The Benchmade 945 Pocketknife: The Full Nick Shabazz Review 

I would say this is a *Tenacious* comment but its a Benchmade rather than am Spyderco!

Green aluminum 945 is superior. Ignore this black/blue G10 version👌

Same. First and only. Had mine 15-ish years. The proprietor of this channel/ENABLER(!) has helped me to appreciate that which lies beyond the 940. Thanks Nick 🤫

Get a spyderco kapara. The 940 was my first good knife too, but it’s now towards the bottom of my favorite knives. Kapara in my opinion does everything the 940 does, but way better.

@SmokedEdge Kapara is excellent, I however don’t keep anything in my right pocket where the knife is. I don’t like crap in my pockets. I keep my modlite in other pocket and my p10c appendix Carry with spare magazine and RDS and WML. Along with car keys and sometimes AirPods that finishes my edc.

@@ekirenrut this sold me, 15 years?? I'm sold!!!

​@@seanshipley8624 Kapara is one of the spyderco's I'm most interested in behind manix 2. It's because of the longer blade profile and more narrow scales, you might agree. I'm a 945 user with options though and specifically chose and bought said model multiple times to have authentic parts and for mixing/matching. It is a smaller knife so I can't in good faith recommend it to everyone but I have narrow fingers and it fits my pinky. Things neither kapara or manix 2 do as well as the 945 include: Compression and ball bearing locks are not as strong as even downsized crossbar locks in testing. The thick tip of the 940/945 has the blunt side reliable enough to use for non-cutting tasks like prying or turning screws while that makes me nervous with narrow bladed knives. Spyderco knives do feature thinner blade geometry and slice better making them objectively better for just that. In summary the kapara and indeed most spyderco knives are better for lighter cutting while 940/945 is a more versatile tool that will come in clutch often where knives shouldn't.

Blasphemy!

I got the classic green aluminum. Absolutely love it. Superior in every way to the G10 black/blue. No regrets! I wish Nick reviewed it.

@@jibb1es That's good to hear!

You know you're in an abusive relationship with Benchmade when you're grateful for them not putting up the price for the aluminium. They're already robbing you blind!

LOL. Robbery might be a stretch. If I wasn't okay with the price, I wouldn't buy it. Lord knows there are a lot of cool things that come across Nick's table that I can't afford!

@@BayouBandit6 There are a lot other reviewers out there who aren't in the pockets of suppliers, so saying Nick is the only one is a very far stretch. Is Nick honest for the most part? I will agree he is, but he's not the ONLY honest reviewer.

@@BayouBandit6 Neeve's Knives, Stassa23, Mike Emler, Wayne's Sharp World, to name a few...

@@BayouBandit6 Metal Complex, he's a Hinderer fanboy but he makes that abundantly clear. Him and Nick streamed recently together.

That's what I'm looking to get. So glad they came out with the green.

Would you say the grind is slicier than a regular 940?

@@Phaminator525 for sure.

You're right, but it came out like 6 months later.

The description of the video agrees!

@@NickShabazz I see that now. I apologize I meant no disrespect

The only difference is that it has purple standoffs instead of a back spacer.

Got mine today from Rei too, they running 20% off plus 20$ gift card if you are buying benchmade till 22nd. I love this knife and actually enjoy high speed low drag black/blue combo. Also action is really good from factory. The size is right. Would recommend.

True, but I would say one of the most reasonably priced Benchmades is the Super Freek, A large ergonomic knife in CPM-M4 for just under $200 is pretty good. But you are still paying a slight premium for the name of course.

"Seems a simple problem to fix, but they don't." Maybe you're right. Take the fingerguard a bit forward, expose the tang, make the scales look a bit more like those on the Bugout😢 Better yet, increase the size of the ricasso enough to make it a fully functional forward finger choil😖🤔🤗 But tbh, I like it well enough as it is. The protruding screws could've been filed down though😞

That is far from a sign of quality. That is a simple problem Benchmade refuses to fix because it costs money.

