I'll be Boycotting CRKT

T

Thirteenth Star

Joined
Apr 1, 2004
Messages
525
Alright, two fundamental reasons for this...

1. It was bad enough that CRKT dropped the Crawford FF with AUS 8 and a skeletonized aluminum handle (it may have been discontinued to encourage people to purchase the regular version of the knife which possibly yielded a higher profit margin, but this is just a supposition; remember the days when U.S. corporations put pride in their product line ahead of profits?), but now the regular version of the Crawford FF is made with 420J2. Given the remarkable eloquence of this knife's shapely design, this is an absolute travesty. Why not do something less distasteful, CRKT, like draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa?

2. The new version of the Hammond Cruiser, made with an AUS 4 blade, looks as though it has the same semblance as the one I own, which has an AUS 6 blade. So then, CRKT has effectively cheapened my knife by making an identical knife of cheaper specification.

So, I'll no longer be purchasing CRKT knives until this funny business is addressed and rectified. And that is that.
 
BTW, I forgot to mention, it's primarily the second reason that I'll be boycotting CRKT. That's the one that really gets me. It's as if they're counterfeiting their own product.
 
Thirteenth Star said:
Alright, two fundamental reasons for this...

1...but now the regular version of the Crawford FF is made with 420J2.

2...made with an AUS 4 blade.
Click to expand...
Dang. Kind of hard to imagine anything worse than their AUS-6M :barf:
 
i'm also done with any of their new releases. the occasional older model may make it back into my collection, but that's it. they're a joke now, as far as i'm concerned. (like they care... there'll always be some NKP willing to buy their wares without any knowledge of what makes a good knife.)

abe m.
 
Thirteenth Star said:
... remember the days when U.S. corporations put pride in their product line ahead of profits?
Click to expand...

ROTF LOL!

No, I don't remember those days... and I doubt that anyone else does either because I doubt there ever were such days in general.

A business that puts ANYTHING ahead of profit save legality is a business that won't be in business very long.

if you think CRKT has made some bad changes to their product line, then let 'em know and, by all means, don't buy their product. But don't expect businesses to do things because of some sense of pride. Successful businesses don't (and never have) take pride in their product line; they take pride in their bottom line... after all that's what makes payroll.
 
I won't be recommending them anymore either. 420J2 isn't a knife steel; heck it's not even steel as far as I'm concerned. Might as well make a knife blade from aluminum. :barf:
 
www.billskhakis.com/about_bills/history.html

www.rogue.com/nation/revolution-principles.html

Two great examples of companies that will not compromise quality for price. CRKT has chosen the dark side of quality. It is a shame when a company has worked hard to put out a product at a certian level of quality and then uses its customers' loyalty to ride profits in a quality decline. They won't last long going down this path, hopefully. The problem is they will use what has been a good name to put crap in people's hands. What they are gambling on is whether or not this will come back to nip them in the bud. I think they will only fool many once. That is all it will take to lose enough customer base and we will see them go bye,bye.

Jon
 
What this thread seems to say is the CRKT has started making all their blades in AUS4 and 420J2.

That is not the case.

On my models (M16, M21, F4) the only ones that changed were the Zytel models (anything with a Z in the model number, and the F4 neck knife). The lower price point versions.

All my models (and that's true for the other knifemakers models) that used AUS8 still use that steel. For me, that's 28 models that continue to use AUS8.

When a particular maker's model is discontinued, it's because it isn't selling. In most cases a new model/design will soon be coming out to replace it.

Unless you've tried the new steels that are in the lineup now against the previous steel, how can you honestly diss it? I don't think you'll be able to tell the difference.
 
I'm still looking forward to buying my first M16 and F4 in the near future. As I understand it their whole product line isn't being converted over to 420JS. Maybe that near future will be now, in case they do decide to convert to all 420JS for every knife they put out, but I doubt that'll be the case.
 
