Originally Posted by
kenshinvt
Ah, ok, I was wondering if you meant horizontal when you said "old-school" earlier. That makes sense, and I think Sheldon Brown also argues that the move to vertical (and safety tabs) made the move to external cams possible. Regardless, that seems to be an argument against all external cam skewers in general and not the KCNC ones in particular.
The KCNC axle nuts are aluminum I believe. That's why they don't grip as well. If you have a modern CF bike and don't weigh 300 lbs they should work fine.
They are fine on my CF bike but dinky skewers on a steel, horizontal dropout do not play nice.