C136 Persistence

The Persistence is one of Spyderco’s models that is produced in China. It is the little brother of the C122 Tenacious which I covered in a review earlier. With a MSRP of $ 49.95 it is very affordable, yet offers decent quality for the relatively cheap price. Since the Tenacious and the Persistence are quite similar knives, I’ll keep this review rather short and concentrate on the differences between the two. For additional information (e.g. the steel used), please take a look at my review of the Tenacious.

The handle

The G-10 on the Persistence and the Tenacious appear to be of the same quality and despite of its slightly shorter handle the ergonomics Persistence are as good as the ergonomics of the Tenacious, but there are three main features that are different between these two knives: the construction, the position of the clip and the fit and finish.

Both knives feature a screwed construction with open spines. While the Tenacious has three spacers, the Persistence only has two (the lanyard tube not counted on both knives). This doesn’t mean that the Persistence has a weaker construction. Actually I am not sure if the third spacer on the Tenacious (near the lanyard tube) is really needed.

The position of the clip is slightly different between the two models. The Persistence has four mounting points for ambidextrous tip up/down carry, just like its bigger brother but the Tenacious will ride a tad deeper in the pocket when carried tip down and the Persistence when carried tip up because the threads for mounting the clip are located a little bit more towards the edge of the handle in these positions. The difference is only 7 mm (9/32“) so the majority won’t notice a big difference.

Fit and finish appears to be on the same level at the first glance but taking a closer look reveals that there are big differences. The G-10 scales of the Persistence are 1 mm (1/32“) thinner and look like they were finished with just a little more care than the ones found on the Tenacious, but that’s barely noticeable. When you take a look at the liners of both knives you’ll notice a big difference. The liners of the Tenacious look like they’ve been cut out and then treated in a tumbler to break the edges and polish the material. All edges of the Tenacious liners seem to be slightly rounded and between the smoothly polished corners you can see faint tool marks that have not been polished out completely.

The Persistence is totally different to that. All edges on the liners are well defined, nothing rounded off and the surface looks like it comes fresh from a very fine grit belt grinder.

I admit that this is a very subtle detail which does not influence the functionality of either knife but it adds class to the Persistence as well as making it look like there was much more tooling and attention involved than the Tenacious needed.

By the way, the liners of the Persistence are skeletonized, just like the ones on the Tenacious.

The shape of the handle resembles a smaller version of the Tenacious but not much smaller. The difference is only about 1 cm (3/8”) and hardly noticeable, but due to the smaller size handle, the Persistence appears to be more compact as it actually is. I think it is the perfect size for smaller hands unless you prefer slimmer profiled handles.

The blade

The blade is marked the same as the Tenacious with “Spyderco”; “8Cr13MoV” on the left side and simply “China” on the right side of the blade. Interestingly there is a big difference between the logos on the blades of these models. The “bug” on the Tenacious consists of many very small dots or dimples which are framed by a dark line. On the Persistence this dark outline is absent. Instead it is of the same “grey” colour as all of the tiny dots forming the “bug”. In my opinion the logo on the Tenacious looks better because it looks more defined and less fuzzy than the one on the Persistence.

The design of the blades is similar, but a tad shorter on the Persistence. From the handle to the tip it measures 7 cm (2 ¾”) which is 1.5 cm ( 5/8”) shorter than the blade of the Tenacious. Otherwise there’s no obvious difference between the two – the lock engages as it should, no bladeplay on my knife out of the box, etc. – so for the blade the same applies what I wrote in my Tenacious review.

My conclusion

The Persistence surely is an excellent knife for the money. I think you’ll have a hard time if you tried to find something of similar workmanship with a price tag like that.

Like the Tenacious, my Persistence did not have any noticeable bladeplay out of the box. Fit and finish are outstanding for a cheap “made in China” knife and even improved compared to the Tenacious.

I don’t like the same thing I already didn’t like on the Tenacious: the edge which goes all the way down to the handle. Maybe there will be a future budget Spyderco model with a choil?

To sum it up: definitely buy one. If you are sceptical about the quality of a “made in China”-Spyderco get one and you’ll be surprised how much knife you’ll get for the money. The Persistence would also make a nice as they definitely do not look cheap. Maybe the materials are not on par with the higher end Spyderco knives but the workmanship seems to be on about the same level.

More pictures…

Please watch the video below for some more pictures of the knife. By the way, the second (larger) knife in this video is the Tenacous for comparison…

Cheers, Rob

December 2009