Anyone else have QC issues with any CRKT M Series EDC's?

POCEH KOCEB said:
I don’t think it’s some Chinese conspiracy
Click to expand...

POCEH KOCEB said:
Chinese for not offering the same manufacturing conditions they have for their own companies. CRKT makes profit to its satisfactory on the US market, but with the low quality of their Chinese product, they open up the door for the other Chinese companies that sell better product, with better materials on the same market and for the same price… And, without being political or conspirative - both manufacturing processes in China are in fact controlled by the Communist Government
Click to expand...
Click to expand...


It kinda sounds like you do think it's some Chinese conspiracy, and that the various manufacturers are all very much engaged in market manipulation to specifically make American companies look worse by comparison.
 
Last edited:
I got one of the M21 models in early 2021. I like it because it effectively has a hilt. I don't like it because the steel handle is too slippery. It flips open and also closes well since I removed the stupid red safety thing. AUS-8 is not great, but I have never had any trouble with it, and the price is reasonable. If you cut stuff all day, then sure, you should get better steel.
 
JBC6650 said:
CRKT is like KelTec, lots of cool designs and promises but a long history of subpar materials and quality control. They throw out a winner every now and then but overall they are a disappointment...
Click to expand...

^ This is an excellent comparison.

POCEH KOCEB said:
... I’m wondering how the Chinese can produce quality lines as WE and Civivi with decent QC and for some reason their American orders have the CRKT quality… It must be the CRKT QC, located in US and not the Chinese manufacturers…
So probably that’s why 10 years ago US made M16 didn’t have issues, I think, but of course I could be wrong… 😂
Click to expand...

Like anywhere else, there are different companies and manufacturers in China. Some are better than others. As you suggest, some are also working to different standards than others. Is it possible that the CRKT stuff with X materials and Y level of fit and finish are made just one conveyor belt over from better stuff? Sure. It's possible. After all, companies like CRKT, Kershaw, Gerber, etc. don't reveal which Chinese manufacturers are doing their manufacturing. (For all we know, it could be Ganzo.)

Notice that some companies who are having knives made by more reputable manufacturers aren't so shy. For instance, Ferrum Forge has knives made by WE and Olight's knives are made by Kizer.

SteveTQP said:
Excellent info...thank you! I've since found that the Kizer Junge and the HARNDS Maverick are much better in terms of ease of deployment, blade sharpness (N690 and D2 respectively), and seem very well-built, albeit a bit heavier than the M Series that I had.
Click to expand...

Weight depends on the knife. When it comes to overall manufacturing quality, materials for the price, etc.; CRKT continues to fall further behind with each passing year.

Harnds is a good example of a company keeping up. For instance, the Harnds Talisman was a great value years back. It had a smooth drop-shut action, great ergonomics, and a decent AUS-8 blade for like $35. Well, the market has evolved. Companies like Civivi have pushed the limits since then. So they could have fallen behind, stuck to the same materials, or just raised the price without improvement. They didn't. Sometime in the last year or so, Harnds listened to the fans and upgraded the Talisman to 14C28N.

I'm generally a fan of Kizer. Also check out the Civivi and Sencut knives from WE.
 
CRKT’s are hit or miss. I like a few as novelty items (the takedown feature, or the massive jumbones knife), but the sun has set on my long term interest in them. I may try out the deadbolt M-16 knife at some point… but I’d steer you toward CIVIVI. If it’s going to be made in China, go with a Chinese company with a reputation for quality.
 
DocJD said:
I got a good deal on a M21-140SGF .

Mainly got it to try out the Veff serrations .

Flips out OK , Auto -LAWKS is somewhat awkward but works OK for what it is .

But when I went to try out the Veff on some medium thick plastic bottles , the edges just folded over like nothing I want on a supposed hard use , military grade folder .

Crappy steel / HT or burnt edges , whatever the cause ...a huge disappointment for this type of knife .

