Click to view our Accessibility Statement or contact us with accessibility-related questions
reswright
3850
Jul 31, 2019
Real Steel E775 Griffin Plunge Lock

search
Short version: flips like it's on rails, because it is. Longer version: The founder of Carson Tech Labs brought in several designs to RSK Maybe his best known design was the Boiling flipper, which RSK markets as the Megalodon. With RSK, the prefixes have a meaning - the H series is allegedly for hunting, the G series are allegedly knives for gentlemen, the S series are their flagship expensive knives and so on. This Griffin classes as an E series which they say is for EDC -- it's one of the lower price brackets they have, and a good place to hunt for good designs.
search
This knife is varyingly described as a button lock and a plunge lock. The button must be depressed for the blade to be deployable and depressed again to allow retraction -- there's no spring to the blade or even assistance, so it's not like a switchblade. But it turns out that if you know knives, it's something a little harder to find: press that button and the axis is so fine that, if positioned correctly, gravity will drop the blade, and the very slightest of motions will be enough to get it to flick all the way open. There's no blade play, no wobble, no loose pivot -- it does this with the pivot full on tightened down. If you hear me refer to grav dropping a blade, that's what I mean. Whatever you choose to call it, it had this property out of the box. That's special for a $50 knife. So why's it got that? I shit you not: it has thrust bearings.

search
Looking at those a little more closely;
search
So you can see the cylindrical bearings, but what you can't see is that thing they re sitting in also spins freely on the base. Essentially this is an enclosed set of bearings and racers. The cylinders roll against the blade and against the race within the enclosure. The back is a flat assembly that fits into counterbores on the frame:
search
The knife also has a safety on it, but it's a bit stiff for me out of the box and stayed so even after oiling it. Normally that would bother me more; in a $50 knife with thrust bearings and no other flaws, I am completely ready to forgive a recalcitrant safety. Here it is back together.
search
Word to the wise? If you love flipping knives you want this knife. I love my Thor; this thing owns the Thor. If Drop offers it, I'd suggest giving it a go. But I heartily suggest you leave it assembled unless you are older school than I am, as getting it all back together and working to original spec was a frustratingly near run thing for yours truly. It looks like it would be simpler than it is -- there's a lot of ways to put it back almost just so, if you follow me. But I'm glad I saw those thrust bearings for my own eyes, because I would never have believed it otherwise. 2019 might be a horrorshow in a lot of ways, but I'll say this: we have awesome knives.
PRODUCTS YOU MAY LIKE
Trending Posts in More Community Picks