Benchmade
551 H20 Knife Review
I
went on a Kayaking trip in the August of 2012 down the Green and Colorado Rivers.
Naturally, working at a knife shop, I had to decide which knife to take with me
down the rivers. I narrowed it down to the Spyderco Yellow Salt and the
Benchmade 551 H2O Orange. I finally decided on the Benchmade because I had
previously carried a Spyderco knife (don’t get me wrong, I love Spyderco) and I
had never tried out a Benchmade. I had heard great things about them and I
wanted to see if they were true.
BLADE
The
blade on the Benchmade 551 H2O is made from X15-TN, very high rust resistant steel
that was designed for use in jet ball bearings. The X15 steel is great for
those who will be using their knife heavily around water. The whole time I was
kayaking the knife was getting splashed and dripped on. There was even some
points where I purposefully submerged the knife (it almost hurt me to do so)
and swirled it around in the muddy water. When it came out of the water I
resisted the urge to wipe the water off of its blade and I left it there and
promptly closed the knife. When I got home from my trip the steel looked like
it had when I started. Well it was dirtier (these rivers were truly muddy) but
that wiped off with some Blue Lube but no rust whatsoever. A year later the
blade still is rust free. The H20 is made in the same shape as other Griptilians,
which is a modified drop point and it features an Axis lock which is very
useful.
HANDLE
AND POCKET CLIP
If
you’ve ever handled a Benchmade knife you know that they are some high quality
cutting tools. To be a high quality cutting tool you need to have more than
just a nice blade steel. You need to a have a comfortable, tough handle that
can perform in the same sort of conditions as the blade. In this case the blade
was designed for use in water. So the handle follows suit. The handle features
a textured glass filled Noryl GTX handle that’s grippy but it could be grippier
seeing as it’s supposed to be used in wet conditions. The nice thing about the
handle is the color. It’s orange so it can be seen for a bit longer if it falls
in the water. Depending on the water of course, the water on the Green River
(this was down in southern Utah) was more sediment than water. The pocket clip works
terrifically but I really wish it had something different to attach it to outdoors
gear better.
AXIS
LOCK
The AXIS lock is great. It’s definitely up there
among my favorite types of lock. It provides really easy one handed opening with
a simple flick of the thumb or even just your wrist. The only problem was I was
kayaking so I had to put the paddle down anyway to use the knife because I don’t
know about you but I can’t paddle a kayak very effectively with one hand.
However the AXIS locks up tight and is simple to use. The action was smooth up
until the point I submerged it in the river. It opened fine after that but it
felt gritty. A little bit of cleaning fixed that up nicely.
OVERALL IMPRESSION
The
Benchmade 551 H2O served me well on my camp. I would say that if you’re not
going to be in the water stick with the 154CM steel, it seems to hold an edge
better. However if you’re kayaking, boating, canoeing, or sailing this might just
be the knife for you. When push comes to shove I love this knife for what it
was designed for but I never carry it on a daily basis around town in arid
Utah. There’s no need and there’s knives that I like more for that sort of
thing. The lesson, make sure you buy your knife based on what it’s going to be
used for.
