BF opinions on Schrade

JPD1998 said:
I bought this Schrade knife a few months ago from a big dealer's site.
On special for $39, the specs had it listed as "Made in China", real stag.
So I bought it on impulse.

The blade clearly says "USA", but it was shipped without a Schrade box and in a plastic bag.

It's a bit of a mystery and all I could think of was maybe someone was having these made in China with old US parts.
In any event the knife is flawless.

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JPD1998 JPD1998 , hard to know what happened there. At the end of Schrade there were parts and pieces everywhere. Back in the days of magazines I was a real gun and outdoors nut and along with using the gear loved to read about the industry. Best of all, my sister worked for a publication distributor, and I could have all the magazines I wanted, any time I wanted as long as I tore off the cover page before taking them. There were a few knife magazines then, but the gun magazines had lots of articles on the proper cutlery needed for camping and dismantling game. So I kept up with EVERYTHING to do with all knives.

When Schrade gave up the ghost, my personal opinion is that their quality suffered a lot. Buck, CASE, Boker and other German brands to me were easily better. I remember reading that they had problems with their manufacturing in house, and problems with assorted jobbers that made knives for them. They used the magazines of the day to announce that they "were getting back on tracK" and to introduce new products or promotions. Schrade got hammered hard for a while after introducing the LB7, which is a nearly perfect knockoff (look that one up!) of the Buck 110. I heard rumors that Buck made some of the LB7s but that could easily be crap. On the other hand, hard to think that mirror image could have been produced without some kind of agreement with Buck. Anyway, screams of intellectual property theft, dishonest business practices etc. were added to the downfall.

The were small announcements in the magazines that said to the effect "we will finish up making as many knives as we can with the stock on hand and when that is gone there will be no more". After all the legal hurdles that come with a business dissolution, the magazines started to have ads in the back (most had kind of a marketplace area) for Schrade parts. Sometimes blades, stamped out but not ground. Sometimes a bunch of finished blades for folders all in a box for certain models. There were a lot of stamped parts for all kinds of knives. That went on for a while, until all the parts bins were depleted.

I just wonder if someway that knife was shipped over to the new plant as an example and wound up set aside and now in your hands. Those knives are not expensive enough to counterfeit a blade and certainly not enough margin at the Chinese pricing to make a hydraulic press punch to have a USA stamp on it. You just might have something there, who knows?
 
After Schrade changed hands there were several unfinished knives from them being sold on eBay.

I remember buying some fixed blades that were finished and sharpened a bit but were unpolished.

They came with the handles on so all the previous steps were completed.
 
MolokaiRider said:
If that truly is a made in USA Schrade I would be all over that.

It's price point and parent company makes it questionable though.
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Since it wasn't boxed and came in a plastic bag, my guess is the dealer/distributor had these made off-shore using old stock Schrade blades/parts.
There's no current Schrade equivalent, I looked at Schrade's lineup. They make that model ( B8), but with a different blade shape and covers (Staglon).

Unfortunately the dealer has since bumped the price up to $80.
 
Although I know one can find some pretty nice offerings from over seas I'm just not sure they are from Schrade. Too many options out there for me to even take chance on an inexpensive knife turning out to be garbage.
 
I have a few Schrade fixed blades, all the models designed by Mistwalker Mistwalker and they're genuinely pretty good knives. However, after Brian got the runaround from them when trying to be compensated for the designs, I swore off Schrade after that. As others have said, Schrade is just a nameplate now, purchased in order to be slapped on whatever cheap imported trash the new owner wishes. 🤷

So, it's a pass from me.
 
I have an old Schrade Old Timer pocket hunter type thing, quite nice, was very easy to restore into a working knife. Good old reliable, 440C, lighter than a 110.

Uhhhh, the new Schrade kind of sucks, and this would include Old Timer, Imperial, and any other brands they used to own that I might be forgetting about. They advert 3cr steel in their knives, such as the yellow Delrin trapper I just kind of bought for 7 bucks back before I knew anything about anything. I do love yellow delrin, don't love 3cr13 steel.

From what I understand, if your goal is to have a quality, American made Schrade knife, you can get one on Ebay and restore it. I found mine in a box of debris and general detritus. Was much more fun to restore that; than to deal with a Xchrade.

