I am not a fan of autos. Never have been. They are heavier than manual action folders of the same size. The B/H ratios are always wonky. They are unnecessarily complex with many more fail points. OFTs have fully enclosed handles that make them poor choices for food and fire prep tasks. They aren’t discrete and attract a lot of unwanted attention. They tend to be more expensive than similarly sized manual folders. Most of them have pretty sad amounts of blade play. And they have lots of legal complications (see here). But…

AUTOS

ARE

COOL.

They are so much fun. There is nothing as cool snapping opening and closed a double action auto. For years I have basically ignored them because Massachusetts, my home state, had a ban on them. I could get them in NH, where I work, but I would leave them there. It wasn’t particularly fun. Then Commonwealth v. Canjura happened and now I can carry autos. Don’t expect a ton of them for all the reasons listed above, but there will be more.

Here is the product page. The Axial Shift costs $249. There are no written reviews. Here is a video review.

Finally, here is my review sample:

Quick Review Summary: A competitively priced knife in a market that is about to explode.

NOTE: While the review of this knife was pending, Microtech announced ZBT or Zero Blade Tolerance versions of knives. For a long time, the very expensive Hawk Deadlock Autos (currently on Model C) was the only auto with no blade play. With the announcement of ZBT at much lower price point, I think it is fair to say that the standard for fit and finish in autos as changed. Rarely do we see such a big leap all at once, but it happened between when this knife arrived and when this review was completed. As a result, this would have been a 2 in Fit and Finish at its arrival and it is now a 1. Prepare for more innovation in the auto knife space as legal restrictions fall.

Design: 1

While you can do some things on the margins because of the design of an OTF, you basically have the same form factor. I guess there is a choice about side-mounted slider or not, but really that is about it. For a candy bar, the Axial Shift is pretty good—thin, well chamfered, and compact. I will point out that it is a little big for the blade. Some of the best OFTs seem to have a blade just as wide as the handle itself. I like that look, even though I know it is an optical illusion. The inverse, where the handle is substantially larger than the blade, strikes me as a bit wasteful or imprecise. I know that’s not true, but I really dislike the look of a big handle and a tiny blade and there is a bit of that going on here.

Fit and Finish: 1

Well, I have never had this happen before, but the market has changed and while I would not deduct a point a year ago or even six months ago, when innovation happens, we have to recognize it. If you come to autos from manuals you will find this amount of blade play irksome. Now that you can get autos that don’t have blade play for relatively sane prices, the Shift is going to take a hit. The rest of the knife is superb with clean machining, perfect symmetry, and loads of excellent embellishments and touches that tell you the folks making this really care.

Grip: 2

Boxes aren’t grippy, so you have to do a lot to get an OFT to be good. Of course, this is scaled to the knife—don’t mistake this for a fixed blade or even a good manual folder—its a TV remote with jimping, not a Loveless DPH. In that context though, the Shift is actually pretty good. The chamfering makes the knife feel very, very stable even though, at its heart it is a smooth square and flat piece of titanium.

Carry: 2

What the form factor loses in grip, it makes up for in carry and like almost all OTFs this knife is great in the pocket. It stays put, stays out of the way, and really feels like it is much smaller than it is. I also think the slim slider on the side makes the knife feel more uniform in the pocket, which is why I prefer side-mounted sliders to face-mounted ones. There is no weird hump on an otherwise perfectly rectilinear form.

Steel: 2

Magnacut. Keep moving. These aren’t the droids you are looking to criticize.

Blade Shape: 2

This blade shape is fine, a drop point with a swedge. It looks good and has none of the hassle a dagger blade shape does, which strikes me as the stupidest of the blade shapes and is made possible only by the OFT’s form factor. As a feat of skill, I love the dagger shape. As a person that generally avoids trying to stab living things, I think it is stupid. But this is not a dagger blade shape.

