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Gerber Sumo Pivot Lock Knife

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Gerber Sumo Pivot Lock Knife

Name: Gerber Sumo Pivot Lock Knife
Brand: Gerber
SKU: gerber-sumo-pivot-lock-knife
Price: 32 USD
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 3.448276 (29 reviews)

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Product Description

With a name like the Sumo, you knew this knife had to be big and powerful—and it is. Clocking in at 9 inches long and weighing 5 ounces, it’s designed for heavy-duty tasks Read More

Customer Reviews

3.4

(29 reviews)

(7)

(11)

(4)

(2)

(5)

58% would recommend to a friend

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Sort by: Top Reviews

lalbertson3

Jul 9, 2020

Verified Buyer

Great knife, great looking knife....my new EDC~

I was originally attracted to the overall look of this knife, regardless of the color scheme. As I already have a multitude of Black knives, I ordered the Grey/Blue combo and love it! Solid action, great feel in the hand and a big blade but as an EDC does not take up a lot of space. Love many of the Gerber products so I figured how bad could this specific knife be......I was not at all disappointed! Thanks Drop!!!

Recommends this product? Yes

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Eric.n.whalen

Feb 6, 2021

Verified Buyer

Very impressed...

This knife is larger and a bit heftier than I expected - which is great. It has an interesting form, which I've found great for outdoor applications: strong enough for heavy tasks, a nice blade shape for spearhead pokes but with good belly for kitchen slicing, and a slim handle - all of which makes it feel like a great cross between your favorite kitchen knife and your outdoor fixy. Again, I'm very impressed.

Recommends this product? Yes

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Runebob

Jun 25, 2020

Verified Buyer

Aside from the fact that I ordered a gray one and received a black one (hence minus 1 star), I like this knife. Sure it's not as beefy as my Sportsman which is a good thing as it weighs a ton, but it's constructed a lot better and will probably handle all the abuse I dished out for the Sportsman a lot better seeing as how I eventually loosened the pivot bin in the bolster. And really I am ok with the black one as it probably looks better anyway, it's just a little easier to maintain plain stone washed than black stone washed - just a tiny little bit. Obviously Gerber and I go back a long way so it pleases me to see a decent knife from them even if it is from China where most of their knifes have been coming from for years now anyway. That being said I am not fond of the belt clip, but just going to get a pouch for it and take it off. Another non-issue but a bit of a nit for me - you did read my over all thought's on this right so 50 plus the age my parents would allow me to have a badass Gerber Sportsman equals old fart - my oldish arthritic hands have a little difficulty holding the knife firmly (safely?) with just one of them while "pressing" the thumb studs to close the knife. I would have the same issue opening it, but since I just use the thumb hole like the one on my old trusty Gerber 450 E-Z-Out to open it - no problemo. Again a very minor nit. Oh I might order another one in hope of getting a "gray" one next time around. That shows how much I like it. Update. Wow! Much to my surprise (not really as the Sportsman is a big knife too) the Sumo fit the 50 year old Sportsman pouch after removing the clip, which also improved the ergo's as I suspected. And as far as the blade steel is concerned I am ok with a 440c equivalent. Shoot it's easier to say what knifes steels I don't have in my collection that what I do, and I don't really mind a blade that needs sharpened especially if it's easy to sharpen. For general use here on the coast of Florida I'd rather sharpen a knife that doesn't corrode than have to meticulously maintain - as well as sharpen - those that do, and believe me when I say I have enough of those already.

(Edited)

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Runebob

Jun 27, 2020

So I'll have to order the one I have to get the one I want???? Oh well as you said LOL!

brianr0518

Jun 29, 2020

RunebobI also received the wrong knife. Ordered black blade with red liners and received the other.

killertofu

Nov 20, 2020

Verified Buyer

overall happy

no dislikes roughly big knife in NYC so its legal and its gonna work if i need it to

Recommends this product? Yes

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reswright

3850

Jul 9, 2020

Verified Buyer

good design but compounded weaknesses

I have had this knife for a while and wanted to be reasonably sure of my opinion before posting it.

