Camillus Heat

[Wolfen]

Anyone besides me buy one? It's a cheap version of the Dominator. It has a refined version of the robo assist (good) zytel handles with a beefy liner lock and ambi clip (ok) and an Aus-8 steel blade (not good). I paid $60.00 for mine with shipping at Knife Outlet

Makes a pretty good beater knife. I would not mind paying a couple extra dollars for some better steel though.

 

[Joe Talmadge]

I dunno, I think Aus-8 is my fave of the entry-point steels (I like it better than 440A, 420HC, 425M, etc.). I don't have any knee-jerk reactions against Aus-8. My only problem would be that at nearly that same price point, Spyderco is managing to get VG-10 into their knives.

I don't buy liner locks, beefy or not, for anything more than light-use gents' folders, though.

Joe

 

[Wolfen]

The cost of the robo-assist probably cut into the steel budget.
I never had a problem with a liner lock, though I don't intentionally try to make them fail. Overall I'm happy with it. It's ok for yard work and cutting up boxes and such. My edc is a small classic sebenza or a mini-griptillian in D2.

 

[Joe Talmadge]

I'm sure you're right, you're making a tradeoff between assist and steel performance. I think overall the Heat and Dominator have a great, secure and comfortable handle shape, and the blade shape is very useful.

 

[ygbsm]

I looked at one last weekend -- I have two Dominators and I have to say that the assist action on the Heat is much more forceful and positive than on the Dominator. The texturing on the Zytel looks pretty "grippy" too. It looks like a great knife, particularly for the price.

For a beater knife in that price range, I think AUS-8 is fine. There has been some discussion on an internet board among some pretty well-known knifemakers about supposed "pits" in the CPM S30V stock they had been using for blades.