maybe, do to balance in the knife they used a slightly lighter weight spring.???? or if the blade is smaller in weight it would not need as strong a spring to deploy it, ie it's thinner.

Apparently the problem with the spring-assist is not just a fluke.

Since I am considering getting a 580 or 585. I was looking for comments in the forums.
The number of reports of failure here and in the Automatic & Spring Assist Forum was troubling. After trying to find more info by other routes I called BM yesterday (7/15). The person I talked to did acknowledge there was a known problem with the springs and the problem had been corrected. Anything shipping from BM currently should be fine. 580/5s from any dealer who turns his stock rapidly should also be fine.
Now I guess I'll wait awhile and see if there are many more reports of problems.

Hopefully anyone who has problems with recently shipped items will let us know.

Thanks for the update Owl45. Now that new springs are available, I'll start using mine again with wreckless abandon.

I picked up a used 585 on a whim from the "for sale" section. The thing had hardly been used from the looks of it (Thanks 44Magpie!!!) and ever since I got it I've been fireing away. Partly due to my nervious hands and partly becuase the thing is pretty cool. No issues yet. It looked like, from the box, that it was new stock and wasn't marked first production or anything. If I have issues, I'll report.

we had a 580SBK come back, it was a little gritty and slow, then it started being INCREDIBLY hard for the first third and being very reluctant to go the last 2/3rds. then the snap and it WEDGED CLOSED. not EVEN just a regular assited opener.

no problems with ANY of the 615-2s we've moved.

Benchmade DID say i could send in ALL my Barrages for upgrade to the new (and corrected)springs.

quote:

Originally posted by DEXIX_five-oh:

Benchmade DID say i could send in ALL my Barrages for upgrade to the new (and corrected)springs.

That certainly speaks well for how they treat their dealers.

Did you happen to ask what date they started using the new spings?

I forgot to ask that. I was so impressed they admitted to the problme I got distracted.

So it's only been two weeks or so since I got my 585, second hand, and I've been flicking the shhhh out of it. Still going strong. Fun little blade. My Dad dug it too, so much so he tried to trade me his D2 Cabela mini-grip for it.

As said I love the 585. It gets a lot of pocket time with the small blade and smooth delivery, and it's just plain fun to use. The 580 gets less time, but I've flicked away for a couple of weeks now and it has not failed yet.

so, as i told before, the spring broke on my 580 ... i sent it to benchmade. it came back 2 weeks ago ... i opened it 3 times then the blade didn't stay locked in the closed position anymore ... i tryed to fix it, but no way ... finally, i took off the new spring and have now a non-assisted barage, which is as good as any axis-lock ... i use it quite often for hard works

My 585 is holding well, it's been my EDC for the past few months but my 580 broke down few weeks after I bought it
I never actually used it, it simply broke down after I opened it a dozen times and the blade does not open anymore and it does not stay locked in the closed position, just like yours. Since I live in Europe, sending it back to Benchmade would be really complicated and expensive (custom fees... ). Besides the 585 and the 580, I have several Benchmade knives (520, 522, 525, 527, 710, 723, 950), all of them excellent knives that never let me down although some of them have seen hard use. I suppose I've just been unlucky. It's a pity because I would love to use the 580 which is a fine knive but I probably won't buy another one since this AO spring seems to be highly unreliable. Nevertheless, it works perfectly as far as its small brother is concerned, I've never had any problem with the 585 that I use almost on a daily basis.
Converting the 580 to a non-assisted axis-lock seems like a great idea and it would give me the opportunity to use this knife. How exactly did you remove the spring? I would be very grateful if you could give me an advice!

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