CRKT Hissatsu Folder Review

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youstfu

Joined
Sep 16, 2007
Messages
48
Recently, I bought a CRKT Hissatsu Folder from a BladeForum member, rifon2 (great guy :thumbup:).

HISFLDR07.jpg


Some info on the knife (from CRKT's website):

OutBurst assisted opening
Blade: Length: 3.875” (9.8 cm)
Thickness: 0.15” (0.38 cm)
Steel: AUS 8, 56-58 HRC
Closed: Handle length: 5.0” (12.7 cm)
Open: Overall length: 8.75” (22.2 cm)
Weight: 5.8 oz. (164 g)



When I first got the knife it felt 3 times heavier than most folders I've owned! Pictures definitely don't do justice when it comes to this knife. Although the blade to handle ratio seems very disproportional in pictures, it's surprisingly not as bad. The feel of the handle felt nice, the blade was just big enough to be effective (and legal), the outburst was very nice, the autolawks worked well, and it's performance was excellent.

The handle was very heavy but felt nice. The weight gave better control when using the knife, and it feels like I can bash someone's head effectively with the handle's weight. The handle is made out of zytel and has a grainy texture that gives it grip. Here's a picture of the handle's texture I scanned (I have no camera :grumpy:):

hissatsutexture.jpg


In most pictures you find online, you will rarely see the texture. When I first saw the knife, I thought the handle was smooth, but it comfortably has a texture which works well to prevent slipping.


The blade is AUS-8, which is good enough for me. The size of the blade was what really won me over. All 4 inches are worth it! Although the blade came dull, a bit of sharpening brought the knife back to life. The teflon coating was very nice and gave the blade a nice, smooth feel. The blade's geometry was quite effective for stabbing and slashing. There's writing on one side of the knife that says "Hissatsu Folder" in both Japanese and English (the Japanese writing was a nice touch in my opinion). On the other side, there's just the CRKT logo.


The outburst (or assisted opening) was very fast, and opened with force. The speed surprised me because it opened twice as fast as the SOG's assisted open. My only dislike is that the blade required a lot of force to nudge the blade 30 degrees or so for the outburst to engage. My thumb's been sore all day from using the outburst. Hopefully it will loosen over time, and I can open it with less force.


The autolawks worked well for me, despite peoples' opinions. Although it is a bit tedious to close, it doesn't really effect me that much. It takes a bit of time to close the blade (you have to pull back a lever, pull the lock bar to the side, then bring the blade down), but I think with practice it can close as fast as any other knife. The lock was very strong, and I can't see it failing except in extreme conditions. There was ZERO blade play in any direction.


Now, onto the performance. The teflon coating on the blade was extremely effective. I stabbed the knife into plastic, wood, and various other materials with ease. The teflon coating allowed the blade to penetrate easily and effectively, whereas my other knives would jam, scrape, and scratch. I took a piece of 2x4 and thrust the knife in with all my might and it went through. My other knives would get stuck halfway, but not this knife. I pulled it out and it was scratch-free. Although the knife is good at poking holes in stuff, it was specifically meant for self-defense.


Overall, I love the CRKT Hissatsu folder. It's a very solid knife. I recommend this knife to anyone who wants to stab objects (or people :D) effectively. Would I trust my life with this knife? Well, all I can say is that it can poke holes in people better than wood, and the autolawks isn't letting the blade go anywhere ;).


Credits to CRKT for producing this knife :thumbup:.
 
rifon2 said:
Really good review with plenty of detail.

Thanks for posting it.
Click to expand...

Thanks again for selling me the knife :D



Hammer27 said:
How does it handle in the reverse grip?
Click to expand...

It handles amazing in reverse grip. The handle's heavy weight keeps the knife in your hand at all times. The curve on the butt of the knife creates a very comfortable placement for your thumb, as this pictures shows here:

Folder_stab_through_600.jpg




I can answer more questions if there are any :)
 
Thanks for the comments guys.

Update: The outburst has loosened up finally! That or my thumb got stronger.



