been shipped and the knife itself remains "pending", i was hoping for everything get packed together so they may declare them as "tools" or so but now...*cross fingers* :undecided:

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Importing knives isn't really illegal... Just so long as they aren't butterfly, gravity or automatic. Even those, I haven't had any issue with yet, although it's been a while

The knives do look ok, but in my experience, side by side, comparison the knockoff or budget versions are nothing to compare against the genuine articles. Than again... for the price you're not losing much

 

[Lotus_Darkrose]

He's in Australia though, Infinitus. I've had knives delivered to me from DX too lol.

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

He's in Australia though, Infinitus. I've had knives delivered to me from DX too lol.

LOL! I was actually thinking about Weltall when I wrote that response, not the OP. I can't see mexican customs being any stricter than US customs:shhh:

Don't know a thing about australian knife laws though

 

[jayrob]

I tried a couple from them because of how cheap they were.

Surprisingly decent quality for knock offs...

 

[Lotus_Darkrose]

This is the one I ordered from DX.
$8.97 - Steel Snake Manual-Release Folding Knife (22.5cm Full-Length) - Knives & Tools

I still need to get the roughness out of the edge, but the thing is rock solid as far as build quality goes. I took a video of opening and closing it.


If you notice, the blade lock goes directly in the middle, not off to the side or anything. Very sturdy.

 

[Weltall]

Thanks again for the notes infinitus :beer:, before i ordered mine i did some minor search in google, other forums and even a DX thread regarding customs and delivery time... and as usual i got different opinions and answers.

Even inside mexican laws there are contradictions...in one hand they say i dont need a permission if given "X" situation and "Y" knife dimensions while in the other hand they say it is illegal, will get fined and blah blah no matter what. rofl
:horse:

 

[LaZeRz]

Thanks!

I've narrowed my choice down to numbers 2,3 and 4

I'l have a look at that one Lotus

Any other reccomendations guys?

 

[Lotus_Darkrose]

Also, that knife is solid metal and weighs as much as my Kodak digital camera. I made a makeshift scale with my camera on one side and the knife on the other and it pretty much equalled out between the two.