Spyderco Endura 4 with Emerson Wave option
Reviewing the Spyderco Endura 4 with the Emerson Wave option. After messing up my thumb and thereafter not being able to easily use folding knives that open with a thumb stud or use a liner/frame lock, I began to seek out knives that I could more easily use while working around my temporary handicap. I settled upon the Cold Steel AK47, which is bigger and heavier and tougher but a bit more awkward to deploy and unlock, and the Spyderco Endura 4 Emerson, which is a featherweight by comparison, similarly sized, and a breeze to deploy and close.
For almost the same price as the AK47, I'm very impressed by the material and assembly quality of the Endura 4, as well as how it is both simple in form and yet very well thought-out in design by the way it feels and functions. There is no side-to-side or front-back blade play when it is open, the blade is perfectly centered when folded, it deploys VERY easily (except when it wants to hang up inside my pocket - more on that in a moment), it fits the hand easily and feels very agile and natural, and the VG10 blade is VERY sharp right out of the box, although not quite as literally hair-shaving sharp as the AK47 (though it wouldn't take much effort at all to get it to that level). The pocket clip isn't quite as hardcore as those of Cold Steel's offerings, but it is definitely adequate without being too tight or too loose. The FNG scales are light but feel quite tough and have a texture that is very grippy without having a tendency to shred your pocket, and there are holes allowing you to switch the knife to left or right and tip-up or tip-down carry as you desire (although tip-down makes the Emerson Wave feature useless).
The Emerson Wave feature is very well done and allows for a VERY easy draw ... with one exception. I've found that on at least one pair of my jeans, the knife has a tendency to scoot itself back into a corner and the Emerson hook will grab the inside of the pocket liner itself so that when you try to pull up on it, the whole knife is solidly locked within your pocket. You have to either angle the top or bottom end away from the corner of the pocket to get it free of the pocket liner and then pull it out to deploy it. This is a pretty serious issue if you depend upon this knife as a defensive option, although it's something you could easily avoid by getting into the habit of angling the knife a certain way to avoid that hang-up on your draw stroke. Otherwise, the Wave is easy, smooth, lightning-quick, and very reliable. The lock is VERY easy to unlock when you wish, without being prone to open when you don't, and the blade swings "limp" with the lock disengaged, making one-handed opening and closing almost effortless.
Overall, I LOVE this knife, and I seriously wish that I had warmed up to Spyderco knives sooner. I have a feeling that I'll likely be adding a few more Spyders to my collection in the future.