Stupid Gear Award: 
Lock-back Safety Knives (LBS)

This is currently my favorite overall design/idea to pick on, the lock-back safety, or ‘LBS’. Where did the idea spawn from? Is there a rash of knife lock-back failures?! I have to think this is a gimmick to sell knives to the not-so-knife-like folk. What a terrible feature and design. Most people, especially those unfamiliar with knives, have a hard enough time working the normal lock-back, let alone a second mechanism simultaneously. 

Most of us have a knife for one use or more. Basic utility, camping, hunting, even personal defense. Hopefully you’ve chosen a name brand knife, feel confident using it, and keep it clean and sharp. If you have a single blade folding knife, it most likely has a locking blade. Meaning you have to push a spring in some way to close it, once opened fully. Most newer knives have gone to a breach style side to side lock, verse the rear button lock.

Jump back for a moment. For myself and other Mid-westerners like me, there’s a tradition of a father or grandfather passing down a pocket knife, your first knife. Possibly a Case, Buck, or Swiss Army knife. Due to the age, this pocket knife typically had more than one blade and had no lock-back feature. As it was passed down, you were given brief instructions on using the knife, whittling, always cutting away from yourself, etc. A kid’s second knife was a step up, bigger, and more up to date, having a locking blade for more confident and versatile use (cutting, skinning, stabbing).

Insert present day folding knives. Assuming you've spent more than $20, you have a reasonable knife with a locking blade and material such as 440 Stainless steel. The knife has one of the two styles of locking mechanisms mentioned and possibly even a lock-back safety. Any knife in this “reasonable” category has more than a sufficient lock mechanism and one that has been torture tested by the manufacturer.

STUPID:

A lock-back mechanism prevents the knife from *closing*, not opening. It assures you that the knife blade won’t close on your fingers while using it…in the event that there is pressure put on the back of the blade. I can’t think of any scenario where there is pressure on the back of blade, but regardless the lock-back secures the blade and makes it rigid during extreme uses.

The LBS. Engineering a safety mechanism on top of an already existing and proven safety is mind boggling. Worse, this new safety design doesn’t do what’s actually needed…that is, keeping the knife from *opening*! Our knives are found everywhere, rattling in a glove box, junk drawer, in a backpack, on a climbing harness, etc. For me, on several occasions, I have reached for my knife and found that it was opened halfway while being jostled or collided with. Folding knives overall are prone to opening by design, not closing. This new LBS design doesn't address this condition at all. #AssBackwards