Flare Folding and Pocket Knife Assisted Opening Tech Knife w/ 3.5 Inch Stainless Straight Edge Blade & Tactical Knife GRN Grip (FLA1001-CP), Black

I saw enough semi-negative reviews to doubt this knife but I like sog and the price was right so.... Ive had it for a week and used right away. I have had know problems with the safety, blade deployment, or folding. Its pretty lightweight but sturdy, the blade was sharp and I like the size. Pocket clip work fine. Very happy with it.

Ok I ordered two of these after reading some of these reviews. After testing both and comparing them they fit the bill for what I was looking for. First of a lot of the cons people list I would say are very subjective on what you want the knife to do. The (GRN) glass filled nylon is extremely tough and chemical resistant this is not standard nylon or plastic. I wanted this feature because of the durability of it but mainly because of the weight. I have many other knives of higher quality but I wanted something that was a beater that didn’t weigh much. This knife is so lightweight you won’t notice it in your pocket even in your summer shorts. The deep pocket clip works great and the overall knife is durable. The locking feature is nice as a work or edc knife. You can deploy the knife easily with one hand closing it one handed is possible but not easily done compared to other knife designs. I’m personally ok with this as I don’t need one handed knife operation on the close so long as I can deploy it one handed. The blades were fairly sharp out of the package, but if you want razor sharp it will require sharpening. I know some guys feel the need to have the sharpest blade possible right out the box personally I don’t on my beater knives. The size of this is comparable to my Ontario Rat 1 my favorite pocket knife I can get a full grip on the knife and it has a 3.5 inch blade my preferred size on a pocket folder. Also I see a few reviews below that complain that they pressed the button and the knife didn’t deploy, let me be clear this is a axis lock that is not a button for automatic deployment. This knife is spring assisted so when you push the stud on the blade it deploys quickly and with authority. The ability to lock it is a nice feature and worked great on both knives I received. I also saw many people felt the handle was cheap and not durable I would argue the opposite and recommend you read a bit more in depth about glass filled nylon. I would say the biggest selling point really is the handle and how lightweight it is and at the price you won’t be upset if you break this , lose it or it’s stolen by your buddy or co worker. All in all I give it 5/5 stars as a great cost effective EDC or work knife.

I bought this when I lost my first one. I figured that was the best way for me to find the missing first one. It took two weeks, but my method worked and now I have the old one for backup for when I lose this one. As mentioned in the title, the lock sucks. It loves to turn itself on when it's in your pocket. Sometimes you'll look before you try to open it, and it looks like it's off, but it's on. You go to pull out your knife and get to work... but the lock is on and you're standing there fumbling with your knife. I probably need to push it into the unlocked position and drop some glue in there, but I'm afraid to break it. I guess I could try that on my older one. Based on my observations on this one and the old knife, the problem will get worse with time. My guess is I'll get around to taking the 10 minutes to defeat the lock after stewing over it for a few more years. Now... that said, the knife is actually pretty great. For the money. I comes with a nice edge. It will take and hold a nice edge if you dull it up using it to cut just about anything you want (sealed amazon boxes, steaks, rope, salami, fuel lines, hard cheese.... hmm... maybe it could use a cleaning here and there too). I like the action on the assisted opening. It has a audible snap when it opens and there is no doubt about it being fully open. It doesn't open unless you want it to (assuming you checked the lock and turned it off even though it didn't look like it was on). Seriously though, I've never had it open when I didn't try to open it. Put your thumb on the stub, a quick little push, and it opens in a flash. All my complaining about the lock aside, if I lost this one (and the old one), I'd order a new one the same day. Heck, then in a couple weeks I could have THREE of them. I'll note that I bought the first one to replace a Flash II that I carried for many years. The Flash II was discontinued for some reason, but this knife is very similar and about half the price... though I never had "lock" issues with that Flash II. In case you were wondering, buying this knife will not help you find your old Flash II.

I had an early Trident, where this design started. This one is a little smaller. I really like the knife primarily for the price point. I do make some minor modifications, I glue the "safety" into fire position, then I put a shallower grind on the blade. It's not high end but it's easy one handed and I can abuse it and not care. I keep 4 of them stashed around so there is always one at hand. I kind of consider it the bic lighter of edc, not fancy, not junk, super light weight. It's mass produced SOG so it's not the product line for indestructible but if I break it I buy another one.

