One knife often in my pocket is the SOG Spec Elite 1. It’s one of my working knives and it has a lot
of the features I like. The blade glides
open with a little thumb pressure and the SOG Arc Lock is easy to use and
secure. The arc lock and design of the
glass reinforced nylon handle makes this a truly ambidextrous knife. The 4 inch VG-10 steel blade is sculpted into
a clip point with a subtle sweep of the cutting edge giving it more power.
The handle has a round end butt and a slight wasp
waist. Black nylon surface is generously
covered with rows of small, raised elongated diamonds. I’ve always found that surface to be
non-skid, even when wet.
The blade closes into a 4.75 inch handle with a left/right
reversible pocket clip. It isn’t exactly
what you might call deep carry as approximately 0.75 inch of handle, complete with
silver attachment screws, extends out of your pocket. This has never been a problem for me, I live
in a relatively knife friendly environment.
That is to say, the police are more interested in what you are doing
than what you carry in your pocket. I’m
fine with that.
The knife comes wickedly sharp from the factory and despite
my use has required only touch-ups. It
sounds like the perfect knife doesn’t it?
I do have one tiny bone to pick.
The channel for the knife blade is wider than it needs to be at the
blade tip. Sometimes the skin of my
fingers can deform enough to slip in and catch the very sharp point resulting
in a small, shallow puncture.
This is a small potato problem and I finally got around to mentioning
it to the SOG people at the 2017 Blade Show.
They grinned at me.
 |
| Mine's the one with a dirty blade, I told you it was a working knife. |
Turns out that I’m not the only one aware of these small
injuries. They just handed me a SOG Spec
Arc. It’s essentially the same knife,
except for the handle. It’s 4.8 inches
long. A 5/100 of an inch longer than the
handle on the Spec Elite I and it’s bye-bye problem.
They made a few other changes: the clip is much smaller and
allows for deep pocket carry. The handle
is finished differently and it also feels good.
The blade is still VG-10 and opens like a dream.
I’m not going to replace my knife. It isn’t that I like the little unexpected
finger stabbings. I just sharpened my
tip and took a little metal off and solved my problem some time ago. Duhh!
Have you ever wondered what the difference is between SOG’s
Arc Lock and Benchmade’s Axis Lock? Is
it just advertising? Both companies
claim to have the strongest-best-easiest-to-use knife lock on the planet. Of course they aren’t the only ones making these
kinds of claims.
If we turn to the Fountain of all Internet Knowledge, Wikipedia,
we find:
“Axis Lock – A locking mechanism exclusively licensed to the
Benchmade Knife Company. A cylindrical bearing is tensioned such that it will
jump between the knife blade and some feature of the handle to lock the blade
open.
Arc Lock – A locking mechanism exclusively licensed to SOG
Specialty Knives. It differs from an axis lock in that the cylindrical bearing
is tensioned by a rotary spring rather than an axial spring.”
So now you know.