Since I love this knife so much, I'm going to try to get a custom carbon fiber handle for it, and switch out most if not all screws to hex screws. Torx screws are very ineffective in small sizes :mad:. I almost stripped a few. Now to find someone who can make me a custom carbon fiber handle at a reasonable price :D
 
The designer of the hissatsu knife both fixed and folding has stated that it was designed from the ground up for defence or assualt. I have one with AO and one without ,the AO is stiff and the other is quite smooth when opening.
 
I'd love to get one, but I can't spell it.

Thanks for the review. I may have check my bank account....

youstfu said:
The autolawks worked well for me, despite peoples' opinions. Although it is a bit tedious to close, it doesn't really effect me that much. It takes a bit of time to close the blade (you have to pull back a lever, pull the lock bar to the side, then bring the blade down), but I think with practice it can close as fast as any other knife.
Click to expand...
AutoLAWKS works well for me, too, though I prefer the LAWKS for a number of reasons.

I don't understand why some people would knock it.
 
This is the best review I've seen for this knife that actually did it justice. The detail and the picture of the 2X4 makes me want to go out and buy one right now. I guess I'd better put some money aside and go take another look at the surplus shop down the street. I'm glad to hear that the outburst eased up (or your thumb got stronger lol, same thing happened to me with another knife) I turned away from this knife at first because I thought to mysef,"what good is the outburst and self defense part of this if I can't even open the damn thing!" So again I'm glad to hear it eased up and I will make sure I pick one up next week. By the way, after you stabbed the 2X4 was the knife still sharp enough to use afterwards? Looking forward to any updates, J.
 
Stabbing a knife like that straight into 2x4 could have serious consequences for most knives had they failed. I'm glad the AutoLAWKS held up. It shows that the system is reliable.

The only question that still gnaws at me is the assisted open feature. Though the blade effectively deploys, I've found that most modern tacticals open fine without it. A recent AutoLAWKS I got was a little tougher on my thumb because of the spring tension. Add to that the Outburst feature and such a system could be more difficult to deploy, not less. Still, this appears to be a great knife!

I have a CS Recon 1 that has a heavy action and I like it. This CRKT seems to have a similar feel to it. I'm also happy to hear that the blade's titanium finish holds up so well. Cold Steel's black plating can be marred by cutting a single cardboard box. Though I'm not much concerned by that, it's nice to know.
 
The thickness of the blade is just about 1/8 in, or 3 mm. Though the knife is hard to open, I actually like it that way. That way, it forces people who have never handled knives before to handle it safely with two hands, instead of trying to open it with one hand and having the knife doing a back flip out of their hand. There's also no chance that the blade will accidentally open in your pocket.

In any case, the speed at which the Outburst opens the blade greatly overweights the initial difficulty of opening the knife. Once you get used to the knife, it'll open faster than most assisted openers out there. Some people even think my Hissatsu is automatic (although there should be one for real tactical situations) due to the speed it opens.

The knife is holding up great by the way. The blade didn't dull after my first (and only) stab at the 2x4. I tried stabbing a 2x4 with my SOG Flash II and it finally went in after 3 tries, but I had a very hard time pulling it back out. With the Hissatsu, the the teflon (being one of the most frictionless solids) allows clean stabs, and allows you to pull the blade out with ease.

I've been using this as a utility knife and it actually works surprisingly well. Because the knife makes clean stabs, I found that stabbing the knife through what you're cutting and then cutting is more effective than just cutting (hope that made sense). The blade has a slight sharp angle that makes it very easy to cut. I included a picture here of a normal Hissatsu:

hissatsu.jpg


It's kind of hard to see, but the angle there forms a slight point like the letter "V", which makes it more effective at cutting than a knife with a round belly. Think of it like a serration.


Thanks for the comments guys. I'm happy to answer more questions. If I don't answer question's within a day or two, I'm probably too busy.
 
I'll try to explain this the best I can.

For those of you who have the Hissatsu and are having some problems with how stiff it is, try running a pencil on the area where the A/O bar rests on the end of the blade. The pencil works well on stiff liner-locks that are tough to disengage, and it does help a little with the Hissatsu too.
 
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