Context: I've been looking at budget brand axis lockers for years now and reviewed many of them elsewhere in the community. When I saw this Gerber knife there were a couple of reasons I wanted to pick it up -- to compare an American branded axis lock at this price point to all the Chinese branded ones I've seen, and to see if Gerber, having lost their way IMO for years and years, is showing any signs of turning things around with their latest wave of offerings. I am saying 'American branded' and 'Chinese branded' because we'd be out of luck if we wanted to compare American made and Chinese made axis lockers at this price point. Any $30-40 knife with an axis lock currently being manufactured in the world comes from China, and this knife is no exception. American manufactured axis lockers going bare bones, using inexpensive steels, polymer handles and stripped down subframes seem to still bottom out in the $90 range. So how's Gerber's budget offering stack up to the market, then? Well, it does have some things going for it. I like the chamfer a lot. The axis lock is pretty smooth. It's visually appealing. The stonewash is very even. The clip is comfortable to work with. The lanyard hole's nice and large.

The edge isn't honed but does slice up paper.

The finish is good and with one big exception that I'll get to in a second, the fit is also good:

The axis lock is okay, even though they said 'to hell with those omega springs' and cut up some safety pins to make their axis locker instead:

The lock itself is cheap but seems to work just fine. It's a little too close to the pivot given the huge heavy blade - a thicker diameter washer would have been nicer, but this close setup doesn't leave much room. So what's wrong with it, you might ask? Well, blade play out of the box. But that's something you can usually tune away and find a spot where it doesn't wobble at all but you've got a smooth deployment and with this knife your choices are 'too stiff' or 'somewhat stiff but also now wobbly'. That's a fundamental issue that arises because they chose bad materials to work with in order to make their price point and they cause a serious compromise in the finished quality of the piece'. Now, you might think I'm just being snobby about the 7Cr17MoV steel and I'm not. That's actually one of the better materials choices they made on the knife, along with the G-10. No, the materials choices I refer to are the screws, the liners, the pivot and the washers. For starters, the screws were awfully soft when I was disassembling the knife, and wanted to strip out. That's never good.

The liners? They are mystery metal coated with a ceramic, which could in theory mean many things but in practice always means they decided that coating non-stainless liners with ceramic was cheaper than going with stainless liners. So why's that a problem? The issue is that it's not smooth:

And they used cheap, thin diameter brass washers, not even phosphor bronze but brass. Which themselves are also fairly non-smooth:

So you have rough turning over rough, over a pivot that's frankly a little loose fit for the bore. That's Gerber NGAF three different ways. Will it break in? Unfortunately it's just as likely that the ceramic coating will start gouging up with time. So if you want this knife to stay safe as a pocket tool, it unfortunately has to be so stiff that you'll probably always need two hands to open it -- or else you'll need to deal with a little blade play. Is any of this surprising to me? Not really. But it's annoying because it's Gerber through and through, and that's just sad. Like, two cents more gets you phosphor bronze, and ten cents more gets you a stainless liner that you don't have to enamel, and even if you wanted to put the ceramic coating on the liner for looks, you can mask around the pivot like they obviously did around the axis lock, so it isn't fouling up the washers. Spend twenty five cents more on raw material and make a knife that makes it seem like you give a damn whether it's any good to use, know what I mean? Have a little pride. And I get it -- they're trying to hit a competitive price point. There's pressure to use economical materials. They do want to make some form of profit if at all possible, it's a business. I get all that. But whoever signed off on this really should have thought twice about the combination of cheapass thin brash washers and an irregular spraycoated metal liners and heavy thick blade with a bore that's kinda loose on the pivot and been like 'ok, that's too much'. Honestly the deployment's never ever been the best part about any Gerber knife I own, including the ones I like, but even given that, they should have seen this coming and fixed it. What I'm left with is two things: valuable information, and an axis locker that for all intents and purposes takes two hands to open and close unless I want to feel the blade wobbling around as I use it, which I do not. So it's kinda like a lockback. Edit: With some careful sanding and smoothing work on the washers and a dab of blue lube I was able to get this knife to a point where I can, with considerable effort, wrist flick it open one handed, without it showing blade play. Fair's fair -- I went from two stars to three - ok in my books. Be warned though that out of the box, your Sumo might also be a two star knife and require some fettling before it works right. Because of that, I still prolly wouldn't recommend it to a friend or to anyone who isn't comfortable taking apart and hand tuning a pocket knife. If that's what you like to do and you just like the size and shape of this and don't mind the other stuff, MB give it a whirl. It's not like it'll be an expensive project. But if you have $40 and just want an axis locker that you can do axis-locker things with like slow roll fidget opening and closing, this is not your jam.

