Hello all. I collect high quality knives while paying special attention to the different types of steels used and how well they hold up under what I refer to as labor intensive use, or extreme everyday use. I work seven days a week and my job is mainly cutting through cardboard and thick plastic. My knife collection is mostly Benchmade & Spiderco. The SS1 is my first Kiser knife purchased. I bought it with full intention of essentially destroying at work for 1 month without sharpening. Keeping in mind this knife is 154CM which through my experience is cool steel because it’s really easy to sharpen to a razors width. However that also means edge retention is typically low and it is more susceptible to bends and brakes due to dropping or miss use. For the first 10 days of hard use it felt like cardboard was parting out of the blades way as I went through it. The 10 days following, the blade started to dull but remained very sharp with no problems cutting. And days 20-30 the blades edge was still sharp and could cut clean lines through the cardboard it just took a little more physical effort. What I found especially impressive was I dropped the knife twice by mistake and I saw the point hit the smooth sealed concrete it did NOT bend or break the tip and one of those instances was from about 7 feet high. Also I’m happy to report the black coating has yet to wear off anywhere on the blade, amazing I wish I could say that for my $300 Benchmade Osborne auto. Ithink the design of this knife was well thought out. I like how when closing one handed pressing in the locking mechanism on the frame, the blade is immediately freed allowing it to quickly swing, but due to its size and shape the blade will only hit the top of your thumb nail. It misses my thumb knuckle by almost a full inch it’s absolutely fantastic. I am very pleased I have decided to make this purchase and I will continue to do so in the future. It looks like Benchmade and Spiderco will have to make room for Kaiser and suffer a little profit loss. So far I will give Kizer the 5 out of 5 stars they deserve:
