Benchmade Bailouts and Bugouts

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King of the Cheese

King of the Cheese

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DAEFDD13-F271-4F10-8003-786B6E09181D.jpeg Hey everyone,

I recall all the hype around the weight of the bugout when it was launched, and over time the releases of the bailout and mini bugout followed.

My chief complaint about these extreme weight-reduced knives has been the flex and generally weak feel to the pivot due to the scale material.

I tried the bugout and this flex caused me to sell it. The bailout looked like an appealing blade shape to me, but same scale material caused me to skip it.

A week ago I noticed the M4 bailout in aluminum, and past experience with AWT scales being favorable for reduced weight and good strength led me to purchase it. I’ve been carrying it for about a week now and while I feel the knife is high on the price side, it carries well, there is absolutely zero flex or play, and the cerakote M4 tanto is a huge plus. It seems maybe Benchmade heard the complaints about flex and said “cool, here’s aluminum, and a glass breaker in case you get your car stuck upside down in a ditch or need to pull someone out of a flaming vehicle, we good now?” I mean, what’s a “BAILout” knife without the ability to break windows?

My question to all of you is, what are some of your thoughts on the bugout/bailout line? How do you like the mini bugout? Any issues with heavy use? Have any of you played around with aftermarket scales? What have you found to be your perfect bugout/bailout recipe?

I’m starting to consider adding a bugout with aftermarket scales to the rotation.

Thanks
 
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The Bugout is probably my most carried knife in my rotation as it's perfect for my office EDC and outdoors light hiking knife. For my office EDC it's a hard fought fight between the Bugout and the Para 3 LW.

I've never understood the complaints of the "flex". It honestly isn't bad and what do you expect from a lw grivory handled knife? It wasn't designed to be a hard use folder but I'd trust it against about anything that I will ever encounter. YMMV

Untitled by Caleb Bender, on Flickr
 
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Cscotttsss said:
The Bugout is probably my most carried knife in my rotation as it's perfect for my office EDC and outdoors light hiking knife. For my office EDC it's a hard fought fight between the Bugout and the Para 3 LW.

I've never understood the complaints of the "flex". It honestly isn't bad and what do you expect from a lw grivory handled knife? It wasn't designed to be a hard use folder but I'd trust it against about anything that I will ever encounter.

Untitled by Caleb Bender, on Flickr
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Do you know if BM has done any hard use testing for the grivory bugout?
 
fatBatman said:
View attachment 1342982 Hey everyone,

I recall all the hype around the weight of the bugout when it was launched, and over time the releases of the bailout and mini bugout followed.

My chief complaint about these extreme weight-reduced knives has been the flex and generally weak feel to the pivot due to the scale material.

I tried the bugout and this flex caused me to sell it. The bailout looked like an appealing blade shape to me, but same scale material caused me to skip it.

A week ago I noticed the M4 bailout in aluminum, and past experience with AWT scales being favorable for reduced weight and good strength led me to purchase it. I’ve been carrying it for about a week now and while I feel the knife is high on the price side, it carries well, there is absolutely zero flex or play, and the cerakote M4 tanto is a huge plus. It seems maybe Benchmade heard the complaints about flex and said “cool, here’s aluminum, and a glass breaker in case you get your car stuck upside down in a ditch or need to pull someone out of a flaming vehicle, we good now?” I mean, what’s a “BAILout” knife without the ability to break windows?

My question to all of you is, what are some of your thoughts on the bugout/bailout line? How do you like the mini bugout? Any issues with heavy use? Have any of you played around with aftermarket scales? What have you found to be your perfect bugout/bailout recipe?

I’m starting to consider adding a bugout with aftermarket scales to the rotation.

Thanks
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I'm glad you changed your opinion from last week:
fatBatman said:
I look at these two options as end-use separated.
The bailout has a tactical oriented blade shape (tanto for strength in piercing) and the pommel portion of the knife (butt of the handle) would be good for blunt strikes or breaking things.
The Bugout seems like a good EDC all around user, with a nice belly on the blade.

For me, I would go with the bugout. If I wanted a tactical knife with a tanto shape that could take a licking I’d be looking at cold steel anyway. The bailout seems like a contradiction to me given the tanto shape and pommel strength contrasted against trying to reduce weight as much as possible. If I buy a tanto, there needs to be an assurance of strength like you would get from the TI slabs of a CRK tanto, or the thick slabs of G10 in a Cold Steel.
Having a lock or pivot fail when you’re putting a lot of strength in to a reverse grip stab is not going to be pretty... and I wouldn’t

trust a bailout for that.
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fatBatman said:
I think the expression is: “You can catch more flies with honey instead of vinegar”.

I wouldn’t prefer aluminum over plastic because that would add to the weight, which this knife is designed to reduce... while also scratching more easily... but that’s just me.
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And I totally agree with your new opinion, as I stated a similar thing last week in our discussion.

I personally didn't like the way the plastic handle scales felt on the bugout, and I'm not some anti plastic handle guy either. Some of my favorite spydercos have plastic handles and I never had a problem the plastic handled grips. I absolutely felt the flex in the handles that you described, both in the grip and on the pivot (when I checked for blade play). I would think with a handle made from a more rigid material, that flex can be eliminated, like on the aluminium handled bailout. For me though, the bugout is just too small, so even with a handle upgrade, I just wouldn't carry it. I just don't do well with blades under ~3.5" and I am not concerned with weight.

I would take that M4 bailout over the bugout all day though. You have a very handsome knife there!
 
Grivory is incredibly tough stuff and ideal for knife applications, IMHO; it is not plastic but a carbon fiber composite. Benchmade's engineers would have tested it to the breaking point. There are a number of stress tests on YouTube. Benchmade Griptilians are very similar in construction and you'd have to deliberately abuse them to do any damage.
 
