My biggest problem with threads like these is that folks seem to come out of the woodwork with "I heard".
I like to just look at the facts and not believe every 2nd and 3rd hand version of might-have-happened or what someone might-have-said.
I have no problem with Ankerson's test being what it was - a test that showed if various knives would survive the things he put it up against. The Manix II he had did not survive. He has other knives that have survived. That test is acceptable (to me) as factual and quite frankly, I believe that my Manix will not survive if I subject it to seriously hard over-strikes or Spine Whacks with a loose pivot (regardless of how the pivot got that way). I would not expect any folding knife to survive these situations which honestly do not constitute "hard use" to me - they are abuse.
Don't believe me? Make any knife (Spyderco or otherwise) fail by doing a similar test. Trust me, you can spine-whack or over-strike (or pry, or hammer, or baton) hard enough on even the beastly ZT0301 to make it fail (and it is honestly one of the strongest folders I can think of). Video yourself doing so and then send in the video along with your broken knife to KAI and see if they will replace it for you. Try that with a Benchmade. Try it with a Strider or Chris Reeve.
Here's the reason why I don't run out and sell my Manix II just because it failed spine-whack and overstrike tests while other folders survived it: Pretty much everyone in the AR-15 world knows about Magpul and their original PMAG tests that involved running over PMAGs with a car at various speeds to show how tough they are. They survived every time. Then came the Shotgun News test (and a few others that replicated the same results) of dropping the magazine only 8.5ft butt-first onto concrete. Magpul's PMAG split at the spine as did many others. The drop-test is much more realistic of something you would do with an AR magazine than running over one with a car.
The same could be said of Noss' test with the infamous 5lb steel mallet against the spine of two different Chris Reeve fixed-blade knives (breaking both). Several cheaper knives survived that test - does that mean that those cheaper knives are somehow better?
So don't believe the hype. Abuse can show how tough a knife is under very specific abusive situations, but they don't always show how durable that particular knife is. There are several things that test a knife's durability better than spine-whacks and over-strikes. Many of which might cause failure in some of the knives that passed the over-strike and spine-whack tests.
I'm more interested in edge-retention tests and "hard use" tests that involve using the knife in the way it was designed to be used (i.e. cutting things) than I am in tests that show using it as a hammer, hatchet, machete, or car-hood-stabber.
This past few weeks, folks have reported a few failures with the Manix-II. No sooner than they did, come the posts of "I've seen videos of these things failing" and "I heard that one broke from being dropped last year".
I can find almost no documented evidence of Manix-II's failing other than Ankerson's test (one video) before this last two-week period. If someone knows the original person who had a broken cage-lock, feel free to post a link (or if you witnessed it - speak up), but the "I thought I remembered" and "I heard" posts don't do anything to get to the bottom of the myths.
Of the two recent reported failures on this sub-forum, the first involved a ball-bearing falling out. Based on my limited knowledge of how the caged ball bearing works (and going from memory from the last time I took mine apart) and the explanation from the user who posted it, this sounds far-fetched to me. Sorry if I'm wrong, but when a couple of us actually attempted to ask questions and clarify, he/she smarted off and didn't seem interested in talking about it any further. I'd love to hear from Sal or Spyderco on what the outcome of this one was because as I understand it, you can break the cage completely out of the knife and the ball bearing won't come out (like I said earlier, it's been a few weeks since I took mine apart, but I may get bored and try it out just to make sure I'm remembering this correctly).
As to the one that broke the left-side of the cage, that actually sounds plausible, but I'd love to know what the knife was subjected to that caused the cage to break. If a perfectly-landed fall on one the side could break the cage, then it's probably something that needs to be looked at but thank goodness Spyderco is all about constant quality improvement and will take care of that.
BTW, does anyone have a link to what Sal said about what was being done to improve the Manix-II as a result of Ankerson's test? This is also something I can't find (but several searches lead to someone saying that Sal said this, so I assume he or Spyderco said something about it).
If that lock system isn't enough to make the user feel confident they should probably opt for a fixed blade.
