The Fiskars is the standout of this group. It finished first overall and either won or nearly won almost every event: 8 grams to start it open and 43 grams to finish the stroke, the best possible comfort rating of 1, 0.05 inches of blade play, the strongest lock in the destructive test at 236 pounds with the lock still working afterwards, and the belt clip that held hardest at 7.8 pounds. At $14 it also sits in the middle of the price range. The one real weakness is impact resistance — the 70 pound railroad tie broke its belt clip and bent the frame badly enough that the knife would no longer fold.
The Milwaukee 1501 finished second and is arguably the better buy at $13. It opens with 28 grams of pressure and needs only 86 to finish the stroke, weighs 111.3 grams, rates a 2 for comfort, and its button lock held 184 pounds. Its belt clip also held 7 pounds, behind only the Fiskars and the Sheffield's 7.4. The trade-off is the metal shroud over the blade release: it is there to stop accidental blade drops, but it turns a 2 pound blade change into a fiddly one. For lock strength at the lowest price, the $12 Husky held 205 pounds and has the gentlest blade release in the group at a quarter of a pound, though its lock back takes 9.5 pounds to close and it is stiff to open at 590 grams.
Three findings should shape the choice. Every knife held a 25 pound weight hung from the blade except the Klein Tools Auto, whose blade pulled free under a light tug — frustrating, because its auto-loading magazine is the best blade-handling feature here and it shrugged off the railroad tie with nothing worse than a wrinkle. Second, the Craftsman's liner lock let go at 31 pounds, the lowest result in the test, on a knife that is otherwise pleasant to carry, and its blade release needs about 7 pounds on a small soft button. Third, durability and lock strength are not the same thing: the Sheffield came through the impact test looking new, and the CAT and the DeWalt 10046 both kept working afterwards, while the two strongest locks in the group belonged to knives that were bent or jammed by the same blow.
