Been looking at some of the new Case knives. BG-42 steel!!! My personal favorite; along with D-2. When I threw the Queen away, I decided to try one of them thar "modern" knives, so I bought a Gerber AR-3.0(whose lines I"ve always liked) with plain blade and the black teflon coating, and for the heck of it bought a Buck Rush assisted opening knife. The Gerber and Buck are the first two modern liner locks I've used; although the actual liner lock has been around for at least 100 years in a simpler form. Of the two, the Gerber is by far and away the better all around utility knife. The 440A steel droppoint blade opens easily with a flick of my wrist, locks up tight, and I can even lock it with the same hand. Not easy to do when your left handed, and it seems all the liner locks I"ve seen are right handed; as far as easily closing the knife goes. The blade is flatground most of the way up and holds a reasonably decent edge. 440A is best known for it's toughness, rather than extreme edge holding. The black teflon coating is apparently there for some cosmetic/marketing reason. It's okay until you stick it into something abrasive(like dirt), then comes right off.
The handle is a combination of aluminum with rubber inserts, and is quite comfortable for it's size. Looks nice also. I used it in the kitchen while doing one of my informal tests, and the handle is still easy to use even when wet. Suffers from the same problem that all knives that size have....its small....But Gerber did a decent job on the egromonics of it. It rides in the front pocket of my jeans at work, and opens/closes easily even when its picked up some dirt/dust/lint etc. The Buck, on the other hand, is a bit different story. Basically the same size as the Gerber, the style is modern in the extreme with brushed "open" aluminum scales. The blade is a very pointy drop point made of hollow ground 420HC. Overall, this creates a much thinner edge/blade geometry than the Gerber's standard flat grind. When closed, there is a "flipper" that you press back on which causes the (dual spring assisted) blade to flick open. Fast as any switchblade I"ve ever seen/carried. There is also a safety lock behind the flipper, which is clumsy in the extreme to use, that allows you to lock the blade open. There are also dual thumb studs that allow you to open the blade manually, but the knife handle is so slippery, that I find that almost impossible to do. The Gerber is the bigger of the two knives, overall, by a bit over a half inch. During my testing both indoors and outdoors, I found the Buck to be more of what the Japanese call a "city knife", or I guess we call a gentleman's folder. When I cut anything wet and sticky with the Buck, in this case I cut some big Pigweed stalks, the assisted opening went away, in that the blade would only open a little, and you had to use the thumb studs to finish opening it. In fact anything that got into the opening mechanicsm/pivot pin locked it up pretty well. The knife had to be washed and lubed again before it would do the assisted opening thing again. Probably do the same thing with blood if allowed to dry a bit. The Gerber went through the same tests with no problem at all. Also the aluminum handle is so slick, that it's downright dangerous when wet; I could barely hang on to it. I did take the knife to work and the thin edge did cut well for a bit, but the 420HC steel simply doesn't hold an edge that long.....not as long as the 440A steel of the Gerber in this case. Also, when I dropped the knife onto our concrete floor while it was open, it landed on that fine point; which promptly bent. All in all, the Buck, to me, is good for cutting string, paper, opening boxes, lettres etc.....what a "city knife" would naturally be used for. Fun to play with; what with that quick opening blade and all, but wouldn't want to take it too far out into the woods and expect that rather delicate blade to hold up under any abuse. I"ve grown quite fond of that Gerber though.
Also, unlike the Gerber, the Buck required two hands for me to close, the liner lock was really hard to push.
BUT.......BG-42 in a pocket knife!!!!! Since I"m a trifle gunshy about buying another D-2 Queen, just might have to give Case a try again.....when I can afford it.
