Last night I was hanging out (at a 6' distance) with a few buddies, including a retired federal agent. This guy produced his EDC, a
Ravencrest Tactical OTF (see image below), and we had the opportunity to compare it to my UTX-85. He's not a knife guy, and our takeaways were very different:
Him: Microtech... never heard of it. This knife seems too light and flimsy. It's hard to imagine that you could actually use it for real stuff without it breaking. [cuts himself] Ow! This blade is really sharp. I like the blade... wow this is kind of a cool knife... how much was it? $250? No fucking way. That's $100 more than I paid for mine. Fuck that.
Me: Cool knife. Looks like you've used it a lot. Nice to see someone else EDCing a OTF.
What was thinking but didn't say: The action is ok, and it's kind of impressive that even a Chinese knockoff OTF can keep working for years of hard use. That's a good sign for OTFs in general. The knife was of poor quality in some very obvious ways. There was a lot of blade play in multiple axes. It rattled when shaken. The build quality was low, but if you didn't look too close, it wasn't obvious. And the Ravenscrest is incredibly heavy, which makes sense because the handle is huge, and made from zinc pot metal. My buddy likes the weight because he could use it as a Kubotan.
It was like comparing a High Point to a CNCed custom gun, except the Ravenscrest costs an outrageous $150. Maybe $50 is a fair price for this knife, but I wouldn't want one.
Attachment 55300