So, despite the lemon that Horn Dog seemed to have gotten, I stuck it out with my HEST Folder oder. Here it is!







First, mine is a smooth and easy opening folder. It locks up solid and is quite a stout knife for its size. My complaints are that the "fix" for the point being out of the handle when closed is a bit of a ghetto fix for such a pricey knife. They (I assume Lion Steel) simply ground the tang of the blade and left bare metal where they ground it. See here:



My other complaint is that the edge of the blade comes uncomfortably close to the back of the handle when closed:



I've scraped the tip of my finger once on the edge when picking the knife up off of my night stand.

Overall, I really like the knife, though. It has what I would call first production flaws. I'm sure they will work out the kinks in future runs. Also, based on customer service that I've seen, I'm sure they would take my knife back to at least address the nearly exposed edge when it is closed. However, I don't care to potentially send this knife to Italy to fix it. As long as I don't press my finger on the back of the handle when it's closed, I'll be fine.