Grind: 0

After the 2024 holidays passed, I had a massive pile of cardboard boxes for knife testing. Three hours later I was certain that the Shift’s grind was one of the worst I have ever used. We know it’s not the steel, because Magnacut is the balls. I assume the heat treat protocols were followed. The blade stock is quite thin. What’s the problem then? When stacked up against nine other (here is the list of knives: the TRM N2, the TRM Bulldog, the Spyderco Dragonfly 2 in 20CV, the small Chris Reeve Sebenza 31 in S45VN, the Civivi Yonder, the QSP Canary, the Kizer Nice Guy, the CJRB Mini Pyrite, and the AG Russell Gent’s Lockback) knives pending review, it was clear that the Shift’s grind literally couldn’t cut it. Without saying a word, when my nine year old tried out the stack of knives he too immediately agreed the Shift was notably bad. I think it probably has something to do with the Shift’s short blade height (necessary to tuck the knife into the handle completely) and the fact that the grind ends halfway up that already short blade. I discovered something similar last year when using the Benchmade 945. This does contribute to my suspicion that a lot of these OFT switchblades are more novelties than real tools.

Deployment Method: 2

This is the whole reasont to by an auto and this OFT delivers that thwack that knife knuts love. If there were knife ASMR the deployment of an auto would be a staple. Unlike cheaper autos this has never failed to fire and never snagged on deployment. If anything sets “real” autos apart from the flea market trash it is the smooth and snappy deployment that remains so over time. This aspect of the knife is what makes all of the other compromises worth it. THWACK!

Retention Method: 2

This is a very good clip. It deep carries, it is secure, and it causes no hotspots. Its pretty basic looking, but after a few months carry and use I think it might be one of my favorite sculpted clips.

Lock: 2

I decided to take off points for the blade play in Fit and Finish because despite it being a bit of a splinter in the eye for a folder guy, the blade play has yet to cause a lock up issue. The Shift is dead solid in lock up and has never slipped even a bit over the months have used it. And I haven’t babied the knife, using it in the Cutting Olympics post-Christmas and outside doing end of the season yard chores.

Other Considerations

Fidget Factor: Peak

This is literally why you bother with an auto in the first place.

Fett Effect: High

The steel with the blackwash blade and the ano handle means that this thing will accept dings and wear and look all the better for it.

Value: High

Given the market, this is clearly the best value out there, even if it is not quite the bleeding edge of auto design.

Overall Score: 16 of 20

While autos are cool, I am not smitten with OFTs. There are too many compromises to make them work. Think of this way—the perfect pocket knife would be a BK16 that folded down to the size of a Dragonfly 2. That handle, that blade size, the stout design—that would be great. But we can’t do that given the dictates of physics. So we have folders that are compromises—smaller blades, worse handles, and capable of folding up into a pocket. Folders are fundamentally compromised. And OFTs are one step beyond them in terms of design compromises. Now everything has to fit into an object shaped like a TV remote. At some point I don’t think the compromises are worth it. So here is the question—has the Axial Shift crossed that line and become not worth it? I don’t think so. The best OFTs are above the line of compromise, but the decision to not go with a taller blade or a FFG grind means that this version of the Shift, even with all the compromises required to make something an OFT, isn’t as good as it could be.

All that said, given the OFT market and the price of the Shift, this is a very good value. With an FFG blade, I could easily see this being a real winner. As implemented here, it leaves a bit on the table. It is still well made and awesomely cool, but it is less practical than I want. I get that my tastes veer deep into practicality, so for folks less focused on those things, of which there are a lot given the state of the IKC on IG, this knife will serve you well busting open Amazon boxes and the like.

Competition

The Shift has some really, really stiff competition—the Microtech Ultratech, the Benchmade Infidel, and the Kershaw Livewire are storied knives with large fan clubs. I have handled each, some for extended periods. A ZBT Ultratech is better, no doubt. It is probably a large enough margin better to offset the roughly $200 price difference. The other knives though, don’t fair so well in the comp. The Infidel and the Livewire are about the same, and this knife is roughly $100 less than either of those and it has better blade steel than the Infidel. This is probably the best auto on the market that has blade play given that it is all that those other knives are, but at a significantly lower price. Now if we had a slicier blade, the Shift would be heads and shoulders better than the non-Microtech knives.

I still prefer a folder and at this price there is a bevy of outstanding options (here are some: TRM N2, Kershaw Bel Air, Protech Malibu, Giant Mouse Riv, Bridgeport Knife Co 395 v2) that I would always take over the Shift, but if you need (want) an OFT and don’t want to spend a fortune on it, this is the best choice out there.

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