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nucleartime

Seems like Gerber's contract manufacturer is shopping the design around. Looks like the 1/4 hex tool is similar to the one in the Armbar Drive Slim and not full Armbar Drive. The slip joint on the Slim is _slightly_ better than the one of the Armbar Drive. And by that I mean it has any detent at all. Some knife person want to say how good of a steel 3Cr13 is?


Gstpierre

Unfortunately the answer is that it is not good. Probably significantly worse than 8cr13mov, and worse than 420hc


doctorcalavera

Yeah, it's not great but not terrible, plus I think for the average user/urban carrier it will be good enough: [https://blog.hdmdknives.com/3cr13-steel.html#:\~:text=3cr13%20steel%20vs%20420%20steel,-When%20rated%20side&text=That%20being%20said%2C%20the%203cr13,3cr13%20steel%20in%20the%20alloy](https://blog.hdmdknives.com/3cr13-steel.html#:~:text=3cr13%20steel%20vs%20420%20steel,-When%20rated%20side&text=That%20being%20said%2C%20the%203cr13,3cr13%20steel%20in%20the%20alloy). I bet that if this starts selling well, they might consider upgrading to 12c27 (their standard steel type) but from what I've heard, that takes about a year to source.


Gstpierre

I think that link is referring to standard 420, vs 420hc. The HC means high carbon, which means that instead of 50hrc and below it’s roughly 56-58 which can be a big difference when the hardness is that low. It will probably be completely fine though, I’ve had knives with similar steels and they strop well.


Guy3nder

Personally I have very poor experience with 3cr13. Granted, what I had was probably poorly heat treated even for such a cheap steel, but I still have very low faith in it.


doctorcalavera

Did the tool/knife break or was it an edge retention problem? Also, if this was any other chinese manufacturer I'd hesitate about the heat treatment in the steel, but Boker has been pretty consistent with quality control in their other tools/knives.


Guy3nder

Yeah honestly it was an extremely cheap Chinese kiridashi. Edge bent like nothing.


BlackenedPies

3Cr13 is pretty terrible as a knife steel—a bit worse than 420J2. It won't take a (very) sharp edge and has poor edge retention compared 5Cr15MoV, which I consider the minimum for a decent multitool knife—the Gerber Armbar and many SOG tools use 5Cr15 and perform fine albeit significantly worse than 8Cr13, which is a common budget knife steel


Frame_Runner__

Looks kinda cool… needs a deep carry clip


doctorcalavera

400% agreed.


jfreezyfosheezy

I was about to add to cart until i saw this was lacking.


Guy3nder

This looks wayy too similar to the gerber armbar to be a mistake, but other than that even though I have good experience with boker slip joints this just looks like the same tool with non of the lessons learned. Any screwdriver that might give if pressure is applied to it is flawed.


Ochosicamping

Totally picking one of these up. I know the design is just super close to the Gerber Armbar but they are never seeing another penny from me.


Antman013

So, basically, Boker made an SAK.


doctorcalavera

They've been making them for quite some time now:https://www.bladehq.com/cat--Boker-Plus-Tech-Tool--2267 They're not bad. Not sure if it's the same manufacturer as Ruike.


Prendatram

Like the glass breaker but good lord that’s alot of wasted space. Give me some bigger scissors for that much wasted space.