I recently purchased a e306x to supplement my LM Charge Ti that is part of my EDC. I am almost exclusively in an urban environment, and have not tested the knife under adverse weather/outdoors situations yet. That said, I just thought I'd make a few observations:

(+) Reasonable price for a 154CM blade. ($80 at Gander Mountain)

(++) It uses the exact same bits as my Charge. Since I have the bit kit and carry it around with me, this is a huge value add for me.

(++) The bit driver works as advertised. Because of the bulk of the handle, it feels very comfortable when using the driver (about the same as a normal screwdriver), better than my Charge.

(neutral) There is no way to remove the built-in bit carrier (holds two extra double-sided bits), adding unnecessary (redundant) bulk. The reason I dont feel this is a completely negative point is that the added bulk makes the handle very comfortable in the hand; the handle is almost round.

(+++) The knife itself is excellent quality. The 154CM really is a great balanced steel. I don't quite understand the choice of a false edge, but it doesnt seem to weaken the knife strength too much vs. a traditional drop point.

(-) The thumb stud is right-hand-friendly only. It seems that LM chose to only put a right-hand thumb stud because of the location of the blade within the handle: It is not centered, because of the bit driver.

(neutral) The handle is partly polished aluminium and partly glass-filled nylon, and uses T8 posts on all sides. Its comfortable in the hand and looks nice. Strangely, it seems to "give" ever so slightly on all its joints. Not enough to be called loose, but its a little unnerving when you're cranking down on a screw and the handle feels a little sloppy. I have not observed any increase in this problem. (edit: Why did they use T8? The bit kit doesnt have this one.)

(neutral) The blade launcher is ambidextrous. It works as advertised most of the time. Occasionally, the blade will not fully deploy and lock in place, making the user complete the task manually. This is a real pain when you're using your left hand.

(-) No lanyard hole.

(++) The clip/bottle opener is super-handy. It folds away easily. I mostly carry the knife in the provided sheath (more on that later), but the few times I didn't have the sheath, the clip worked great.

(--) I was somewhat disappointed with the sheath. Its much larger than the knife. In the back, it has a slot to hold a LM Bit Kit, similar to the Wave and Charge sheaths, which is probably why its so large. The big disappointment is that if you do decide to carry the bit kit (I tried this both ways), you cant easily get the knife in and out of the sheath. The problem is especially aggravated since this is a thick knife and can be uncomfortable to carry in the pocket. This leads me to:

(+) The pocket clip works as advertised. Ordinarily, I would consider the tip-down carry to be a minus, but the placement of the fingers necessary to use the blade launcher makes it easier to deploy when grabbing from the pocket tip-down.

Conclusion: This knife is a solid choice for urban EDC, especially so if you already carry a LM Charge or Wave with a bit kit. Lefties and those more inclined to the great outdoors would probably be better off looking elsewhere, until they make the knife truly ambidextrous and add a lanyard hole.

I personally am eager to see what the next generation of LM knives will look like. Hopefully they iron out some of the quirks about this model.


Edited by kfulton (03/15/06 04:27 PM)