Reddit mentions of MTech USA MT-A882CH Spring Assist Folding Knife, Silver Blade, Black Handle, 3-Inch Closed

The $8US Mtech MT-A882 is clearly a budget friendly “tribute” to the Kershaw Shuffle. Mtech took a great concept that was poorly executed and made an honest attempt to improve it. The partially succeeded, but in the end it is really not much better of a knife, and in fact has a fatal flaw.



The MT-A882 is a small knife, with 2.75” of blade and a 3” closed length. It features include a fantastic cap lifter, assisted opening, and a solid frame lock. The best news here is that Mtech is getting very close to make real “non gas station trash” folding knives. For $8US shipped from Amazon this is very close to a good buy, if you ignore the major flaw I will get into latter on. The assisted opening is great, in fact it works almost identically to Kershaw's speed safe. Fit and finish is mostly fine if you ignore some grind marks and anything inside the blade scales. You can see the grind marks on the frame lock in the photo's, they are at least even throughout and give the knife a look of texture rather than an impression of needing finishing work. The cap lifter on the back is one of the best I have on any of my EDC gadgets, its a brute and whisks caps off with almost no effort. The texture on the plastic scale is great as well. Gimping on the body of the knife is also perfect grippy holding the hand, but not irritating the skin. The tip down pocket clip also helps this little knife behave in the pocket. I strongly prefer tip up carry, but the bottle opener and lanyard hole/ice breaker would dig into your hand as you reach into your pocket, so here tip down is the optimal orientation. Another nice touch is a custom pivot screw, it still uses a standard torx bit though, so good on Mtech for adding this is a nice little touch. Blade steel is vanilla 440 stainless, I'm not a steel snob, but this is generally below my threshold. The good news is that the heat treat seems well done and the steel is not overly soft particularly for the price point.



At the $8 price point there are as expected plenty of faults. First and most unforgivable is that the blade grind was so poorly done that the knife would barely and I mean barely cut paper. I was not expecting a scary sharp ninja light saber for $8, but it was clearly below the threshold of “useful tool”. The bevel was set at some ridiculously obtuse angle, god knows what it was, but I've never seen a grind at this angle. Ironically, as you can see in the photo's that the grind was well polished. The grind itself was much less coarse than most any of my other more expensive knives. I was a bit confused as to why they put so much effort into a legitimately good and legitimately labor intensive polishing process, and put so little effort into the original bevel. It took some real work on my 200 grit diamond stone to get a proper bevel on the knife, but even at 200 grit the knife cut much better than with the original factory polish. The good news is that the steel is not exceptionally soft. The heat treat stood up to some aggressive grinding, and I would assume will hold an edge acceptably well. I enjoy sharpening knives, so for me a dull edge is not a deal breaker, but I assume that for the general buyer of $8 folding knives a dull blade ends the lifetime of the knife.



The pocket clip is mostly deep carry, but it is huge and a darker finish than the rest of the near mirror polish found on the other components. It's minor, but it's just plain odd. Fit and finish inside the scales is very rough, but for the price point I never expect anything more. Blade centering is a little bit off, and the gimping on the back of the blade is only cosmetic. The gimping on the body of the knife is so well done, I'm shocked how poor it is on the blade itself. The ergonomics of a 3 finger grip are just fine, but the knife is screaming out for a real finger choil up front, so you could choke up to a full 4 finger grip as available on the original Shuffle. I may do some Dremel work in the future to expand the existing “sharpening choil” into a full “finger choil”. Finally my other real concern is that the black finish on the metal frame lock is just junk paint that is already chipping off after a couple days.



For $8 none of the faults are knife killers aside from the sharpness issue, but with the condition of the cutting edge out of the box I DO NOT recommend this knife. I'm very pleased at how much the quality of Mtech knives has improved over the past couple years though. Maybe with a little more time they will be worth buying, but they are not quite there. Plus, their design are always just a little off. The almost elusive use of tip down carry and one or two strikingly poor design choices per knife keep me away from them, but there is clearly movement in the right direction. The MT-A882 in fact the first Mtech folder designed interesting enough to catch my attention. It almost represents an improvement on the original Kershaw Shuffle, but it ultimately falls on its face. This is crap imitating crap threw and threw.

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EDIT** I Dremeled out a finger choil on the Mtech MT-A882 and it is in fact better now. I may need to make it a touch longer, but for now fits the human hand much better.