They should really just change the name when they sell to China, I know why they don't, but... I would be hesitant to send any money there for any reason (knowers know why, this is a political thing that I may not delve in) but one thing that could get me to consider a knife? A REAL Chinese brand, and I don't mean like Reate. I mean like Six-Fingered-Zhou, like a Chinese knife company, made for high-end consumers in China, an actual Chinese knife, if you get what I am saying. What would a collector want over there, for example? Too many people with money (just by sheer volume of people) to not be knife collectors there, too. I wonder what a Chinese pocket knife collector's collection looks like.

There was a thread on actual Chinese (made for China) knives a while ago, a dude who used to live in mainland China or something chimed in and it was very interesting. No new Schrade though.
 
Brian Griffin’s stories about the genesis of his knives prompted me to buy a couple of his designs. They made fascinating reading before he parted company with Schrade and pulled his content from BF. I would not mind having access to those threads again, since I bought the story, not the knife, but the knives themselves are pretty decent. SCHF42 Raven and SCHF55 Blackbird. I have no interest in any current production Schrades.
 
As already stated Imperial Schrade went bankrupt many years ago and Taylor Bought the rights to the brand, and started importing knives made in China that were pretty much identical copies/clones of most of the US made ones except with Chinese sourced materials and labor. This created a bunch of sour feelings towards the company in the knife community. There were also quite a few quality issues early on I think. Fast forward 18 years later, Taylor was purchased by Battenfeld Technologies which is a spin off company of Smith and Wesson.
Many people like to hate on Schrade, but in my opinion the original company is gone and not coming back, and Battenfeld does appear to be trying new things with different manufacturers and materials to appeal to the consumers. I think much of the current hatred of the brand is misplaced.
People slam the materials, specifically the 7CR17MOV steel used in many of the current Old Timers, however I also hear people praising Rough Ryder’s 440A as being a good budget steel. Thing is, 7CR17MOV is the Chinese designation for 440A, meaning these knives are likely made from the exact same steel just branded differently. In my experience the current Schrade offerings have had better fit and finish than many of the Rough Ryder knives I have purchased, although I admit this is anecdotal evidence.
All this to say I think the hatred of current production Schrade is not completely warranted as it is a different company now, and I think they are decent user knives for the price. If buying Chinese manufacture is a problem, then I get that, and then you can look for some of their US made stuff or simply look elsewhere.
 
chevyrulez1 said:
As already stated Imperial Schrade went bankrupt many years ago and Taylor Bought the rights to the brand, and started importing knives made in China that were pretty much identical copies/clones of most of the US made ones except with Chinese sourced materials and labor. This created a bunch of sour feelings towards the company in the knife community. There were also quite a few quality issues early on I think. Fast forward 18 years later, Taylor was purchased by Battenfeld Technologies which is a spin off company of Smith and Wesson.
Many people like to hate on Schrade, but in my opinion the original company is gone and not coming back, and Battenfeld does appear to be trying new things with different manufacturers and materials to appeal to the consumers. I think much of the current hatred of the brand is misplaced.
People slam the materials, specifically the 7CR17MOV steel used in many of the current Old Timers, however I also hear people praising Rough Ryder’s 440A as being a good budget steel. Thing is, 7CR17MOV is the Chinese designation for 440A, meaning these knives are likely made from the exact same steel just branded differently. In my experience the current Schrade offerings have had better fit and finish than many of the Rough Ryder knives I have purchased, although I admit this is anecdotal evidence.
All this to say I think the hatred of current production Schrade is not completely warranted as it is a different company now, and I think they are decent user knives for the price. If buying Chinese manufacture is a problem, then I get that, and then you can look for some of their US made stuff or simply look elsewhere.
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I am an enjoyer of Rough Ryder, particularly the T-10 carbon steel knives they make (better fit and finish, prefer carbon) but the stainless 440A versions are good, too. Better F&F than Case, because I was totally primed and ready to like Case but if they cannot deliver for $60 what RR can for $17, then I cannot delude myself into an inferior tool. Also, that "Trusharp" stainless, to me, is trash compared to Victorinox steel, hard for me to sharpen. I don't like that I have to carry a Chinese slipjoint to have this kind of traditional and this value (I could carry a Buck Stockman, but I don't put too much stock into slipjoints...man)

Anyways, how can I speak fairly well about RR and turn around and call Schrade garbage?

