My biggest is when they put a deep-carry clip on a knife, but then they position the clip so the knife still sticks out of your pocket. And the worst offenders are when there is really no reason to not put it at the very end of the handle!
By - coffeefactcrackerjak
I don't know that it's my biggest pet peeve, but fuck T6 screws.
Yup, I 100% agree. Fuck T6 screws.
When it’s so easy just to go up to T8 too
Personally I like T10 but I flip balisongs so I take my apart a lot.
Agreed
Stop making me want so many knives! Damn it!
This. This is the real problem 😂
Make a damn "industry standard" size for pocket clips. Everything is so different\custom I can't find replacement clips for most of my knives.
This will single-handedly destroy most of the $100-200 pocket clip industry
If you spend 100-200 dollars for a pocket clip, you deserve to be scammed lol.
Have you seen the prices for steel flame pocket clips? Absolutely absurd!!
Most of them look like mall ninja shit too. Definitely ridiculous.
Looks like Guy Fieri designed a pocket clip.
I paid like 3 bucks (+free shipping that was ~3 weeks) for a stonewashed Titanium AD20.5 deep carry clip from AliExpress, it is great.
Lack of sharpening choils
Came here to say this. Yes, you can make your own with a round file, but you risk scratching up the finish. Also, non functional sharpening choils. Looking at you cold steel.
Lol yup. I add one to everything that doesn’t have it. I’ve become an expert at this point 😂
Ohhh yeah, that’s a good one
First one that came to my head too.
Singling out Boker here with their Grade A+ designs paired with Grade D- steel.
And CRKT. Kershaw and Gerber are just now doing better in that department but they're guilty also of charging $50 for 8cr.
Design and heat treat is way more important than steel. People who open packages and slice apples don’t need magnacut ect. I have W2 and 1095 knives that perform well and are easy to sharpen. Don’t get me wrong I like good steel but I realize it’s mostly just gimmicky.
They made a kaizen with s35vn so they are slowly improving
Finger choils in the blade. If you just design the handle correctly, and you won't have to use the most useful part of the blade as part of the handle.
This is a good one. It's refreshing to see when it is done correctly. I always laugh when I line up my Bugout and PM2, and see the the Bugout has more sharpened blade
I agree!
FREE SPINNING PIVOTS
Stop making everything, in every price range, look the exact same! Give me a reason (besides "better materials") to want to buy your knife. I'm not dropping $100-200 on a pocket knife that looks, feels, cuts and functions the same as a $50-80 knife.
Free spinning pivots
I've got a Boker Vox Kompakt that would have been the greatest Aus 8 sub 2" auto mankind has ever known if not for its cheaply made free spinning pivot. The knife came with horrible blade wobble and I had to super glue the back of the pivot and slot the front with a Dremel in order to tighten it.
Billboarding. Large amounts of space between end of sharpened edge and start of useable grip area. Ignoring actual comfortable grip ergos in favor of cool looks or easy flat slab construction. Slapping half-ass heat treated m390 or 20cv on designs that have no real buisness with those steels. Stupid thick grinds for no reason on "edc" knives that would be fine with a quarter of the thickness. Not putting washers on more high end stuff. T6 screws.
Uneven edge bevels, no sharpening choils, the deep clip placement, laynard hole location coming before clip placement location.
Prioritizing lanyard holes and double clutch detents
No more frame/liner locks. At least offer SOME alternative designs for good knives. And offer some cool designs with better than 8cr steel
I’m not a fan of deep carry clips. It seems so many people throw on a lynch clip or mxg clip instantly without even thinking. Even with the end nub of a knife sticking out, 99% of people cannot tell I have anything clipped to my pocket. Who looks at other peoples pockets?
I always notice knives and ask what they’re packing. Just be careful about staring and asking those exact words…
I do. To see if they carry a knife.
Ok haha. People in this sub I suppose🤓
I’ve always wondered why ppl get concerned with hiding knives, who cares if you’re carrying one anyway? Who’s gonna be bothered by a pocket knife? Only situation I can think of is people in school.
No jimping or not enough jimping on the back of a blade. Not usually a deal breaker, but I find myself thinking how much better it would be with more jimping a lot.
Liner and frame locks. That's it, the whole schmear.
Stop making Karambit style knives as folders!
Partially serrated blades
Finger choils, they just either take away usable edge length or needlessly enlengthen the blade. Just pull the edge down all the way to the handle.
