Bravo 1.25 or Reiff F5?

BigW said:
I sent an email to Reiff to the email address mentioned under "Contact" on their website - still waiting for a response. Does someone know whether this email address is still valid and how long it usually takes till they respond?
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I emailed them about 6 months ago with the email provided and they got back to me within a few days I think 🙂
 
BigW said:
I sent an email to Reiff to the email address mentioned under "Contact" on their website - still waiting for a response. Does someone know whether this email address is still valid and how long it usually takes till they respond?
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I have found them very responsive to emails. Sorry to hear that they have not responded.
 
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BigW, welcome to BF. The answer to whether or not to buy Bark River is preordained on this forum.
 
....just got an email back from Reiff. I'm pretty impressed. They answered all my questions, and the way they answered them, the depth and wording, the transparency in the answers, really shows that the person who responded to my email read my email carefully and put a lot of thoughts into the answers. The person who wrote the response definitely spent a significant amount of time with this and didn't just want to "tick the box" and be done with it. Highly appreciated!!!! Very impressive for a potential customer in these times!
 
wrt "hearing complaints" for both companies: IMO, in these times where it is easy to blame someone via the media available, you have to be very carefully what to believe. E.g., I found this YouTube clip where a German customer complaint about a pitting / rust at the tang of a F4:
. (I'm German, hence no problems to follow the German comments in the thread of this channel). The guy who complaint about the blemish bought it from a German reseller, and he, the buyer, was not aware that Reiff sells "BLEM" knifes (some cosmetic blemish) for a significant reduced price to customers who are more interested in reliability and function and not so much focused on fancy looks. In the comments I pointed out that there is the possibility that this specific knife was bought clearly marked as "BLEM" for a reduced price and the reseller "forgot" to mention this to the buyer and asked for the market price for a knife without blemish. Of course, I don't know whether this is the case here, but it is a plausible possibility, something I take into account before I would blame the manufacturer.
 
BigW said:
....just got an email back from Reiff. I'm pretty impressed. They answered all my questions, and the way they answered them, the depth and wording, the transparency in the answers, really shows that the person who responded to my email read my email carefully and put a lot of thoughts into the answers. The person who wrote the response definitely spent a significant amount of time with this and didn't just want to "tick the box" and be done with it. Highly appreciated!!!! Very impressive for a potential customer in these times!
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Nice! That was my experience also 👍🏼 i don't take that for granted either. That level of customer care is rare these days.
 
submachina said:
I've heard complaints...


https://www.reddit.com/r/FixedBladeEdc/comments/1g93cfg/reiff_knives_circadian
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The complaints may be valid, however, sometimes it seems to me that people are overestimating MagnaCut. The Circadian is just 3 mm thick, has a high flat Sabre grind which limits the support for the edge. Considering that Magnacut is significant less tough than V3 (have a look into Larrin Thomas tables, even cheap 420HC is tougher!) it wouldn't surprise me that the blade edge suffers when batoning it through timber this way - same problem the Victorinox Venture (similar thickness, similar grind, similar height) has, and this is made from (cheaper) 14C28N steel, again, a steel that is actually tougher than MagnaCut!
MagnaCut is a balanced compromise between toughness and edge retention, and of course it is corrosion resistant. ...it's horses for courses for me, hence my choice for knifes that will see a beating will be always V3 (if the knife is available with this steel). While the edge retention for MagnaCut is slightly better compared to V3 (and it is really only slightly) V3 outperforms MagnaCut quite significantly when it comes to toughness.

Eta: would be interesting to see a comparison between the F3 in V3 and the Circadian in MagnaCut: the F3 has a slightly thicker blade, and the height of the Sabre grind is significant less. hence the edge is significantly more supported. And then there is the advantage of the tougher V3 steel. .... horses for courses .... you can't have the cake and eat it.....
 
