Spyderco Native 5 Lightweight Signature Knife with 2.95" CPM S30V Steel Blade and Black FRN Handle - PlainEdge - C41PBK5

The media could not be loaded. The locking mechanism is stiff as hell. Not only that, it even became a bit gritty as i tried opening and closing it a couple of times. By the way, this one is the replacement I’ve received, the first one had it worse with the locking mechanism. Maybe it is just my luck, but so far 2 out of 2 have terrible action. On the other hand, the endela from Seki-city is great straight from the box. The QC from Colorado is not looking good.**Edit: I washed the knife with warm water and detergent, dried it with canistered air, applied Ballistol to the pivot and the back-lock bar, I left the pivot screws at factory tightness. Now the grittiness went away and the action is still stiff(reasonably) but it operates smoothly.

The best shape there is in the world. The best knife for edc, there is, in the world. The best shape for cutting everyday cutting tasks and the best. There is, in the world. Best knife, in the world.

I love this knife. I have carried a Spyderco Delica 4 and the smaller Dragonfly for years. Although the Delica is a great knife and served me well, I was never thrilled with the look of it. The blade narrowing near the pivot just gave it an urban street look to me and I feel a little self conscious depending where I am using it. Not to say its a bad knife, I have several Delica's. They are good knives. I really liked the Native's blade and handle from the catalog picture and the actual knife did not disappoint when I got it in hand. It just felt right and looked good too. I thought long and hard about whether to get the Native with the FRN hangle or G10. I decided to go with the FRN because of the weight. The FRN model does not have liners and it is lighter, but there is nothing flimsy about this knife. It is perfectly capable of doing anything I need. It feels more secure in my hand than the Delica for heavier cutting jobs. At 2.5oz, it feels comfortable in my pocket. In fact, lighter than my G10 Delica.The knife came nicely sharpened. Of course I had to dull it up shredding cardboard boxes and cutting rope. It held its edge great. It didn't stay shaving sharp, but it kept cutting until I got tired. It was easy to touch up on the Sharpmaker. I have many Spyderco's and this is the first that easily matched the 30 degree Sharpmaker angles with little to no work on my first sharpening. The S35VN steel sharpens a lot like VG10 but stays sharp longer. Its impossible for me to say how much better than VG10 so I'll just leave it at "I'm very pleased with this knife. No regrets. Love it". That said, being a collector/user, I ordered the S110V version to compare. Like the S35vn, the S110 lost its shaving edge during the cardboard shredding. Also like the S35vn, it kept cutting until I was tired. But its much trickier to sharpen. I can do it pretty quickly on diamonds though. I still struggle to get it hair popping shaving sharp but its not worth the trouble because it will quickly get back to a utility edge. On the plus side, that utility edge seems to last forever. I realize I might not be experienced in proper technique with s110v, but I I prefer s35vn. Its just easier to keep the s35v really sharp and its no slouch on edge retention. When its slightly dull, I can bring it back in seconds. I don't do a lot of rough heavy duty cutting. My everyday cutting is more like opening plastic sacks, padded envelopes, cloth bags, cutting string, bubble wrap and some rope. I prefer a level of sharpness that is tough to get and keep with the s110v. The s110v seems to quickly fall below what I want. It often fails to cleanly slice through some of those thin plastics and paper that I cut. I'd say the s110v is more toothy and requires more sawing when cutting certain things where the s35vn stays sharp enough to push through. With either steel, you are getting a great knife. If you are on the fence of what steel to get, I'd say unless you are really looking to try an S110v knife, go for the S35VN. It won't disappoint. If you are not an experienced sharpener, I would also steer you to the S35VN. S110v is different, not necessarily better.As a side note, Spyderco is changing the s35vn to s30vn on the FRN Native sometime in 2018. It should not be a noticeable change.

Got this sooner than expected, so have been carrying for over a month now. Before knife arrived, I checked out reviews on YouTube and was a bit apprehensive with some of them. They claimed new frn handle was too boxy, contrasting the well-rounded earlier model Native. I have Byrd Meadowlark 2 and Cara-Cara models with lightweight frn handles, and they were way too boxy and uncomfortable for me, so I considered cancelling my order for this Native 5 Lightweight. It's a good thing I didn't, since I was able to see that the handle on this is way better than the Byrd handles. Those handles have a really boxy edged frn, made worse by a slightly sharp inner edge (between the lip of the handle and the inner texturing), making them feel very angular and uncomfortable. on the Native 5, the outer edges are slightly more rounded, and the inner edge blends slightly into the bi-directional inner texture. You can feel this by running your thumb accross the handle surface - the native 5 only grips or catches when you go against the grain of the bi-directional texture, but side-to-side is fine.Blade is of thick stock, about 3.5mm thick. Lock bar is even thicker, a full 4mm thick. So this knife is definitely no Delica. But weight is definitely low, because of two things - the full flat ground blade, with small swedges on top, and the lack of any metal liners. The frn scales look sturdy enough for any task this knife might be used for, as in spite of the thick blade stock, it's not a heavy use knife. These scales are actually milled out inside, to make them even lighter. Although it has a lightweight handle and a thick blade, it's not blade-heavy - balance point when open is about at the lockbar pivot - quite ideal actually. The handles also have a big, circular Spyderco logo in the center, rather than the old oval logo with the knife name and the Spyderco name. Pocket clip actually rests on this smooth circle, so clipping and pulling out the knife is smoother than earlier models. Pocket clip is also unpainted stainless, which I prefer since the painted clip has a tendency to scratch up and look less than perfect after awhile.As mentioned, the lockbar is very thick, and lockup is very good. The notch in the blade where the lockbar catches has a deep semicircular cut, which holds any dirt or crud that would prevent perfect lockup, so it's quite secure. Not found on other Spydercos is a bit of jimping on the lockbar itself, which blends smoothly into the jimping on the blade. Quite a nice touch, actually.The s35vn blade came very sharp, and has an unusual finish. It's a satin finish that is not shiny - quite unlike the CTS BD-1 steel finish on my Manix Blue lightweight, which has a similar looking satin finish but is very shiny, so much so you don't want to handle the blade and mess it up with fingerprints. The Native 5 finish is smooth and cleans up well, but really does not have any sheen to it. Some may like it and some may not.Overall, I'm really happy with this knife - I wanted to get a Native 5 G10 earlier but was unable to because they ran out. Maybe the G10 model is more robust but I think this FRN model is better for EDC because of lighter weight. Really good addition to any collection.