Well, for one, it isn't their 7cr17 that I am criticizing, as I have said something like "Well-treated basic 8cr will get you out of whatever situation you need a knife for, realistically, most of the time". It is their 3cr13. That is a significant drop from 7cr, from my understanding, total kitchen sink, 90-degree-angle steel. Schrade markets their whole Imperial slipjoint line it seems, with this steel, as well as a lot of the Old Timer large hunting knives and folding hunters, as well as a ton of any larger blade like Parang, machetes, axes, hatchets, throwing knives... this is downright dangerous for some of these materials, as the BudK-level steel could very well send a piece of sharp steel flying when you're trying to swing your Parang at a coconut or something normal you'd do with a big chopper.

2. The market for Schrade, Imperial, and Uncle Henry/Old Timer, in general, is a trick. Of course there are some people who know and do not care that they are made in China, but feel the company is still "American" enough for having an American CEO and all - but keeping the name, keeping selling things under a name like "Old Timer", such as with my congress-jack slipjoint... it is meant to evoke a feeling of "Good ol' American quality, ingenuity, and tenacious spirit has kept us making pocket knives for over fifty years, since my great uncle Walden bla bla bla", it is meant to be evocative of that whole imagery and couldn't be further from the truth. If you type a cursory search of where the knives are made, they'll sneakily try to slip in the location of their HQ in Kingsport, Tennessee or whatever. It is essentially dishonest, although there is nothing illegal about me cobbling together 1095 thick bowie, and call it the Kiri Hocho, but it would be weird and misleading. It's like a form of cultural appropriation, trying to sell "Sunrises. America. Apple Pie. A man hard at work. Trucks. The love of your family. SCHRADE" type of thing by keeping the name Uncle Henry or Old Timer, there is no other conceivable reason to do that but to bank off the fame, or for people not old enough to know the fame, bank off their ignorance because of the "American" way the knives are portrayed, like how some portray fake Japanese kitchen knives to be overly "Japanese-y".
 
I've no experience with the older knives but I always do my research before purchasing a knife. I've seen too many failures in the newer Schrade knives to purchase even at their budget prices. They seem very "hit or miss" from what I've read/seen.

Even at their price point there are much better more reliable brands or for a little more excellent knives available.
 
I love the older knives and collected quite a few of them over the years. I started to liberate my collection last spring, but I have a few that will stay with me to be solid working knives. I have also bought a couple of the Chinese models early in my knife collecting days. I still have those, but as others have stated the quality is not there compared to the US made knives.
 
chevyrulez1 said:
As already stated Imperial Schrade went bankrupt many years ago and Taylor Bought the rights to the brand, and started importing knives made in China that were pretty much identical copies/clones of most of the US made ones except with Chinese sourced materials and labor. This created a bunch of sour feelings towards the company in the knife community. There were also quite a few quality issues early on I think. Fast forward 18 years later, Taylor was purchased by Battenfeld Technologies which is a spin off company of Smith and Wesson.
Many people like to hate on Schrade, but in my opinion the original company is gone and not coming back, and Battenfeld does appear to be trying new things with different manufacturers and materials to appeal to the consumers. I think much of the current hatred of the brand is misplaced.
People slam the materials, specifically the 7CR17MOV steel used in many of the current Old Timers, however I also hear people praising Rough Ryder’s 440A as being a good budget steel. Thing is, 7CR17MOV is the Chinese designation for 440A, meaning these knives are likely made from the exact same steel just branded differently. In my experience the current Schrade offerings have had better fit and finish than many of the Rough Ryder knives I have purchased, although I admit this is anecdotal evidence.
All this to say I think the hatred of current production Schrade is not completely warranted as it is a different company now, and I think they are decent user knives for the price. If buying Chinese manufacture is a problem, then I get that, and then you can look for some of their US made stuff or simply look elsewhere.
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I would argue that with a storied name like Schrade, people probably placed a high value on the name brand and don't like these cheaply made new knives, which is more of the current issue than the materials used. These new Chinese made knives aren't Schrade knives, they're simply knives made of cheap materials pumped out, with that storied name (that was probably purchased for pennies on the dollar) slapped on it so that people who don't know it's now owned by some faceless overseas Corporation will feel a small jolt of nostalgia and buy them.
 
The older, U.S. built Schrades didn't hold an edge very well (Compared to Bucks of the same era): but you could sharpen them in no time!
I bought a couple of the "Uncle Ho's" for comparison...
They are an okay knife: but not as well-executed as the originals.
 
"The Clench multi-tool is an ideal smaller-profile multi-tool that lives in the Delta series of Schrade. With its unique, yet functional, design, to the heavily textured stainless steel handles, to the ever-durable 2Cr steel, the Clench is the perfect tool for all of your side jobs."