(Edited)

Recommends this product? No

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Peccavi101

Aug 3, 2020

reswrightYou should copy this review and send it to Herber, or at least post it to one of their Social Media Platforms; 9t 8s well thought-out, and helpful for customers and maybe Shane's them into making some running production changes.

Matt57

Nov 16, 2020

reswrightThank You for a review above and beyond for this product.

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Clutch71

Jul 7, 2020

Verified Buyer

Shipped wrong item.

I ordered the plain blade, but received the black stonewashed version. I've sent multiple messages to customer support, and have only received back automated responses. It's been 2 weeks with no assistance or answers. From the other reviews written, it would seem many of us got the wrong knife. How is it possible to screw up that many orders? I'm a huge fan of Drop, but I'm terribly disappointed in how they messed this one up.

Recommends this product? No

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Clutch71

Nov 16, 2020

My review is about the company that sold me the knife, and the customer service I received. If you're too ignorant to see how that applies here, that's your issue. But I can tell you for sure that the review section isn't for petty people like you who have nothing constructive to offer.

Matt57

Nov 16, 2020

Clutch71I disagree 100%.

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GaryZero

Jul 4, 2020

Verified Buyer

Wrong knife was sent?!?

I ordered the black wash blade and received the opposite?!? I guess I’m forced to keep it because trying get a hold of customer service is slow. Is there a phone number, I couldn’t find it. I plan on reviewing the knife but I’m still thinking about it. I definitely don’t like the version I got. 😕

Recommends this product? No

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Matt57

Nov 16, 2020

GaryZero, you have failed again.

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Matt57

Nov 16, 2020

One emoji is all that is necessary

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pkopischke

Jul 2, 2020

Verified Buyer

Shipped the wrong item. Ordered the Backwashed blade received the Blue version........

2 Months waiting for the wrong item to be delivered. WTF? Done with Mass Drop!

Recommends this product? No

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Matt57

Nov 16, 2020

pkopischkeNobody Cares, take your comments elsewhere. You have failed this review forum.

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NSX1

Dec 25, 2020

Verified Buyer

Sent the wrong one

Contacted customer service and explained i was sent the wrong color/style. If you are going to send customers anything then why have options? This was supposed to be a present so major fail on that front. Was told they get “limited” amount of “said” color and style, so they i guess send you colors/styles that are left over...(This should be apparent before they take requests for the batch/lot) Maybe hire a QC guy or 2 to alleviate this issue? Price wont even matter if you aren't even reliable as to ship what was actually selected. I didn't choose “any knife will do” thanks!

Recommends this product? No

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Tristan198

Dec 26, 2020

NSX1U sound like a arrogant ass hole who would call the manager on someone for no reason like for fuck sakes shit happens the color way doesn’t matter that much and u can just refund the thing try working retail for a week then come back and complain

NSX1

Jun 10, 2021

NSX1This was the 3rd time and my first time reaponding not the first time it happened. I don't tattle tale on people if thats your impression it doesn't produce results ... You seem like the guy who orders a burger but just happily eats their chicken sandwich... next time you respond how about have a solution instead of just jumping on stage

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edward.kupczak

Dec 23, 2020

Verified Buyer

This Drop mob is an absolute joke

This is the second time i have ordered the grey version of this knife and this is the second time i have received the black version of this knife. I can only think that Drop is completely hopeless at getting their orders right, i could forgive the first time but not the second time. I have demanded from Drop that they send me the version of knife that i ordered or that they give me a full refund. I will be interested to see how Drop tries to worm their way out of this latest balls up

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NSX1

This was the 3rd time and my first time reaponding not the first time it happened. I don't tattle tale on people if thats your impression it doesn't produce results ... You seem like the guy who orders a burger but just happily eats their chicken sandwich... next time you respond how about have a solution instead of just jumping on stage

suzqt

Sigh, wanted so badly to love this cutter, so many good things to love about the design. If gerber ever got it's shit together (for like actual 50ish or so usd), in say just 9cr & fixed the lock & action this would be great. Bump that to cpm-d2, 1095 cv or n690 this would prolly be a best seller. Too many probs, too many cut corners in the present iteration. Shame

Tristan198

U sound like a arrogant ass hole who would call the manager on someone for no reason like for fuck sakes shit happens the color way doesn’t matter that much and u can just refund the thing try working retail for a week then come back and complain