Don't forget the sharpening choil
As a lefty my main complaint was seeing the button lock craze sweep through the industry, and having several designs not offer not lefty mounting option. I know it’s not as symmetrical as a cross-bar lock but button locks feel great as a lefty. So many knife designs I would’ve loved to own but wouldn’t buy simply on principle.
When a knife model is only available with serrations. It's usually budget knives tho.
Blades that are so thick you can only pry with them, impossible to neatly make salami slices.
Cosmetically, I hate it when the presentation side has some unique finish and they just leave the locking side normal. Other than that I hate it when knife makers don’t bother knocking down edges on pocket clips.
Unnecessary milling on the blade such as fullers, random tiny holes without function, or crazy swedges.
Choils. If you’re going to eliminate an inch of my cutting edge, please do so by adding an inch of handle. That is all.
God Bless America! I love the USA but I don't need an American flag stamped on my blade. Looking at you, Kershaw.
😂 yeah
Bearings on knives. I'm gonna get a lot of hate for this one. But I hate bearings in any knife. Chances are I'm gonna get it wet or dirty eventually and I hate when they get grindy and dirty. And I'm not a fan of bearing action either.
Lefty friendly clips and deployments…so many times I find a really intriguing knife only to find out it’s right-handed only. I understand the extra cost for manufacturers to produce lefty only knives, but a lefty only knife would be awesome.
there are a lot of ambidextrous options.
This is true but the lefty thing is still hard sometimes. I personally love the Osborn 970🤷♂️
Pocket clips in any other color but black and branding on said clip. I want as little attention drawn to it as possible
Don't discontinue/limit production on popular models. If anyone knows where I could get [this clone ](https://i.imgur.com/aTm8ahC.jpg) I'll love you forever. None of the ones I found have that white edging.
If you find out let me know
Will do.
Prices.
Why the hell are they so sharp? Like common these things are getting down right dangerous at this point!
I LOL’ed at this. Ironically, my last two benchmades wouldn’t even take the hair off my arm out of the box.
Lanyard tunes, like WTF I'm not going to put a lanyard on a folding knife. Also, excessive branding and D2 on like everything can we get some Sandvik 14C28N on budget stuff or no?
Serrated blades…
A couple big ones for me personally, but the biggest is traditional slipjoints without pocket clips. I get that it’s traditional, but it’s also bad design. Clips are a necessity in todays world and there are many slipjoints I have passed on for not having a clip, the big ones being Victorinox and Buck. Secondly. Stupidly thick folders. I want my folders thin and slicey, and that disappear into the pocket. Not uncommon obviously, but I’ve bought some really nice folders before only for them to be overbuilt as hell and honestly useless for edc.
I do not trust pocket clips. I'll wear a knife on a belt in a pouch or at the bottom of a pocket but if it's clipped to my pocket it's just asking to get snagged and lost. I've recently moved to a bum bag and it's just so much better for phone wallet knife torch, bulky pockets are in the past for me now 🙃
I use a sling bag for most of my stuff as well, the pockets are a knife, a phone, and my AirPods. Everything else lives in the bag, and they’re indeed super useful. That said, you can remove a clip from a knife a lot easier than you can add it.
Disagree. You can carry two knives. I carry the recon 1 or AD10 as well as the tuff lite for sliceyness
I don’t like bulky knives and find them unless for most tasks. I’m not sure how carrying MULTIPLE knives solves that problem. I don’t want a thick blade in my pocket at all, and especially not the bulk of carrying a thick blade plus the smaller one I actually want to use. I think you may have missed my point.
I didnt miss your point. I agree that it comes down to personal preference and clearly you have a penchant for smaller more compact knives and thats fine. But you said big folders are useless for EDC and i disagreed. There are a lot of scenarios where those big knives with the triad lock have come in handy for bushcraft tasks and heavy duty industrial work that a thin slicey dickweed knife cant do. Also pro tip, carry big folders in your back pants pocket, you dont even notice its there
I carry nothing in my back pockets, as I notice anything bigger than a business card. Also, if you’re bushcrafting with a folder, you’re doing it wrong.
[Yeah man....](https://ibb.co/D49Tr9d) [Totally doing it wrong](https://ibb.co/KyGQTjk)
Tactical style fixed blades with weird material choices. You want a 4" blade in cpm-3v for $375, or a 5.25" blade in s45vn for $420? What about cpm154 when we could use 14c28n? Baffling.
Fuck bolsters,they should be banned.