Click to expand...
I thought it was just me! I bought one back in college and had never used the serrations, then one day noticed the serrations were bent over. Still don’t know how that happened without any use
 
POCEH KOCEB said:
Oh, I agree, I don’t think it’s some Chinese conspiracy. I’m sure it’s all tied up with contracts and so on.
I could be wrong of course but thinking out loud - the cost of the product suits CRKT, they accept the level of quality associated with the manufacturing price.
On the other hand It’s just amazing to me how the Chinese can manufacture a shitty product for CRKT for $30 and in the same time to do much better quality level for itself and produce a better knife with better materials for the same price… I’m sure the profit margins are relatively the same.
To me both parties are guilty in some way-CRKT for putting up crappy contracts and Chinese for not offering the same manufacturing conditions they have for their own companies. CRKT makes profit to its satisfactory on the US market, but with the low quality of their Chinese product, they open up the door for the other Chinese companies that sell better product, with better materials on the same market and for the same price… And, without being political or conspirative - both manufacturing processes in China are in fact controlled by the Communist Government, what do you think about it ?
Click to expand...

The build quality is a conscious choice by the brands.
CRKT does not make (most of) their knives for us. They make them for all the "normies". People shopping at the big box department and hardware stores who can find a way to justify adding that cool looking pocket knife for under $50 to their order. A knife that most of us here would scoff at as a ripoff, knowing what it's made of.
There are WAY more of those normies than there are enthusiasts who "know better". Millions more.
There is a reason Gerber and Schrade are still around. The average customer has no interest in spending what it costs to own what we forumites would call a decent knife.

CRKT is selling the exact type of knife to the exact type of person that they are aiming for. They are going for quantity over quality, and it works.
 
Last edited:
NG VI said:
It kinda sounds like you do think it's some Chinese conspiracy, and that the various manufacturers are all very much engaged in market manipulation to specifically make American companies look worse by comparison.
Click to expand...
It’s kinda not really and I’ll explain. Not sure if applies to you but for the born in US Americans it will probably sound as conspiracy. To me this is a Party line. See, I,lived for 32 years in Socialist Bulgaria, everything in the country was controlled by the Communist Parti, literally everything. In 1983 I worked in a place manufacturing medical equipment.
We executed orders for big German X-ray manufacturer, production was shipped to South Asia countries and some African countries. At the end of the month, this German rep will come, run some tests on the ready machines, slap some stickers “Made in Germany” and we will ship some units to Africa and some to Asia.
‘African production had a list with operations we didn’t have to do, mostly cosmetic stuff like chamfering holes and cleaning some stuff from the back,of the plastic shells of the machine. Nothing really that will affect the work on the machine, but will cut the labor charge. Germans were still selling the machines to the African market for the same or sometimes higher price. This whole factory was under the umbrella of the Communist party government leaders, everything was under their control.
Im pretty sure, the Chinese situation isn’t “conspiracy” per say…. it’s just the way they treat all outside companies, that’s it. They execute only and only whatever CRKT in this case arranged and didn’t offer any extra effort for additional $$ or maybe they did, but CRKT did‘t purchase it.
in this respect, and maybe connected to the issue, I totally agree with NorthernSouthpaw NorthernSouthpaw post above, to me this is the reason CRKT doesn’t opted for better quality. But again, the fact that the Chinese will manufacture a better knife, with better materials and for the same price,talks to itself. I’d think that this will be selling point to lots of Western companies if offered, did they do it in CRKT case ? I don’t know and I’m not really interested, but call it conspiracy or not, coming from a Soc country I can tell you that this is very close to the party line I observed for years - two standards, one for your quality, and one for the foreigners…
 
O
SteveTQP said:
Greetings and Happy 2022~ had the CRKT M16-02KS model, and was quite pleased with the weight, size, and ergos...However, try as I might, I could not get the blade to deploy fully, unless I accompanied the finger flick with a simultaneous hard wrist flick. That said, two excellent flippers that actually do deploy easily and reliably are the HARNDS Maverick (D2) and the Kizer Junge (N690). Both are extremely sharp out-of-box, well centered blade, very solid, robust, and most reliable for EDC use. I'd like to try another CRKT M Series EDC, but obviously a bit leery of QC issues, at least with the M (16, 21) Series. Thank you.
Click to expand...
Return it to CRKT. Others have stated they will readily replace defective knives.
 
