Buck blade steel

People are calling me a troll and criticizing me because I'm new. But I'm pretty sure if I was praising Buck's products no one would bat an eye.

I'm just telling you about my experience.

It's an interesting phenomena when human beings identify with a brand name. People, you are not a Buck branded product. You are not the stuff you buy.

If you're taking my criticism of these knives personally, you need to ask yourself how the heck a brand name became part of your personal identity.
 
Have you read your posts? They go beyond a normal concern about your experience. You go on and on and on about it in a Buck enthusiast forum. I'm not sure what kind of reaction you were looking for. We welcome people to the Buck family but the approach was harsh on the negative.

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Badhammer, I don't remember how many cable ends I terminated before my ranger went dull, but I got more done with my $12 Mora craftline Q than my $60 Buck.

I completely gave up on whittling or making fire sticks with a buck and I completely gave up on using it for trimming plastic modeling pieces. I'm actually using a cutco paring knife for that now because the edge retention is far superior to the buck bantams my son and I tried to use.
keep hearing about how great it's supposed to be, which is why I bought Buck knives. I was sold on the Brand.

But when I actually go to use them, I'm consistently disappointed in edge retention. In my own personal experience the hype does not live up to the reality.

It makes me wonder how the "satisfied" folks gauge edge retention. What are they cutting? What are they comparing it to? What's the function of these knives? Are they only to be used to cut paper and cheese?
Ok. And I'll give you that the ranger isn't a general purpose knife. Here's Buck's usage guide.. See under Drop Point where it says "It can also be used as a general work knife." Well guess what kind of blade is on the Bantam? Yep, it's a drop point, which means it's officially approved for use as a general work knife by the manufacturer.

It was the Buck Bantam Drop Point Official General Purpose Work Knife that couldn't hold a candle to a Cutco when cutting (polystyrene?) model plastic, or making feather sticks when compared to a Mora craftline q.

Like I've said before, I bought the Buck's on brand value. The point of my participation in this thread is to communicate to the world at large that, imho, that brand value is undeserved, based on my experiences. In other words, I would not recommend a Buck knife to anyone and I want people to know what they're buying BEFORE money is spent.

I know people identify with corporate brands. I'm not a psychologist but I think it would be an interesting conversation about how humans can identify emotionally with a corporate brand. I think we've seen, in this thread, people responding to brand criticism as a nearly personal attack, as if I were criticizing a relative.

I think if Buck was a new company starting out today they would be judged honestly. I definitely think there is a fan-boy level brand recognition that prevents some people from seeing Buck's faults.
I agree. You should finish reading the rest of what I wrote...oh wait, it doesn't matter because I'm a new user here. Scientifically speaking, edge retention is based on how many posts someone has.


Enough said:confused:
 
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I read an article awhile back about a term, if I remember correctly it was called astro turfing or something like that. There are people that are actually paid to go to forums and on social media and talk up certain brands and bash others and post youtube reviews about products to generate a buzz on their products. I'd never thought about that before but it would be easy to do. Just create several fake accounts, go over to x brand of knives and say the lock failed or something and you were hurt and with the other accounts you created, agree with the original post and before you know it, you've created a whole false negative buzz on the product.
 
I read an article awhile back about a term, if I remember correctly it was called astro turfing or something like that. There are people that are actually paid to go to forums and on social media and talk up certain brands and bash others and post youtube reviews about products to generate a buzz on their products. I'd never thought about that before but it would be easy to do. Just create several fake accounts, go over to x brand of knives and say the lock failed or something and you were hurt and with the other accounts you created, agree with the original post and before you know it, you've created a whole false negative buzz on the product.

I wish that were the case. I'd love to recoup the money I've lost in these crappy knives.

If buck were willing to buy back these knives from me, I'd shut up and go away forever.
 
I unfortunately own 5 Bucks. The other two are MIA somewhere in the house.

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Just ignore him and hopefully he'll go away.

He's had his 5 minutes of fame on the soapbox "... to communicate to the world" his (less than) humble opinion.
 
If you were so unhappy with Buck, why did you buy 4 more? :rolleyes:

The ranger was actually a gift, but the rest, which came before, were because I didn't know any better. I had no comparative concept of edge retention. I saw how popular the Brand name was and that, in my ignorance, was good enough for me.

It wasn't until later that I realized how Brand recognition had fooled me into buying knives I wouldn't be happy with.
 
It's a darn shame what's happen to this thread. There was some good information on blade steel here. I was hoping it would continue. Buck can't please everyone. So what. Jimmy crack corn and I don't care.
 
Speaking of blade steel and Buck Knives - just got this one in the mail Saturday, a new 2014 built Buck 118 made of D-2 steel (thanks to David Martin for being my steel research resource on this one). Going hunting tomorrow, might just get to try it out. It came ready to skin and butcher a deer two - no touch up needed. OH

Buck_118_D2_Custom.JPG
 
No big deal. The guy doesn't like 420HC. Maybe he doesn't sharpen well. Maybe he's a paid troll.
Whatever.
I won't be losing any sleep over it.
 
Hi, does anyone know why Buck changed from 425M steel to 420HC. Thanks George

Yes. The 425M was a special order kind of steel and the 420HC was an off the shelf kind of steel. The supplier suggested a change because it would be more cost effective and Buck went with the 420HC after some testing. It gave the same performance with lower costs.
 
Yes jun, there is. Buck switched from 425 to 420 because the former was more wearing on tooling and stock cost. The vanadium and molybdenum elements probably did it. Then there were some manufactoring differences in the steels which showed up when they were mirror polished. DM

This response sounds more like the reason for the switch from 440C to 425M.
 
I have read about this in the past. It's probably somewhere in the archives or in my notes if I could find it.

:)

The switch from 440C was the one that involved wear and tear on equipment. That 440C was tough stuff.
 
This guy is tripping me out. We are a family of Buck entnusiasts.

Welcome to the family.
 
This response sounds more like the reason for the switch from 440C to 425M.

Buck switched from 440 because they wanted to fine blank their blades and could not do it with 440, that is why they made the first switch to 425 about 1982 (440 did not like to be cookie cut). Followed by the 425 to 420 about 1992 for cost savings that David mentioned. Note: FYI the steel change data and dates can be found in the Blades Guide.

JB
 
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