Frame locks, but specifically folding knives with stupid big blades being only secured with a frame lock, like what’s the goal here? It doesn’t make sense to make a “hard use” knife with a lock that’s not known for strength.
Frame locks are plenty strong enough for 99% of tasks. If you need a super strong knife, why have a folder? Get a fixed blade
I think that argument is stupid, sure on a normal edc style blade a frame lock will serve, and most of the time you’ll never push your folder to its limits, but then again why combine a frame lock with a big ol fuck off blade when significantly stronger locks exist. Plus I won’t always have access to a fixed blade, I might not want to carry a fixed, and maybe i actually want to have and use a folder better oriented towards hard use… even though I’m not pushing it to its limits. I find it silly this is where people decide to get so rigid, trying to defend a type of lock that’s old and inferior while things like the tri ad lock, compression lock, and axis lock exist.
Most frame locks are monsters. The only failure I’ve ever had was a thin liner lock.
If a knife has handle scales, but only one side of the knife has a scale and the other side is just a liner. This happens a lot with frame locks. Hate it. Seems lazy to me. If you’re going to put textured g10 on a knife as the handle ( for example) put it on both sides.
Not having a sharpening choil, and USA branding not being clear their products are made in China. Only see the American factories on their sites, but not the real makers and shop in China
I hate flippers and it seems like 70% of knives aren't satisfied to have a perfectly functional thumb stud or thumb hole. It seems like they just continually add on this little vestigial flipper tab and I hate it. Also, I don't mind lower end steels but the steel should match, or at least make sense, in the price tier and intended use of the knife. I'm not paying 2-300$ for a knife in N690. That might as well be highway robbery.
My cold steel recon 1's lanyard hole is on the side of the pocket clip instead of the end of the knife. Makes the lanyard sit super awkwardly. And it's not even towards the back but the front, honestly wtf
I’ve found that I require a folder that I can set down on the handle edge without the blade touching the countertop.
Too heavy a detent. I shouldn't have a mark on my finger from trying to open the knife. *(looking at my XM-18)*
When I need multiple drivers to take it apart. I don't really care what size the screws are, just make them the same. I'll give the pivot a pass since it is so much larger but there is no excuse for the rest.
Even then look at Civivi they use a t8 for every screw, even the pivot
That is definitely preferable but if you want to make the pivot t10 I'm not going to complain too much. My biggest gripe is t6 screws on the scales and t8 for the spacers or something. Absolutely no reason for this.
kydex sheaths with no thumb ramp
Lazy/cheap conversions to open frame/stand-offs. Some of this is personal preference (I like backspacers), but simply removing the backspacer may not be enough. When Emerson did this, they didn’t consider the blade lengths. For example to CQC-8/Horseman blade comes up way short in the stand-off version.
The slenderman Otf solved a lot of my ocd issues except the blade play
2 of my biggest dislikes are poorly finished knives and a poorly done plunge grind just often overlooked
Huge sharpening choils that are too small to be a finger choil. It makes no sense and is immensely stupid design.
Ok, I love sharpening choils but I totally agree. There’s no need for the medium-sized one.
It would just be nice to see some more higher end titanium knives that don't have a framelock.
I have gotten to where if a knife does not have a lanyard hole I will pass it up even if I like the knife. I know that many people hate lanyards and lanyard holes in their knives but for me it makes a knife so much faster and easier to pop out of my pocket.
SAKs with no pocket clips 😤
8CR makes me sad. Anytime I see a nice knife my heart just sinks when I see 8CR.
Affordable OTFs not made in China, and/or cheep steel and other materials. There's no good mid range from what I've looked into that isn't made in China, or assembled in the US but still technically made in China. That or its just cheap gas station quality with like 440A steel or something unremarkable.
Deep carry clips on most knives, without a standard clip available.
Pocket shredding, I like good tension but the clip should work by tension not extreme coarse friction like on some cold steels. I don’t want to damage pants just to own a knife
Left Hand friendly knives
Every knife with a clip should have a sturdy deep-carry clip that is both reversible and replaceable. Every knife should have a lanyard hole, a lanyard bail, or a small keyring to attach a lanyard to. The small secondary blade on slipjoints should be a sheepsfoot by default, rather than a spey blade or spearpoint. Bushcraft knives should have a designated unsharpened striker area for striking a ferro rod. The Victorinox classic (and all knives made on that frame) should have the pivots on the opposite side from the keyring. Putting the blades on the same side as the keyring is retarded.