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BigW said:
....I also wouldn't hesitate to buy the F5 if I wouldn't have "financial restrictions" ....on the other hand I heard that buying such a knife can help to cope with the phytotoxic effects of wife's menopause thus helping me to stay somehow sane without getting divorced.... which might cost even more .....
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Same reason I didn't buy those Bagwell Bowies a few years ago.
 
abcdef said:
BigW, welcome to BF. The answer to whether or not to buy Bark River is preordained on this forum.
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yeah, that's the times we live in .... as you may have recognized from my other comments here, I take complaints about manufactures with a pinch of salt and try to figure out which of the complaints are valid and which not.
 
BigW said:
....just got an email back from Reiff. I'm pretty impressed. They answered all my questions, and the way they answered them, the depth and wording, the transparency in the answers, really shows that the person who responded to my email read my email carefully and put a lot of thoughts into the answers. The person who wrote the response definitely spent a significant amount of time with this and didn't just want to "tick the box" and be done with it. Highly appreciated!!!! Very impressive for a potential customer in these times!
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good to hear.

ya should also email Mike Stewart on a saturday and see how he responds......
 
BigW said:
While the edge retention for MagnaCut is slightly better compared to V3 (and it is really only slightly)
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You mean 3V, and is it only just "slightly"?

My only experience with Magnacut is from Italy, and it won't be repeated.

But I'm looking for a new EDC now, 62+ HRC made in the US...and they're Magnacut; White River, Bradford.

One complaint about the Reiff Magnacut is it's only 61+...

I just want supreme edge retention above all else, and stainless because I'm in a tropical zone, seems like my only option is Magnacut
 
ShaiHulud said:
Plenty of reiff knives have been tested on YT and are sure winners
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Read the YT comments, that's actually part of the complaint; they send free knives to all the YT bloggers, who invariably shower them with praise, to continue getting free knives. Then they pass along the costs to the consumer and charge more than their competitors...but they sell out anyway, so who knows what to think.
 
submachina said:
You mean 3V, and is it only just "slightly"?

My only experience with Magnacut is from Italy, and it won't be repeated.

But I'm looking for a new EDC now, 62+ HRC made in the US...and they're Magnacut; White River, Bradford.

One complaint about the Reiff Magnacut is it's only 61+...

I just want supreme edge retention above all else, and stainless because I'm in a tropical zone, seems like my only option is Magnacut
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I use the tables from Larrin Thomas (the author from the "Knife Engineering Book" and creator of MagnaCut) as a reference: https://knifesteelnerds.com/2021/10...ness-edge-retention-and-corrosion-resistance/

Wrt edge retention MagnaCut is rated with 5 (same as normal D2 steel, thus only slightly better than 3V) according to the CATRA Test, 3V with 4.5....wrt toughness 3V gets a 9 and MagnaCut "only" a 7 .... of course, the numbers have to be taken with a pinch of salt, and a lot depends on the actual heat treatment. Nevertheless, usually a HT that aims to increase the hardness rating / edge retention further will compromise the toughness, and a HT that aims to increase or maintain the toughness will compromise the edge retention......and a HT that goes wrong will stuff up the whole knife....

Eta: if you focus on edge retention and corrosion resistance: you may consider S125V or S90V .... corrosion resistance 7.5 should be still good - I have no problems with CPM 3V (rated "only" 5.5) and I live close to the ocean with the salty air effecting other steel heavily.
 
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submachina said:
Read the YT comments, that's actually part of the complaint; they send free knives to all the YT bloggers, who invariably shower them with praise, to continue getting free knives. Then they pass along the costs to the consumer and charge more than their competitors...but they sell out anyway, so who knows what to think.
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I think it is a legit marketing procedure in these times, and of course marketing is a business expense thus it has to be considered in the pricing of the goods. Some channels state that they buy a specific knife they tested in the particular clip with their own money, and of course it is up to you to believe it or not. If you watch and follow a lot of those channels, I believe you get a feeling about the trustworthiness of the particular presenters. wrt the Reiff F5 testing: I found the Dutch Bushcraft test
quite convincing as you can see how they tortured the F5 - can it be still faked? .... in these times: of course.
 
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