This Benchmade 940-1 clone is about the closest imitation you can get to the real thing without being the real thing. If you are eyeing this design but you're hesitant to buy it due to the price (even the original 940, which is roughly $170), then this would be a great facsimile of the original. If you are looking to buy Ganzo Firebird's cheap imitation, the F7562, skip it in favor of this one.
If you're not biased against clones, go buy it. It's currently $57-$60 right now at the time of this publishing, and at that price, it's a total winner. Even when these were first introduced at around $80, it was still a great option. Buy it while they're still making it.
The fit and finish of this clone/counterfeit is very good by clone standards. The action doesn't come quite as smooth as a real Benchmade, but within a day, mine loosened up with a little bit of oil and elbow grease. Loosening the pivot also helped quite a bit, but loosening it too much created too much play and caused the blade to be off-center. It takes a little bit of back-and-forth to get it just right. Mine has a smooth action, and the blade is still centered, with just a hair of side-to-side play. It's forgivable; I might not have it perfectly tuned and more time will tell as I tinker with it.
The blade is easily the biggest tell that it is a clone/counterfeit and not the genuine article. It comes with a very nice polish as well as a stonewash. Personally, I prefer this type of blade finishing than just a satin, or worse, the very lazy-looking machine finish that is present on the BM940 and 940-1. I get it that S90V is really hard to work with and is difficult to get a good polish on, but leaving very coarse machining on the blade looks cheap, and unfinished.
As far as the blade material on the clone goes, the listing has it labeled as "D2." With my experience in many Chinese clones, it is either a steel that is D2-like, or 9Cr18MoV. If you are not familiar with 9Cr18MoV, it is a very cost-effective highly stainless steel that is somewhere in between 440C and 154CM. More stainless than 154CM, and less edge-retention, but not by much. It is certainly not S90V like the original 940-1, but at 1/4, almost 1/5 of the cost, the steel they have on it is sufficient.
After some light use in the kitchen, I can already see some staining present on the blade so this would tell me that the blade steel is similar to D2 in performance, as it does not have the stainless properties that 9Cr18MoV would have.
The carbon fiber scales are easily the best part of the 940-1 clone. It is definitely full slabs of carbon fiber, and not a laminate over G10. This makes the knife extremely light (2.5 oz.) where I feel that this knife excels at. It carries very nicely in the pocket, and I did not notice it throughout the day when carrying it. The carbon fiber is very rigid and does not flex when pressed together with my hands, something I wish the Benchmade 535 Bugout did not do, but that knife is in the ultralight category at 1.8 oz., which it arguably dominates in compared to other knives. There's also little to no texturing to the carbon fiber, so it is relatively smooth.
In terms of accuracy to the original, I'd say it's 90% of the way there. The grind needs to be slightly higher, the logo needs to be moved up and shrunk just a little bit. The machining on the scales needs to have a narrower middle section (middle section being the area that runs parallel to the clip). MesserHQ on YouTube has a very nice comparison video showing all of these differences in great detail. I would highly recommend that you go watch his video if you are in the market for a 940-1, genuine or counterfeit.
This knife is best served as a "high end EDC" utility blade/backup defensive knife, without actually being high end. This makes it a great user blade, where the original generally gravitates towards being a safe queen due to its very high cost. With that said, people who own the original can keep that in the safe and use the clone without sacrificing usability, ergonomics, aesthetics, and the status of ownership of the original.
As for being a defensive knife, it will work if pressed into that role, but I would look for something with a pointier blade profile and a longer blade to aid in thrust cutting. Blades under 4.5" should generally be used as slashers as there is not enough blade there to reach vital organs. The reverse tanto on this knife is also very wide at the tip, which doesn't make it a great penetrator.
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