Amare FieldBro Slide-Lock Folding Knife Reviews | Drop

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Amare FieldBro Slide-Lock Folding Knife

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Amare FieldBro Slide-Lock Folding Knife

reswright

3850

May 16, 2020

Verified Buyer

I picked up the Amare FieldBro because I wanted a look at the slide lock -- the variation of the axis lock that Real Steel Knives, the OEM for Amare, built for The James Brand -- but not so much that I'd go ahead and pay 160 bones to get a Carter. When I saw this knife I figured this was a better chance to see how the slide lock works.

The specs are all slightly off but still close. They say the blade is 3 1/2 inches long and it's more like 3 1/3 inches. Close but not fully accurate. Same thing with the overall length. 7.4 inches long fully open - it's more like 7 3/4. Specs say 93 grams, my scale says 94 so that's pretty close. The handle material is G-10 and the liners nestle -- the design resembles a hybrid of a Benchmade shape and a Spyderco style, but it's only skin deep. The surface is relatively grippy, but it isn't as ergonomically perfected as a Spydie, which actually tilts the surfaces of its FRN grid squares for maximum grip, or as rounded as a Benchmade, which makes sense when you realize that all those knives cost a lot more than $50. Moving on -- now that the patent is expired everyone's making axis lockers and calling them by some other name, because the patent has expired, but the term Axis Lock is still trademarked. Many people tried to come up with a variation so it didn't seem like they were just stealing the design, but generally speaking none of these variations are improvements. I have been saying that the best new 'axis lockers' are ones where people frankly didn't try to do anything new to make it look like something they'd come up with themselves, they just built an axis lock and called it whatever they wanted. For me, patents are patents, they're either in effect or they aren't, and if they aren't, the design is free to copy and I don't have a problem with people doing that as it's how it's supposed to work. The patent holder had a long period of exclusivity to make their bank, now the innovation gets to go to everyone the same way the Reeve lock and the Walker lock did. Anyway, I'm usually happiest when a new 'axis lock' isn't any different from the original except in name, because I don't expect people to improve upon it. So you all may be surprised to learn that I think the slide lock in this knife actually represents a modest improvement over the original Axis Lock! Broken down:

Not seeing the upgrade? LOL, it's hard to see. It isn't the hybrid washers or the keyed pivot or the deep carry clip or the light scales or even the cutaway liners. It's this:

That tiny lip on the tang of the knife is where the barrel of the axis lock engages the knife blade and locks it shut. There's usually no lip there, to the point where the barrel of the axis lock can 'clang' back open when trying to quickly close it -- and up until now I thought that was how it had to be. But the lip helps the barrel lock catch against the tang of the knife when you're 'dropping it shut' instead of clanging against it and bouncing off, and it doesn't seem to have any drawback. You can just open the axis lock, dip your wrist a little, watch the VG-10 blade swing shut, contact and catch cleanly against the barrel of the axis lock, which you then release the axis lock lever, the spring slides the barrel back, that notch in the tang moves with it and boom, fully closed up knife. This is something that, with practice, most people can do with a decent axis lock, a good sense of timing, and some muscle memory. And practice. With the FieldBro, you can do that out of the box, and that is definitely handy. Here, watch this and you'll see what I mean: https://youtu.be/calAqPL9XBo Anyway, this is only the second time I have seen this improvement on a new axis locking knife. The first was on the Land 961 axis locker. RSK spend a lot of time stating for the record that they're a different company than San Ren Mu, which is generally acknowledged to be the company behind Land Knives. Stuff like this is probably why they have to keep repeating themselves. Then again, I wouldn't complain if everyone started making the axis lock this way. It's pretty good. The action isn't as perfectly smooth as it could be, probably because of all the petrolatum they used to grease it (another thing I usually only find on RSK, Land and SRM knives) but a touch of blue lube seems to have turned the trick and loosened it up. So how's the edge?

It's at least partially honed. You can still see 3D serration but you can also see some smoothing of the edge. Compare it to the edge on the VG-10 Mamba, which wasn't honed and is still reasonably jagged:

And for comparison to a honed edge, here's my 154CM M3:

VG-10 takes a great edge so I decided to run the FieldBro through my WorkSharp. Wasn't going to redo the edge, just touch it up a bit.

Aaaand there we go. Can still see some of the original serrata but the blade is now sharp enough to cut toilet paper like this:

Finish out the edge smoothing a bit, because I could:

That's some good looking steel. The truth is, a slightly rough factory grind gives you a knife that will cut things faster than a polished edge like this, for the same reason that a serrated knife cuts things faster than a plain edge, so I usually leave the factory edge alone until it needs resharpened. In fact I may well end up using redoing the edge with coarser abrasives, but an edge like this has its uses, good steel will take it well like this, and it really does catch the light to boot, so for now I'll leave it polished like this. Anyway, there you are, one FieldBro. Is the FieldBro good? Well, the name is every bit as stupid as it was before I started this review -- that hasn't changed. :) But I am quite pleased with this purchase in every other way. A VG-10 axis lock weighing less than 4 ounces and costing less than $50? That's a hell of a bargain even without the modest improvement on fidget lockup that I described above. If you have fifty bones, you need a good light rugged pocket knife, you want a good steel, and you like the axis lock, the FieldBro is your jam. And it represents tremendous value for price. Anything wrong with it? Besides the name? Hm. It's kind of hard to say so, at this price. The handle's chamfer could be a little more pronounced -- it doesn't seem hotspotty but I can see someone wanting to ease an edge here or there with some sandpaper. The satin is a little too fine -- it shows scratches pretty easily and it wouldn't if the satin was done with a slightly coarser belt. If I had to pick one thing to complain about I'd say that the edge of the clip is a little too thin, and the reason it's an issue is that it's where you tend to put your last two fingers when flipping the knife open and closed. Right now it bites into the fingertips a bit, just enough to be a bit uncomfortable. Juuust a little more thick and rounded on that part of the clip, and I think it'd be just right. The rest of the clip is fine, the tip sticks up enough to make it easy to clip onto things, but not so much that it digs into your hand when you have a firm grip on the knife. Five star knife. But every time I type the name I feel like someone's putting me on. Someone give UIi the memo before he names any more knives the SomethingBro.

(Edited)

Recommends this product? Yes

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