Alberta Ed said:
Grivory is incredibly tough stuff and ideal for knife applications, IMHO; it is not plastic but a carbon fiber composite. Benchmade's engineers would have tested it to the breaking point. There are a number of stress tests on YouTube. Benchmade Griptilians are very similar in construction and you'd have to deliberately abuse them to do any damage.
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Agreed, The grips are BM's flag ship and have been around for a long time. If you break a grivory handle, you are doing something very wrong.
 
I would probably give that aluminum scaled Bailout a try, because I just never warmed up to the Bugout. I have held one at my local Ace (they never sell it, because they want full MSRP) multiple times mulling it over, but they just feel so cheap and cheaply made, so I always passed.

That Bailout seems like it would solve those gripes, so if I come across one and actually am able to handle it to compare, I'd probably not say no.
 
I use my Bugout for outside when I'm cutting wood, mowing grass, blowing the lane out et al. I have grown to like the blue scales and doubt I'll ever be inclined to spend another $159 CAD for "fancy" ones. As far as flex? Fugget-about-it.

I know some youtube cowboy did a torture test on the Bugout, when it first came out, and it went through whatever he did to it. He was even surprised it handled it all (including batoning).
 
Quiet said:
I would probably give that aluminum scaled Bailout a try, because I just never warmed up to the Bugout. I have held one at my local Ace (they never sell it, because they want full MSRP) multiple times mulling it over, but they just feel so cheap and cheaply made, so I always passed.

That Bailout seems like it would solve those gripes, so if I come across one and actually am able to handle it to compare, I'd probably not say no.
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It feels pretty solid, takes up very little space, and doesn’t give me that uncomfortable sweaty feeling the grivory does. I’m impressed with the weight and strength, and this is quickly becoming my #1 EDC. I’m also a huge fan of M4.
It feels like a totally different knife with the aluminum... but $212 puts it against some serious contenders. All in all, I feel the price is justified.
 
fatBatman said:
It feels pretty solid, takes up very little space, and doesn’t give me that uncomfortable sweaty feeling the grivory does. I’m impressed with the weight and strength, and this is quickly becoming my #1 EDC. I’m also a huge fan of M4.
It feels like a totally different knife with the aluminum... but $212 puts it against some serious contenders. All in all, I feel the price is justified.
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Well, it does seem to occupy a niche that might well deserve that price. After all, there aren't that many knives in M4 on the market as is, and the board favorites of the Gayle Bradley 1 and 2, both those knives almost certainly weighed more than the Bailout does. The GB1's first iteration weighed so much, they had to release an updated version that had lightening pockets in the scales. I'll be curious to see how the coating on the scales would hold up. It's certainly an attractive knife.
 
$212?!?!?! Holy cow! I thought the standard series was overpriced but thats crazy. That knife does look awesome though lol
Anyway, I hate the flexible handles of the grivory models. It isnt exactly confidence inspiring.... More than anything though I hate how thin they are, just uncomfortable to use except as a letter opener. Like a blade sandwiched between 2 pieces of paper.
Also, someone said the griptilian line is similar but....not really. The grips have steel liners, full liners on the mini and partial liners on the full size. They also have much larger FRN scales that are less flexible. They feel better in use and they dont flex like the bugout. I would say theyre much stronger, though I havent done experiments or anything.
 
Quiet said:
Well, it does seem to occupy a niche that might well deserve that price. After all, there aren't that many knives in M4 on the market as is, and the board favorites of the Gayle Bradley 1 and 2, both those knives almost certainly weighed more than the Bailout does. The GB1's first iteration weighed so much, they had to release an updated version that had lightening pockets in the scales. I'll be curious to see how the coating on the scales would hold up. It's certainly an attractive knife.
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I think the price point of this knife caused a little hesitation in me considering the M4 Freek, which is fantastic for the cost.
I’m seeing very small white imperfections from having my keys in the pocket but if this holds up as well as the AWT scales I had on my mini grip or the aluminum scales on my auto Stryker, there won’t be any concern on that. But I guess that’s the cost trade off against something like Ti.
 
johnnytoxin said:
No, but Cold Steel has. The bugout did really well for what it is, breaking at around 160 pounds. The air lite was also impressive holding 250 lbs without breaking.
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I’m a Cold Steel fan, but that Bugout has won my respect. A breaking point of 160 lbs. is impressive and proves that the knife shouldn’t break under normal reasonable use. It’s also pretty awesome that the handle broke first before the Axis lock.
 
fatBatman said:
I think the price point of this knife caused a little hesitation in me considering the M4 Freek, which is fantastic for the cost.
I’m seeing very small white imperfections from having my keys in the pocket but if this holds up as well as the AWT scales I had on my mini grip or the aluminum scales on my auto Stryker, there won’t be any concern on that. But I guess that’s the cost trade off against something like Ti.
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Man, they certainly do not seem to have an issue selling these at that price. That price might be a tad dear, but it's certainly seeming like the market thinks it's what these are worth. May need to keep an eye out, I like how they integrated the glass-breaker into the lanyard loop on the end. That's actually really very well done. I've gone from not interested at all, to "If I see one, I'm going to have to seriously consider it."
 
fatBatman said:
.....
My chief complaint about these extreme weight-reduced knives has been the flex and generally weak feel to the pivot due to the scale material.

I tried the bugout and this flex caused me to sell it. The bailout looked like an appealing blade shape to me, but same scale material caused me to skip it.
Click to expand...

Quick question, what where you doing with your knife that caused that flex you are mentioning? I am not talking about the "weak feel", I am talking about true flexing of the knife. I understand you are referring to the pivot area (blade to handle junction).

Mikel
 
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