Specifications:
Overall Length: 8.5"
Closed Length: 5"
Blade Length: 3.5"
Blade Steel: Sandvik 14C28N
Handle Material: G10
Weight: 4 oz.
Origin: Made in USA
Today I am reviewing the Kershaw Piston 1860 Speedsafe assisted folding knife. If I had to describe this knife using three words, it would be "ONE COOL KNIFE". I really like this knife for a number of reasons. The Kershaw Piston uses G10 handle scales, fast speedsafe action, Sandvik steel drop-point blade and quad mount pocket clip. And the two best features I like about this knife is it's made right here in the United States of America and it retails for under $80 bucks!
The Kershaw Piston uses a drop-point blade that is made of Sandvik 14C28N hardened to 58-60 on the rockwell scale. It has a very beautiful stone wash finish. I've found that this Sandvik steel takes an amazing razor edge and holds it for a while. I did some research on the Sandvik 14C28N steel and some people have compared it to VG-10 steel. The blade can be easily opened using either the flipper shown above or by the stepped and angled thumb studs. Out of the box it had a razor edge on it and the blade was perfectly centered when closed.
If you aren't familiar with the Kershaw SpeedSafe system I will cover it for you real quick. The Kershaw SpeedSafe is a patented manual assisted-opening system; as you start to open the blade by the flipper or thumb studs the SpeedSafe torsion bar takes over to fully open the knife blade. It is super fast and smooth when deploying the blade.
The handle scales are constructed out of textured black G-10, and there's a sunburst pattern machined into each handle side. The texture of the G-10 is nice; not too slick and not too rough. Even bare handed in the rain it's textured enough to get a solid grip on the knife. And with gloves on this knife is easily manipulated without any problem.
The Kershaw Piston uses a inset liner lock that secures the blade when open. To keep the weight down there is no liners on this knife. Don't let that scare you though, the construction of this knife is top notch. I have been using this knife for the last few weeks and after many heavy duty cutting task its still rock solid! The checkered backspacer not only looks cool but if you're wearing gloves you can get a little extra traction in the area of your palm when making heavy cuts.
The brushed aluminum pocket clip on the Kershaw Piston works great. It is quad-mount; meaning this knife is accustom to left or right carry and tip up or tip down carry. Even though this is not a deep carry clip like you'd see on the Kershaw Cryo, it does allow the knife to sit rather low in the pocket which I really like. I will probably at some point duracoat the clip black at some point to lower it's visibility.
My final conclusion on the Kershaw Piston 1860: I really like this knife. It is on the larger side of what I would consider a EDC knife but the fact that it only weights 4oz makes it perfect for it's size in my opinion. It has very nice ergonomics. I dunno why, but it's ergonomics I feel is similar to the Zero Tolerance 0560 when I am carrying and using it. It just doesn't hold a $280 dollar price tag. And while we're talking money - this thing retails for under $80 bucks and it's hand crafted here in the USA!! The only thing I feel they could have done better on this knife is implemented some jimping.
It's definitely a knife I will continue to keep in my EDC rotation. I bought mine from Knife-Depot in Louisiana and I had it on my door step here in Pennsylvania in two business days. If you're in the market for a knife or just window shopping I would pick one of these up while there still in production. Save 10% off when you click HERE and enter promo code JMVROOMFCVFY.
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