Kershaw Ken Onion Black & Blue Leek Folding Knife with Speed Safe
- Speed safe design
- 440-A stainless steel
- 6061-t6-anodized handle
- Limited lifetime
Product Description
Smoked finish Black & Blue color 6061-T6 anodized aluminum handle. 3″ 440A Stainless Steel blade. Speed Safe assisted opening design with removeable pocket clip…. 
$38.15
Kershaw Ken Onion Black & Blue Leek Folding Knife with Speed Safe
While this is a greart knife and my son loves it, after only two weeks the speed safe know longer works. It appears to be a plastic stop and has bent, no longer keeping the blade safe inside the knife, we plan to exchange it and if it happens again, look for another knife.
Rating: 2 / 5
Comment by Andrew C. Riddle — September 16, 2010 @ 9:38 pm
I just received my knife and like it a lot, BUT, the first thing I wanted to do, after learning how to use it, was to take off the pocket clip. At first glance, it’s held on by very small phillips screws, but it turns out to be tiny allen head screws. Who has those size wrenches? You would think they would spend a few cents to include the tiny wrench necessary to remove the clip, especially since one of their selling points is that the clip is “easily” reversible!!
Rating: 3 / 5
Comment by G. Erickson — September 16, 2010 @ 10:36 pm
This knife has a great design and is a perfect everyday utility knife. It is sleek and easy to carry in a pocket. The assisted open works great. My only complaint is that I could have used a little more sharpness.
Rating: 4 / 5
Comment by C. C. Mcleester — September 16, 2010 @ 11:03 pm
The knife I’m reviewing is actually the “limited edition” Random Leek. It’s the same as the regular Leek except it has the Kershaw “tanto” point blade. The blade is called a tanto but it’s not. It’s more of a squared-off drop point or a reverse tanto. Hard to describe, but if you know what a tanto point looks like just think of it upside down and that’s the tanto point on this knife. That’s the only difference in the standard Leek and the Random Leek so it’s not a major point to consider.
My first impression of this knife is that it looks neat. The first thing I did was to disengage the blade lock. That was my first clue that looks can be deceiving. The blade lock is a tiny little button that is not at all smooth in moving from closed to open. Even after applying some Tuff-Glide to the button, it still is rough. On closer observation, the lock is nothing more than a tiny little nub that slides over the tip of the blade to prevent the blade from opening inadvertently. And this little nubby protrusion looks like–yikes!…plastic!. Maybe not. I can’t tell. But surely not. This is supposed to be a safety feature and I don’t think a tiny piece of plastic is anything to depend on to keep the blade from opening in your pocket.
Next, the assisted opening feature. It’s no big deal. It’s really not. I have several knives that can be opened faster and more smoothly than the feature on this knife–knives that don’t have assisted opening moreso than a thumb stud or hole on the blade. The Benchmade Griptillian can be opened more quickly by simply disengaging the Axis Lock and flipping the blade. The Al Mar SERE 2000 is significantly smoother and faster with only a thumb stud. And, lest you think I’m only comparing those knives that cost two to four times the price of the Leek, I have a CRKT flipper knife that is butter smooth and quick opening. The blade material on the CRKT is garbage and it won’t take an edge for diddly but the knife mechanism is significantly better than the Leek’s.
To point out another little problem, the thumb stud on the Leek is positioned too close to the pivot. My hands are large and I can’t get much leverage on the stud to open the knife. The protruding flipper on the spine is the only way I can get the assisted opening to work for me, even after applying a good bit of Tuff-Glide to the pivot and working it in. Basically, unless I want to impress someone (unlikely) or I only have one hand free, I’ll probably use the knife a lot as a two-handed opening like a slip-joint and ignore the assisted opening feature.
It has a frame locking mechanism. Frame lock/liner lock mechanisms are generally not as secure as other methods such as a back lock or the Benchmade Axis Lock (I love that lock!). The Leek’s lock appears to be pretty secure but looking at the point where the frame lock spring engages the blade, it’s a bit disconcerting to see how little contact there is. I’ve whacked the back of the Leek’s blade a few times to check how securely it locks and it hasn’t failed. That’s good–I have had several liner lock knives that closed when this was done. If you squeeze the frame at the section that locks, you can move that section into full contact with the blade. That is about as secure as you can make it. But it then requires you to pry the locking section out so you can unlock the blade. That turns a supposedly one-handed knife into a knife that needs two hands and an extra tool to close. The lock seems secure enough for light duty use so I wouldn’t sweat it.
This knife is sharp! The tip of the tanto blade is needle sharp and I’ve punched myself with it a couple of times already. Ouch. The edge cut through paper cleanly right out of the box. I’m pretty good at sharpening knives but I don’t know that I can get this good of an edge on a knife. Scarey sharp.
For those like myself who have large hands, the handle may be a challenge. It’s smooth metal on one side with a clip on the other. It’s pretty small and it can be slippery if wet. Be careful. I wish it had some cut-outs on the smooth side but that would detract from the design elements.
This is a very good knife even though I’ve pointed out some areas I consider to be deficient. Nothing is perfect and the Leek is no exception. What I like about it is that it is flat and slim and it carries well loose or clipped in the pocket. The blade length is 3″ and that’s about right for any task I need a knife for. The blade is thin, however, and that means it will not stand up to much abuse. It’s not a heavy duty knife but it was never meant to be. The assisted opening feature is not a good reason to buy this knife, in my opinion. It’s just nothing special in that regard. But the Leek is a fine choice for daily carry and use when you aren’t going to be cutting through heavy materials or using your knife as a pry bar or screwdriver. It’s okay…I like it okay. I go with 3 stars overall.
Rating: 3 / 5
Comment by A photographer — September 17, 2010 @ 12:13 am
The Leek is a wonderful knife, but its sword-like point is subject to breakage. (Throwing the knife into a wooden target will invariably break the tip–which is what happened to two of my Leeks!) Fortunately, Kershaw lives up to its lifetime guarantee policy and quickly replaced both of my broken knives with brand-new ones, no questions asked. I just shipped them the knife, explaining what happened, and a week later got back a new knife.
The knife itself opens beautifully, though I’ve found that the liner lock sometimes sticks and isn’t that easy to depress with one hand.
Rating: 4 / 5
Comment by George Haber — September 17, 2010 @ 1:22 am