The XM-18 by Rick Hinderer is a very popular knife, strongly promoted for military and first responders on the basis of the extreme toughness and durability. As a direct quote from the website :
The XM-18 is known the world over as one of the toughest tactical folders regardless of your mission. Rick�s focus when designing the XM-18 was a no nonsense tactical tool ready for the simplest cutting tasks to high speed low drag operations.
However while there is a lot of promotion, there is not a tremendous amount of comparisons illustrating and demonstrating that the knife is in fact superior from a performance perspective. In fact, attempts to even approach this question often produces so much of an antagonistic response that those broaching the question can be exposed to a fairly harsh responce :
I can no longer recommend Hinderer products, nor do I wish to do business with the company. The reasons why is a rather long story, but an important one I think to share with my readers.
This particular model has the "slicer" grind versus the normal spanto geometry which would leave the blade and tip with a much heavier cross section. Some background on the knife can be seen in the video on the right by the original owner. A few details are as follows :
From me2 :
I did some edge holding tests cutting cardboard and found that in the Delica vs. XM-18 contest, the Delica won every time, but only by a slight margin. ... The Delica was consistently sharper than the XM-18 using the same sharpening procedure ...
... I chopped or batoned through some bamboo skewers with each knife. The batoning was done with a piece of wood. Surprisingly, the Delica was behind the XM-18 on this test. The edge reflected light after just a few hits on the Delica, while the XM-18 emerged unscatheds. The chopping tests revealed some handle issues with the XM-18. Every hot spot on the handle, from the spine jimping to the clip, could be felt when cutting through the bamboo. Again here the XM-18 has an advantage, as the Delica's edge took damage before the XM-18. ...
Overall impressions of the XM are that it's a very nice knife. All the surfaces are finished appropriate to their use, ie lock bar and tang faces, etc. The opening is very smooth. The detent is right on. It carries easily, and is not intrusive. I really like the blade profile/silhouette. The shape is handy for many things, with enough belly and tip for general use.
However, I had some issues with it in use. Given the blade play, clip wiggle, difficulty sharpening, and lack of a larger handle, I have to say I'd stick with the Delica before I'd buy an xm-18.
For rough cutting (light wire/bread ties) the xm at 20 dps with 204 medium rod microbevel is equaled by 420 at 17/20 dps. No differce was seen between the 2 cutting light wire on a cutting board in terms of denting/damage.
During the work, me2 attempted, numerous times to ask very basic questions on the Hinderer official forum :
Hinderer knives are intended as hard use folders for professional users. What types of things are they intended to do? Are cutting seat belts, fabrics, wood, plastic, light metal, wire, foam, cardboard, etc. all on the table? How about "chopping"? (or at least as much as a 3-3.5 inch blade folder will do) Any lateral prying, like heavy staples, or prying open cans (food or otherwise)?
However even these simple questions generated censorship from Hinderer representatives and even the idea that asking the question was itself wrong and absurd
It is a tough knife, most importantly it is high quality in terms of manufacturing and materials...not to mention one of the most iconic folder designs of recent years from a highly regarded knife maker. Are you going to call Rick H. and request that you test him also?
The responses to these simple questions, the idea that you can't test or evaluate performance claims are very similar to the kind of responses obtained from asking about cults. It is a pretty extreme way to react to a simple question about a cutting tool.
From Old Spice
Ultimately the Hinderer is a fairly average pocket knife. I would say it is of the same quality in deisgn, aesthetics and performance as a Benchmade, Kershaw and CRKT. It under performs spyderco's cheaper FFG knives. Its durability is compareable to a Buck110 pocket knife(average/cutting only). It was easy to sharpen or at least maintain the edge which I think was the high point of the knife. Overall an average knife with a look appealing to the operator crowd. Not big a deal except when the price is factored in and the fans try to justify it.
It was interesting, that from two practical utility based reviews, the XM-18 did not seem to out perform various well regarded working knives such as the Spyderco Delica, or Buck 110. Now an argument could be made that this type of work ignores the real promoted advantage of the XM-18, the so called "abusive" or more demanding work, any attempt to actually get a perspective on this from the maker/manufacturer resulted not only in a lack of clarification, but out right censorship of the discussion.
Forum discussion threads :
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| Written: 17/01/2015 | Updated: | Copyright (c) 2015 : Cliff Stamp |