- Joined
- Aug 18, 2019
- Messages
- 1
Hey everyone! Just doing a quick comparison/review of a Smith & Wesson copy of one of my favorite EDC knives, the Gerber Air Ranger (Taiwan 425M version).
The S&W is pretty close in terms of design, which is to be expected from a copy, but I was admittedly shocked by it's build quality and construction, while not on par with the Gerber, it does lock up tight, deploy quickly, has jimping that actually works and had a decent out of box edge.
The steel is 7Cr17MoV which is roughly equal to 440A, however in cutting, my 425M Gerber seemed to hold an edge just a tad better, though the S&W held a better edge than the 7Cr17MoV I've used in modern Chinese Gerbers.
The handle is aluminum but not as high grade as my Air Ranger and has some rough finishing in spots, but it is comfortable in hand. The holes in the handle are a strange design choice but it's actually still a tad heavier than the Air Ranger at 2.8 Ounces (Ranger weighed in at 2.6), this is because it has a full steel liner for the linerlock, while the Gerber uses a captured liner.
The pocket clip is the only real weakness on this S&W, it's absolute trash. Roughly an inch and a half of the handle is exposed when in the pocket and the tension is weak, I had to bend it just so it would hold in pocket decently.
Centering is pretty solid, spot on as far as I can tell and the hardware seems better than most Chinese knives in it's price range, as none of it stripped during adjustment (I adjusted it just to test the hardness of the screws)
Overall it's a decent little proxy for an old PE aluminum Air Ranger (since Gerber only makes the aluminum ones in CE these days), I'd still rather have my old Taiwan Ranger but, I'd take this S&W over the Chinese Rangers any day of the week to be honest.
Modern problems require modern solutions. So I decided to take the clip off my CRKT Squid and put it on my S&W, and it carries much better now!