Does that mean my KFF AUS6M are now "collector" items??? :D

That's sad to hear about the kff...but from what I've read and heard over the years, it's the M16 line that's been selling the most, so it makes sense that they keep that line in the AUS 8.

The KFF pro in AUS 8 is in my EDC rotation, and totally reliable and just plain great. Despite it's simple design (and seemingly unaggressive aluminum handles), it scares the crap out of sheeple. And here I was thinking "wow, what a friendly looking knife!" LOL!!
 
I'm neutral on this issue, but I'll tell you what really puzzles me. A common successful business model is that a small company comes in and establishes itself at a low-end niche part of a market. There, they do not worry the big established players, since the new company is in a low-margin part of the business. The new company establishes a foothold in their niche, with a reputation for quality, and then starts expanding its market. By the time the big players realize they have real competition to address, the new company is unstoppable. This is such a common business model that it's standard fare for business courses.

This is what I always thought CRKT would do. Having established themselves as the bang-for-the-buck leaders, great quality at very low cost, of course they would leverage the incredible custom maker network they'd established, up the steel quality, and squarely take on Benchmade and Spyderco. I've been puzzled the past few years as to why CRKT didn't step up and start giving the big boys a run for their money. Instead, their newest moves seem to indicate CRKT is looking downwards into the even-lower end! Unbelieveable! Who is making their business strategy decisions?

Meanwhile, as I said in the first paragraph, what should have happened is that once CRKT established their reputation in the market, and put together that great custom collaboration network, they should have exploded into the mid-market and even high-end-production market, before the big established players could do anything about it. Instead, CRKT dawdles so long that now Benchmade and Spyderco are dropping down into CRKT's market -- Benchmade with its red class, Spyderco with its Byrd line. It's suddenly become unclear to me why I'd recommend a CRKT over a BM red or Byrd. Maybe that's part of what this is about, CRKT blew the big decisions and now feels like it has to fight a rearguard action at the low-end ... though I wonder exactly how much you can drop the steel quality before you lose your hard-built credibility.

Anyway, I think CRKT blew it bigtime, strategy wise. They should be making BM and Spyderco a little nervous right now, instead of the reverse happening.

Joe
 
nelsonmc said:
I'm still looking forward to buying my first M16 and F4 in the near future. As I understand it their whole product line isn't being converted over to 420JS. Maybe that near future will be now, in case they do decide to convert to all 420JS for every knife they put out, but I doubt that'll be the case.
Click to expand...

Buy the M16. I have two M16-14's and a M16-12z and I love them all. The only thing I don't really like is the lawks on the Big Dogs.
 
i agree with kit on this one.

ex: if i was looking for a low priced decent performing "survival knife", the cold steel rsk would be on the list. i hate 90% of cold steel products. but the 3 or 4 that i think are decent are decent. im not going to boycott the company for selling to a different market to mine.

im not going to try to dictate what a company does with part of or even the majority of their line by boycotting it, just because i dont like the direction of where that part is going. i'll boycott it when their isnt anything left in the line that i want to buy - wich is why i wouldnt be buying from them anymore anyways. because they dont have anything i want. not because they used a crappy steel on 3 or 4 of their knives (while the rest maintained the previous level of quality wich i had previously found appealing)


if every last one of their knives was stardard with 420j2 except the m1 and the bearclaw out of aus6m or better i'll consider buying from them. it would be rediculous to forgo a quality knife at a decent price because its sitting next to one of a lesser quality with the same brand name.
 
I think one of the problems here is that this group figures that CRKT designs and markets knives to this group. Remember this is a group of enthusiasts and a small one - a few thousand active members at most. I think CRKT is interested in the millions of prospective knife buyers that aren't enthusiasts. These are people who don't know what AUS4 is and don't care.

The other issue, of course, is that of Taiwan vs. China. It appears CRKT - who pioneered good quality knife manufacturing in Taiwan - continues to want to manufacture in Taiwain. In the meantime, everyone else is abandoning Taiwan and going to Red China where you can get a folder manufactured for around $1.50 in quantity. It may be that CRKT is indeed trying to hold up a better level of quality while still being price competitive enough to address its market effectively.