The good: Conceal carry: Like my other SOG knives (Salute, Salute mini, Traction), this one sits very deep in your pocket and the pocket clip is quite high. When you clip it on your pocket pretty much the only thing you can see is the pocket clip and the knife itself is invisible. Light like a feather: For how big this knife is, its weight surprises me. The knife is quite thick to say at least. However, it feels much lighter than most of the smaller knives with the same blade steel. I gotta hand it to that GRN handle and the simple internal structure. It doesn't drag down your pocket like many other knives even of smaller sizes. Just for reference, this knife feels like nothing (weight) when you compare it to Kershaw's CQC-4K and SOG's Salute Mini. The bad: Too stiff, typical SOG: As I mentioned before, I previously owned 3 SOG knives. All of those knives feel tight as hell when out of the box. I was hoping the assisted feature on this one improves that. Nope, unfortunately, not at all. When I got it out of the box I felt the same stiffness I felt on my other SOG folders. The only difference is the SAT feature does help to open the knife completely as soon as I overcome that initial opening resistance. Judging by my past experience with other SOGs, I have a hunch this one just has the same long break-in period, which I really hate for a knife. Again, my Kershaw CQC-4K run like butter out of the box and I needed no adjustment. I can accept a break-in period for a gun, you can go to the range and just shoot hundreds of bullets, but for a knife? Seriously, just open Netflix and watch at least 5 movies, and while you are doing that, keep opening and closing your SOG Flare. It should be half-way broke-in after 5 movies. Oh also, the stiffness really makes closing this knife harder than it should be. The size+the stiffness makes operating this knife out of the box by one hand quite challenging. Needs sharpening: This is kinda expected to be honest. I had to sharpen all of my SOG knives out of the box. It can cut paper, open boxes or do the job just fine. But it doesn't meet my standard for this price range, especially compared to other knives from other companies. The ugly: Blade play! I knew SOG has a bad reputation for having bad blade play. However, I have yet to experience that with my non-assisted SOG folders. Nevertheless, this one had quite a noticeable blade play when I opened it. I'm not sure if this is caused by the arc lock mechanism or other factors in the knife. I'll try to fix this issue by myself, but for an out of the box knife, this is unacceptable for this price. Frankly, I've owned some much cheaper knives by TAC Force and Mtech, and even those knives never had blade play. This knife, unfortunately, broke my "blade play virginity". MADE IN CHINA! Just kidding, I don't care where it's made. Knives labeled Made in China could be very good as well. BUT, keep in mind this knife, in particular, is by far not the best quality "Made in China" knife. Arguably not even a "good" "Made in China". About slightly below average quality for the price. Just my two cents. Hope this helps you guys as a reference before you buy it.

Great item!!!!

Let's just say I have too many knives and I wanted to try the SOG brand. The features on this one with the button release and assisted opening seemed like they would be novel and handy. Big MISTAKE. This is a poorly executed cheap piece of JUNK. The fit and finish is just what you would expect from the $3 knives one used to find at trade shows. Grind marks on all metal surfaces, rough. The lock mechanism is TERRIBLE. Yes it pops out and locks, then it takes an incredible amount of Force to close the blade past the release point, even when pushing the release with great pressure. The release button is a tiny sharp PAINFUL, little rascal which soon causes a sore spot on the thumb. Just closing the knife against the incredible force is a great way to slip and cut yourself badly -- I mean if it was SHARP at all. LOL. So I oiled it up. Finally I had to take a punch and hammer so that I could beat the release button down far enough to get it to actually FUNCTION. It works now. I sharpened it. But Still I HATE the ugly contrary damn thing. Wish I still had a brother in law to gift it to. I like Camilus. I own many of them, and Buck, Schrade, Kershaw, Western, Gerber, etc. But this SOG Dog is not for me. Just my experience -- for what it's worth. I could have gotten the only bad one this year. Don't know. May the Force be with you.

It's such a simple knife, elegant knife for the price. Other reviewers state it's stiff out of the box and they are correct. However, my has broken in within a week. The threshold for the assist to kick in leaves a little to be desired in ease, but I don't have any issue cracking it open with the palm of my thumb. Out of the box it is SHARP. I didn't realize just how sharp until I accidentally took a chunk out of the tip to my ring finger. It passed the sharpness test hands down. The locking mechanism that you can engage to stop it from popping in your pocket is solid and, with it off, I haven't had any issues where it unfolded in-pocket. I did drop it once on concrete and the blade flew open, but that was gravity's doing. Overall, another fantastic SOG knife. This will be my EDC for the foreseeable future.