20220108_205108.jpg

out of curiousity, since I do t have any modern made ones...... I grabbed this m16-04z.

it flips open fine. no effort there. locks up fine. no blade play in any direction. description said made in Taiwan and aus 8. dont know if thats true or not. doesn't matter though.. it was cheap enough.

edges came sharp. not too bad. there is some cosmetic flaws though. if ya look at pic the zytel scale is not punched out in two places. pic shows one okay by the pocket clip. other is at the butt of the knife. on other side only the butt end is not punched out weirdly. so im assuming they were supposed to be punched out. as all the other scales holes were, but these three and dont match side to side.

so for the under 50 bucks I paid i dont find it to be a bad deal at all. it wouldn't stop me from buying another m16 model, if I wanted one. I'm hoping the deadbolt one will be well made....we'll see.
 
DocJD said:
With other defective knives ? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

People who have reported on CRKT service were satisfied.

I have two CRKT and have had no problems except I lost my Nealy :( My Eros is equal to CRK in quality, but that’s one of their premium knives.
 
brownshoe said:
People who have reported on CRKT service were satisfied.

I have two CRKT and have had no problems except I lost my Nealy :( My Eros is equal to CRK in quality, but that’s one of their premium knives.
Click to expand...
I've never tried one of their "premium knives" , so I can't honestly say they aren't done better .

I prefer , however , to deal with companies that I don't ever expect to have to rely on their customer service to correct problem products . :cool:
 
DocJD said:
I've never tried one of their "premium knives" , so I can't honestly say they aren't done better .

I prefer , however , to deal with companies that I don't ever expect to have to rely on their customer service to correct problem products . :cool:
Click to expand...

Then I’d suggest not buying Cold Steel, Benchmade, Spyderco, Case, William Henry and CRK. All of them have had to honor their warranty on knives I bought. One company had to fix it twice.
 
brownshoe said:
Then I’d suggest not buying Cold Steel, Benchmade, Spyderco, Case, William Henry and CRK. All of them have had to honor their warranty on knives I bought. One company had to fix it twice.
Click to expand...

I think the point was more about how likely you'd be to need customer service. Unfortunately, it's a fact of life. Sometimes, there are issues. Sometimes, you need replacement hardware. I've had to contact several companies over the years. I've needed a few torsion bars from Kershaw. I needed a new washer from Kizer. I've needed replacement screws from Spyderco.

Issues like extremely weak detents, light lock-up, messed up blade grinds, material defects, or generally anything I can't easily fix on my own will result in a knife being sent back via the retailer. I've had that happen with knives from various companies. The replacement is usually fine but in the case of a train wreck, I'll just get a refund.

QC encompasses both how often a problem leaves the factory and the average fit and finish on everything else. I haven't purchased a new CRKT since the Ruger LCK was released. It was an instant return. It would have made a nice companion for my LCR if it wasn't a piece of junk, but it was. It was the last in a long line of disappointments from CRKT. I'd gotten too many problems that had to go back. Fit and finish was never great on the ones I kept. Add to that my contemporaneous thread about the high prices versus subpar materials on the new models for 2022... They might be fine for the average Walmart shopper who doesn't know better. As an enthusiast who does, the wasted potential makes me sad.
 
Glad I stumbled on this thread, interesting discussions about a brand which I only discovered recently.

I was also interested in the M16... I'm less ready to try my luck now.
Could you guys recommend other knives that are roughly equivalent in style and in price ?

For instance, I found the Civivi Perf which goes for 75€ in my neck of the woods :

C20006-A-Civivi-Perf-C20006-A_220x220.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top