Are Puma Knives Any Good?

I

IAFF318

Joined
May 19, 2006
Messages
70
My uncle has an old puma Bowie, Soliengen steel Germany I think. Full tang with a lanyard hole in the handle that a leather strap goes through to hold it in the sheath. And a nice looking sheath.

I have seen them in mags and online latley. I really liked the look and feel of the knife, He got it as a present about 30 years ago, I guess if they have been around that long they can't bee all bad.

I have seen them for under $100, sometimes under $80.

Any opinions, I have a birthday coming up and was wondering if it would make a good gift to get myself.

Thanks:)
 
The old one is probably carbon steel & made in Germany. The new ones are mostly stainless & made in Argentina I've heard. You should do a search here...
 
I had a Puma folding lockback ~ 30-35 years ago that was an outstanding pocket knife. Good quality, rock solid lock, sharp, etc. It was German made & fairly expensive for the times. I sold my Buck #110 after I'd had the Puma for a little while.
As stated in the above post I don't think many (if any) are made in Germany anymore & they're mostly cheap stainless. Buyer beware!
 
thanks for the help. I ran into an old topic about them here and it pretty much said the same. Its a shame some makers go in for the dollar instead of quality. There have been alot of knives I loved as akid that I couldnt wait to get when I had a job. And now that I have the money to get them they are all made with cheaper material and are put together with a low QC. Gerber comes to mind.
 
A 30+ year old Puma Bowie is quality work. Too bad their current production has gone downhill.
 
Puma still makes many of its knives in Germany. There are lower priced lines made in other countries but they are clearly marked as such. Steel may have changed to more affordable stuff better suited to modern production techniques and the stag is not was available 30 years ago but I think it is incorrect to write these knives off as being of poor quality. I have old and new Pumas, all Solingen made. My recently made Bowie is not as nice as my older version but it is a lot easier to sharpen and doesn't really trade anything off in terms of actual usage.

I remember an incident in the 1970s where a friend unsheathed a beautiful stag gripped Puma Hunters Pal and accidently dropped it on the ground. The blade landed on a small rock and snapped in two. Obviously those old Pumas weren't as perfect as some foks recall.

As they say "nolstalgia isn't what it used to be".
 
I own a Puma Tac 1 and it's a great knife. I teach survival and this is one of my best all around knife!!!
 
From the above 2 posts it's nice to see they're still making quality Puma's in Germany, & they're not all cheap stainless.
Nostalgia "may not" be what it used to be but that old Puma folding lockback was great pocket knife, & I used it hard almost on a daily basis without any problems. Choices for a quality folder were much more limited 30 years ago before the I-net. The only readily available quality lockbacks I can remember were Buck & Puma. There were probably more, but I don't remember them.
 
Old Puma = :thumbup: :)

New Puma = :thumbdn: :barf:

Hope that clears it up.
 
I did a survival exercise in far north queensland 30 plus years ago. the best knife we had was a puma 61/2" bowie I was carrying a model 15 randall at the time. With the puma woodcraft and small game and fish and tortoises were processed. I went out and recently bought one. My mate broke his puma white hunter in the usual way that many soldiers break their knives. that is by sliding out on their butts from a truck bed, the knife on their field equipment gets caught in the tailgate crach, hesitation and snap. My other mates Morseth Pilot parachutist, stainless, broke in this way. sigh a beautiful knife. Todays pumas are ok
 
Looked at a couple Puma fixed blades at Cabelas the other day----over priced by $30-$40 from what I've seen on the web----and looked like a monkey made it-----I'd stay far away from any new Puma------my old ones are excellent---the new ones plain suck.
 
I was suprised at the low prices of the Puma knives in the latest Sportsman's Guide catalog.

The 1.4 stainless will work if you don't mind honing it more often than premium stuff. It's 1.4116 I think. Same as many top price chef's knives. They value stainlessness very highly and don't mind waving a hone when needed to keep a truely stainless knife sharp. Besides, carbon blades are illegal in many modern places, for restaurant use.

The prices on the web site don't seem to be very good, even ebay is better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top