@@svn5994 Why is it a problem and why does it signify poor quality?

The first time I opened the 940 I was surprised at how long the blade is. You get a lot of blade for that handle size.

Chicago

I’d like to see purple aluminum and green anodized line on the back, inverted.

I hear they are available now...

Love benchmade!

Forgive them for what?

Idk, but for starters the blade is thinner so you'd be needing thicker washers or shorter standoffs/thinner backspacer.

@@esoteric5277 oh right good call

Thats the exact reason I don’t buy axis lock knives. I am not handy enough to replace them myself and my axis springs always break within 6 months so I view it as an design weakness.

@@myhandlewastakenandIgaveup interesting... I’ve owned mine for 3 years, carry/use it everyday, and still haven’t broken anything.

@@airadaimagery692 I also chalk it up to half user error bc Itend to flip mine open and closed compulsively while watching tv but the design should be able to withstand 100 flips a day given how fidgety they make them.

@@myhandlewastakenandIgaveup ah... the fidget factor.... interestingly enough, we were just having this conversation over on Cedric and Ada’s channel just yesterday... But it was comparing the SOG knives with the same type of locking mechanism, and everyone was saying that the springs on those SOGs are 10 times as bad and break much faster than the Benchmade ones... If that is the case, then that is pretty bad!

@@airadaimagery692 I view the axis bar springs as a form of planned obsolence. Benchmade has a better spring design which they used on their titanium integral and spyderco has a better design on the manix (when do people ever mention that knifes spring breaking?) but it is an easy money funnel for the company which won’t hit enough customers to cause furror but will be profitable and lower production costs so why would they use the more expensive design? At current Benchmade prices I simply can’t excuse it myself but to each their own… [yes they replace them for free but how many folks when they are sending them in will also order an deep carry clip or two…I mean they are only $5?!?!…which they didn’t put on the 945 despite it being the perfect size for one.]

Just purchased my first 940...the 940-1 carbon fiber version. Though the knife fits my hand okay, I liken the size in my hand to this 945 in Nick's hands...which are super small. Me? I have huge hands...

@@cueball981 is Nick really Handson off EDC Specialties on Instagram?😭😭😭

I use mine as a “gentleman’s knife” if I know I’m going to be working it’s the PM2, Para 3, or Manix 2. If I’m going to church it’s more likely to be the 945 or the ZT 0450.

I disagree. I honestly don't care all that much for deep carry. I might be lazy but I usually just pinch the butt end to pull my knife out of the pocket. Also I prefer my knives not to ride very deep in the pocket. That said, the clip on my 945BK1 is not perfect. It was overly tight. Still a great little knife though👌

How are you so sure if you have never owned one?

Very different beasts. If you have XL hands then the 945 will be a three finger knife for you. The bugout has a taller grind on what I believe to be a similar bladestock which makes it a better slicer. The Bugout comes with a small deep-carry clip which a lot of people love. BTW the clip on my 945 was overly tight which was wholly unexpected because Benchmade clips have always worked well for me, but I'm not exchanging it because I like the ergos as it is. I'm personally not a very big fan of the Bugout because to me it seems a bit too light and thin for it's size, and the action on the ones I've tried just isn't quite as satisfying as that on my other Benchmade knives. But it does have a nice blade and it seems not many people would choose the Mini Presidio II over a Bugout, maybe I'm strange🥴. In spite of the tight pocketclip am a very big fan of the 945. I'd even dare say it's an improved 940 (which is still one of my favorite knives) but again, that's probably just me. I think the proportions on the 945 make it aesthetically (even) more pleasing than the 940. I don't notice it in the pocket while cycling like I do with the 940, and I do like that it is a bit slicier than the 940. I agree that MRSP is a bit steep, but I got mine on sale for just under $120 which I find to be a very fair price. Now I'm eagerly awaiting Black Friday/X-Mas/New Year's sales though, because I definitely still want the 'classic' variant as well🥳 Oy, I'm ranting, forgive me🥴