Miscellany: Benchmade 940 review - Nothing in his pockets but knives and lint

A lot of everyday carry knives try to wow you with "extreme" marketing and gee-whiz features. The Benchmade 940, designed by Warren Osborne, eschews all that. Instead, you get a straightfoward production folder that's remarkably slim and light (a hair under 3 ounces) considering its 3.4" blade.

The 940's blade is made of S30V steel, and sports what Benchmade calls a "modified reverse tanto" (essentially, it's a spear point). It was sharp out of the box and breezed through routine knife tasks. Despite the blade's length, it's fairly thin and small; I wouldn't try really heavy cutting chores with it.

The handle has a chalky finish that provides good traction without being obnoxious. As you can see, it has a pretty funky color scheme - green 6061-T6 aluminum handles and a purple anodized titanium backspacer. Sorta reminds me of a certain killer clown:

I like Benchmade's Axis lock, though I have heard scattered reports of the spring breaking in some knives. The 940's lockup was okay out of the box, but became progressively looser with use. I had to use some blue Loctite to get it to tension properly.

The pocket clip is tip-up carry only, though it is reversible.

I liked the Benchmade 940 enough to put it in my regular EDC rotation. The only potential dealbreaker is the price - the 940 retails for about $150 on a lot of sites. You can get many other quality folders for much less.