Crossbar Lock Knives

The Crossbar Lock, or just the Bar Lock, has taken the knife world by storm. It originated from knifemakers Bill McHenry and Jason Williams, who sold it to Benchmade. Benchmade named it the AXIS Lock and popularized it, but in 2018, the patent for the AXIS Lock expired. Now many knife companies use the technology under a unique name with a unique twist. There is the XR Lock from SOG, the ABLE Lock from Hogue, the Clutch Lock from Kizer, the XT Lock from KUNWU, the A-Lock from Acta Non Verba, and the DuraLock from Kershaw. We also consider slightly different locks like Spyderco's Ball Bearing Lock and Microtech's Ram-Lok a Crossbar Lock as well. Plenty of other companies, like Gerber and Bestech, and The James Brand, use Crossbar Locks on their knives under more generic names like Slide Lock and Pivot Lock. With so many names and so many brands, things started getting confusing, so the knife community came together and lumped these virtually identical locking mechanisms under one name: the Crossbar Lock. So thank Bill McHenry, Jason Williams, and Benchmade, and enjoy this highly functional and accessible system.

If you want to learn more about Crossbar Locks, check out our Crossbar Lock Knives blog article. We list some of our top knife picks for each lock type!