2cr on their multitools!! Wow!
 
The older schrades were / are good decent knives and a good value.

I don’t know about the modern models now but if you’re asking about the newer slip joints, my answer is they aren’t worth the effort to throw them in the trash. I should have dropped it on the street by the mailbox and pretended I know nothing and walked away. I am still embarrassed that I fell for their us made scam. I won’t trust taylor and their false advertising anymore. To me schrade is a dead zombie.
 
Quiet said:
I would argue that with a storied name like Schrade, people probably placed a high value on the name brand and don't like these cheaply made new knives, which is more of the current issue than the materials used. These new Chinese made knives aren't Schrade knives, they're simply knives made of cheap materials pumped out, with that storied name (that was probably purchased for pennies on the dollar) slapped on it so that people who don't know it's now owned by some faceless overseas Corporation will feel a small jolt of nostalgia and buy them.
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Yeah, I get that. And what adds insult to injury is that one of the companies that started the flood of cheap imported knives that ultimately ended up putting Schrade, Camillus, etc. out of business was Taylor. Although I should add that Frost, Parker, and others played a big part also.
I just find it weird that Schrade seems to have been singled out though, when other companies have been doing the same thing by buying up old brand names and moving production to China (Camillus, Marbles, Queen, etc.) but they don't seem to receive the same amount of hatred and their quality doesn't seem to be brought into question as much. I feel like in the knife community it is popular to hate on Schrade and Gerber, but I don't sense the same hatred toward other companies who are doing the same thing. Gerber for example, both Buck and Kershaw moved production of some stuff overseas to supply the demand for cheaper knives but people still seem to love them as a company while they despise Gerber and talk crap about them all the time for doing the same thing.
I guess Schrade doesn't bother me because I know they are not the same as the old ones, and I know what I am getting, but I like the traditional design and for a cheap beater knife that I am not afraid of damaging or losing they don't seem terrible to me quality wise. I cannot say that they have ever hidden the country of origin or materials that were used, so I can't really accuse them of being dishonest in their marketing. But I do understand why people wouldn't be interested in them, especially if they were a big fan of the old company it would seem like a cheap knockoff.
 
chevyrulez1 said:
Yeah, I get that. And what adds insult to injury is that one of the companies that started the flood of cheap imported knives that ultimately ended up putting Schrade, Camillus, etc. out of business was Taylor. Although I should add that Frost, Parker, and others played a big part also.
I just find it weird that Schrade seems to have been singled out though, when other companies have been doing the same thing by buying up old brand names and moving production to China (Camillus, Marbles, Queen, etc.) but they don't seem to receive the same amount of hatred and their quality doesn't seem to be brought into question as much. I feel like in the knife community it is popular to hate on Schrade and Gerber, but I don't sense the same hatred toward other companies who are doing the same thing. Gerber for example, both Buck and Kershaw moved production of some stuff overseas to supply the demand for cheaper knives but people still seem to love them as a company while they despise Gerber and talk crap about them all the time for doing the same thing.
I guess Schrade doesn't bother me because I know they are not the same as the old ones, and I know what I am getting, but I like the traditional design and for a cheap beater knife that I am not afraid of damaging or losing they don't seem terrible to me quality wise. I cannot say that they have ever hidden the country of origin or materials that were used, so I can't really accuse them of being dishonest in their marketing. But I do understand why people wouldn't be interested in them, especially if they were a big fan of the old company it would seem like a cheap knockoff.
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I absolutely see where you're coming from. Personally, I think the reason Schrade gets more hate than the other companies you listed is just because of how popular they used to be. Maybe it was just my location and time and place of growing up, but Schrade was a pretty household name. Tons of people's dads carried an Old Timer or Uncle Henry. I think it's just a case that more people knew about the old Schrade that the old Queen, Camillus, Marbles. But like I said, every location and point in time is different, maybe Schrade was just one of the most recognized in my area.
 
LimpCroissant said:
I absolutely see where you're coming from. Personally, I think the reason Schrade gets more hate than the other companies you listed is just because of how popular they used to be. Maybe it was just my location and time and place of growing up, but Schrade was a pretty household name. Tons of people's dads carried an Old Timer or Uncle Henry. I think it's just a case that more people knew about the old Schrade that the old Queen, Camillus, Marbles. But like I said, every location and point in time is different, maybe Schrade was just one of the most recognized in my area.
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You sound as if you grew up in Schrade Country...
Ulster County???
 
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