NKD (well, week): The Kershaw Heist
This knife is a steal. There I said it. It's done. We can move on. No more puns from here on out. ๐
Earlier this year, Kershaw released their first crossbar locking knives. It would appear that the runaway winner of the 4 was the Iridium. It showed up in many reviews winning a lot of praise, and likely for good reasons. Kershaw knows how to build knives well and they appear to have knocked it out of the park with their version of the crossbar, which they call the "Duralock."
The Iridum is not really a knife for me though. With only a few exceptions, I'm not really into knives with scales made of metal. Too cold in the winter and too slippery in the summer.
When I saw the Heist, however...
IMHO, the Heist is what you get when you take a Benchmade Bugout and a Benchmade Freek and make a functional baby at 1/3 the cost. Hashtag KnifeBaby
I don't have a full-sized Freek, just the old-school Mini Freek but the comparison works, I think.
First off, the Heist is thin. As thin as the Bugout. Lightweight handles, but full-length liners so slightly heavier than the Bugout. The blade itself is far thinner than the Freek and thinner than even the Bugout thanks to the deeper swedge. So this is a very slicey knife indeed.
This is not a knife I would expect to be using for hours on end. Much like the Bugout, it's function is all about having a knife in the moment for quick needs without weighting you down. This is a knife I would not have a problem camping/hiking with at all.
Out of the box the knife did need a little breaking in. The action was a little slow but after a week of just handling it, it's just fine. The blade steel is D2 which helps keep the costs down. Kershaw is not a super budget brand though so at $50 it's on the higher end of D2 knives these days.
Pocket clip is great with the right amount of deep-carry for me. Scales are grippy but not aggressively so, and I don't feel like it's going to tear up the pocket.
Based on a week's worth of use, I would highly recommend this. The Duralock is well tuned, the knife sits in the hand comfortably for what it is, it's light, and best of all: it's not super expensive.
