Here’s a quick photo essay on what $9.99 will get you (currently $8.99 with coupon at amazon) from “DuraTech”
It came in a serviceable cardboard box and not just bubble wrap or anything like that. The pocket clip provides the retention inside the box. Added bonus inside the box: extra oil (I hope it’s just oil) soaked into the cardboard:
The scales are very grippy and will probably tear up a pocket or two. Pocket clip is pretty decent deep carry. Screws and clip are not recessed. Right side-only. Also, I’ll need to get another photo of it but the clip has a lateral bend in it that parallels the shape of the scales. Very odd looking.
Centering was slightly off but not bad (my photo is also off so it over-emphasizes the angle)
Grind is really good for a $10 knife. Even on both sides, no issues. 8CR13MOV steel but unknown hardness so we’ll see how it holds up. Here it is with it’s little protective sheath out of the box.
Everything was looking good but, of course, there is a catch. It is, after all, a $10 knife. Probably the worst detent I’ve ever seen. Getting the detent ball out of the hole gives you a click loud enough to be heard in the next room. I may have to try and capture it on video. The knife is almost impossible to open with the flipper tab and completely impossible to open with the thumb studs. Even if the detent was dialed in, the thumb studs are almost useless given how close they are to the scales. I might remove them entirely.
So, if you’d like a knife with a flipper tab and thumb studs that is actually two-hand open, this may be the knife for you!
For more inexpensive knives, see previous posts on the $5 and $6 axis lock folders from Walmart:
Handle looks 3D printed.
Curiously, “3D Printed” or rather “3D Printing” for some reason is becoming a popular term in the word-salad titles of Chinese knives lately. Even on knives that are, quite clearly, not 3D printed and have nothing to do with it. I think this is due to the carrot knife fad that just crested not long ago. They must think someone is searching for this.
Check out this Alibaba query, for instance, which is related to the fidget-knife post I just did.
And note that some of these are just calling their silkscreening or offset printing or whatever of eagles and wolves and flags and shit “3D Printing” when it isn’t that, either. But some of them baffle me, containing no sort of printing whatsoever.
It is frankly astonishing the level of quality you actually can get for just a few bucks from China these days. The machining, fitment, and finishing of modern Chinese knives is light years beyond what you used to be able to get just a few short years ago.
But China is gonna China, and it seems that most or all of them have some baffling design detail or manufacturing shortcoming that mars what otherwise could be a decent knife. Is like they can’t help themselves from cutting off the tips of their own noses just to scratch the pathological itch cheat the world out of a penny. You may as well run the ball right to the 1 yard line and then spike it into the dirt.