Benchmade 940 Osbourne Thoughts

There's only a handful of Benchmades I've wanted to try throughout my knife collecting journey. The Mini Griptilian is my favorite knife from them, but I've always had my eye on the infamous 940. Everyone and their mother seems to rave about this knife. I was very fortunate to get the chance to borrow this from a guy that watches my videos. Huge thank you to Jacob for letting me try it out! Otherwise, I probably never would have bought one for myself. I set my expectations very high for this knife. Everyone I follow on YouTube, Instagram, and on the internet in general loves the 940. I'm not one of them. I see why it's popular, but ultimately it's not my cup of tea. Is it an awful knife? No, not by any means. Is it worth $160+? No. I personally don't think so. Quick side note, Benchmade has always produced the worst valued knives out there. That's how they've been and how they'll probably always be. If I paid the $180ish price tag on Blade HQ, I would've been sorely disappointed with this knife. If you're going to pay that much, my expectation is that it's going to be a perfect knife. I've had other mid-to-large-sized EDC knives that I've loved way more. I wouldn't want to carry this thing every single day, so that's where it fails for me. There's too many quirks that I don't like about it. I don't personally recommend. I'm just one in a sea of thousands that doesn't seem to enjoy it. Take all of this with a grain of salt. At least I can check it off my list.

The quality is for the most part what you'd typically expect from a Benchmade. Blade centering looks good, and fit and finish is fine. There is a decent amount of side-to-side play that I can't get rid of without making it insanely tight. Design wise, it looks nice, but I don't like in person as much as in the pictures I've seen before. I think all the cutouts are what's throwing me off. The blade shape just has a weird symmetry to it that I'm not a fan of.

Probably one of the first things I should mention is that I didn't realize how big this knife was. I thought it was supposed to be more mid-sized, while it's definitely on the larger end. It's got a 3.4" blade where the biggest I typically go for is a 3" blade. That wasn't what I was expecting for some reason. I will say Benchmade is able to fit a lot of blade into a light and compact package. The handle isn't all that long for this big of a blade. The steel on here is S30V. I've always thought of that as one of the highest end steels, but I think it's been surpassed by other super steels by now. I'm not into the high end steels, so it's been perfectly fine for me.

The black coated blade looks much cooler than a satin finished one. Of course you will deal with issues of it wearing weirdly depending how hard you use it. I don't really dig the reverse tanto blade shape either. It works well enough for cutting, yet it doesn't appeal to me visually. A major gripe is that the thumb stud is way too close to the handle. Benchmade should have either widened the knife a smidge or done some sort of cutouts so you can access it easier. If I wanted to flick it with the thumb studs, I have to be very deliberate with what angle I flick it from. There's not enough clearance for me to flip it well 100% of the time. The Ontario Rat 2 is about the same size in width and has a perfectly placed thumb stud with lots of room to flick it from every angle. For the 940, I've resorted to open it slowly with my thumb or using the Axis lock to open it. As far as the blade goes, I'm not a fan of the shape overall and the thumb stud placement. It functions exactly as it should for EDC tasks though.

Getting onto the handle, the texture of these aluminium scales is awful. It feels like you're grinding your nails on a chalkboard. I have heard that it wears down as you carry it more. Ultimately, some of my problems with this knife would've been solved if I got the G10 version. Metal scales can be hit or miss for me depending on how they're done. These are a big miss for me personally. I absolutely love this colorway the most though. They do have a carbon fiber one that is of course way more expensive along with the G10 versions. This is such a popular knife that they've had a lot of variations over the years. The black on green with the purple backspacer looks so cool! I wish more companies would start doing their backspacers in an accent color.

The Axis lock is by far the funnest lock to play with. It doesn't cleanly close 100% percent of the time which is kind of annoying. A lot of the times the blade will bounce back out if you close it with too much force. I've had this issue on other Benchmades I've tried, so it's not just exclusive to this knife.

I don't personally like all the cut-outs on the handle either. That's mostly an issue of design taste. The ergos are kind of weird to me. It fits my entire hand, yet Benchmade stupidly decided not to round off the edges of the handles where they did the two cutouts. Every other edge is rounded except the ones in the middle for the cutouts. Why wouldn't they just round off every edge? It makes absolutely no sense to me. I was trying to get a picture of it but my camera wouldn't focus that close. My middle finger always gets jabbed by the squared off cutouts uncomfortably. The hotspots in the middle throw off the whole ergos for me. I've not heard anyone mention it before, so take that as you will. I'm not sure if the G10 version has the same issue. Again, these are all little details but they add up. There is a bit of jimping where your thumb would rest. I've never had an issue with this knife slipping out of my hand and haven't felt like I needed the jimping or any extra grip. It is nice that it's there.

This knife does carry phenomenally. It's super lightweight and is so slim that you barely notice it on you. If I was a bigger fan of the design, I'd probably enjoy carrying it quite a bit. The clip looks ugly to me, but that's only because I like Benchmade's split arrow clip more. It's tip-up for left and right hand carry. You wouldn't think you're carrying such a big knife considering the compact form factor.

These go for about $180, which I personally find to be a terrible value for what you're getting. Aluminum and S30V for that much is kind of crazy. So many new companies coming onto the knife scene, like Kizer and Steel Will, are doing better designs for way less. You're not paying for value when you buy a Benchmade though. You're buying for the higher class knife I suppose. I'm happy I didn't drop the money on one.

All in all, I did not fall in love with this knife like I thought I would. The size didn't match up to my tastes, the finish on the handles feels awful, the blade looks weird, the thumb studs are too close to the handle, the squared off edges on the cutouts suck in the hand, etc. There are some positives, like how well it carries and the color combo. For the money, I'd much rather buy a variety of $30 to $80 knives that will suit my tastes much better. I don't need the higher end finish/materials that come with these $150 plus knives. When compared to knives like the Ontario Rat 2, Spyderco Native 5, and even the Mini Grip, the 940 would be a loser for me as an EDC knife every time. If you like the design, check it out. Otherwise, I've found other knives that I enjoy using way more. It didn't stand up to all the insanely good hype it had. I personally would not recommend it, though that's not to say it's a completely awful knife. I'm bummed that it wasn't what I was expecting. Thanks for looking!