I have tested a lot of different lubes on my 0801... this is what I have found.
As far as lubing, the bearings really have no control over how smooth the knife is. What I mean is the bearings alone regardless of lube allow for free swinging action. The real variable to tinker with is lubing/the smoothness of the detent ball. That will have the most appreciable effect on how smooth your knife is. I wasted a lot of time trying to smooth out the bearings when I realized no matter what configuration I had, if I held the lock bar back, the blade swung freely every time no matter how sluggish or fast the action was with the detent in contact.
The first time I thought I had found my ideal set up for KVT was with White Lightning bike chain lube. Its a dry lube that dries to a waxy finish that repels dirt. Applied to the detent ball or the track the detent rides on makes my 0801 crazy smooth. I mean like unbelievably blade falls back into the handle like nothing crazy smooth. However I soon realized the faults of this choice. The waxy nature of the lube after it dries causes the detent ball to basically carve a new track through the wax, eventually pushing most of the wax to the side (think of a snow plow) and the smoothness decreases. Another fault was that the nature of the lube requires that you take the knife apart to apply it which I would rather be able to clean and lube with out taking apart if I am on the go. Another thing to note is I tried applying White Lightning to the bearings as well (before my revelation) which realllllly gummed them up. As far as the first ~20 flips go, there is nothing better than White Lightning, but for a user I want something more practical and long lasting.
Another ideal set up I went through was completely dry. No lube on bearings, blade, or detent. I liked this one because it was very simple and did not have any lube to attract gunk. It wasn't as smooth as the white lightning so I took out the blade and using a dremel polished the detent track. This helped smooth out the action immensely and I thought this was the setup I would run. But on a user that gets crap in the pivot, I like to be able to add a drop of oil to keep things smooth between cleanings. Again I like the action to be static with what ever set up I choose. I dont like a knife to be super smooth for the first 100 flips then get less smooth over time.
I settled on dry bearings with a rem oil lubed detent. This has given me the best most constant results and the detent can be reoiled easily with out dissassembly after and between cleanings.
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