I think it's probably important to remember that the people who frequent this forum aren't typical knife buyers. Try to think of it from the perspective of people who want and need a knife but don't make a hobby out of them. I suspect that's how CRKT thinks about it.
 
Thirteenth Star said:
BTW, I forgot to mention, it's primarily the second reason that I'll be boycotting CRKT. That's the one that really gets me. It's as if they're counterfeiting their own product.
Click to expand...
camillus did the same thing with the heat Butchie
 
The bad part is that I just got back from my local knife shop and the dealer sold the guy in front of me on CRKT. He straight up told the guy that CRKT was a better buy than the Benchmade red class because the BM red class was a cheap version made overseas! Taiwan was stamped on the blade of the CRKT, but the dealer said it was o.k because they were always made overseas! I was stunned that a dealer, my dealer, was spewing this crap! He ended up selling a CRKT Crawford Casper to the guy for 14 bucks more than he could have sold the BM mini-ambush. He also informed the guy that the new S&W knives were well built and that he wasn't sure where they were made. R.O.C!!

I don't really mind how a guy conducts his own business, but now there is a customer out there who now thinks that the CRKT product is superior to BM. I don't know, it just seemed a little misleading.
 
Joe Talmadge said:
I'm neutral on this issue, but I'll tell you what really puzzles me. A common successful business model is that a small company comes in and establishes itself at a low-end niche part of a market. There, they do not worry the big established players, since the new company is in a low-margin part of the business. The new company establishes a foothold in their niche, with a reputation for quality, and then starts expanding its market. By the time the big players realize they have real competition to address, the new company is unstoppable. This is such a common business model that it's standard fare for business courses.

This is what I always thought CRKT would do. Having established themselves as the bang-for-the-buck leaders, great quality at very low cost, of course they would leverage the incredible custom maker network they'd established, up the steel quality, and squarely take on Benchmade and Spyderco. I've been puzzled the past few years as to why CRKT didn't step up and start giving the big boys a run for their money. Instead, their newest moves seem to indicate CRKT is looking downwards into the even-lower end! Unbelieveable! Who is making their business strategy decisions?

Meanwhile, as I said in the first paragraph, what should have happened is that once CRKT established their reputation in the market, and put together that great custom collaboration network, they should have exploded into the mid-market and even high-end-production market, before the big established players could do anything about it. Instead, CRKT dawdles so long that now Benchmade and Spyderco are dropping down into CRKT's market -- Benchmade with its red class, Spyderco with its Byrd line. It's suddenly become unclear to me why I'd recommend a CRKT over a BM red or Byrd. Maybe that's part of what this is about, CRKT blew the big decisions and now feels like it has to fight a rearguard action at the low-end ... though I wonder exactly how much you can drop the steel quality before you lose your hard-built credibility.

Anyway, I think CRKT blew it bigtime, strategy wise. They should be making BM and Spyderco a little nervous right now, instead of the reverse happening.

Joe
Click to expand...
My guess is that it was too big of a logistical problem to transfer production over to the US, and they didn't have the right connections in Asia to get higher end items made over there.
 
butchie said:
camillus did the same thing with the heat Butchie
Click to expand...
i think you're way off on this one. the Heat is a completely different knife from the Dominator in most regards. rather than being a "rip off", it is a new knife, built around the concept of an established design, and made with more affordable materials. the Heat allows people to appreciate the blade shape, size, and comfort of the Dominator for 1/3 the price. you can purchase both models from Camillus, as they are both still in production.

that's not the same thing AT ALL, in regards to what CRKT is doing. they are lowering the quality of steel in some of their current line, and that's all. they're not producing two models with different steels and offering them at two different prices. this is where the original complaint stems from.

the Heat is a great knife and not at all a "counterfeit".

abe m.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top