I don't understand all the people asking if their knife is the advertised steel. A pair of self-admitted liars and frauds gave you a list of knives they admit are bad. I feel like we can confidently assume those knives aren't made of the advertised steel. But because they are again, self-admitted liars and frauds, no one can trust that the list they provided are the
only models that aren't made of the advertised steel.
Now, another thing going on here is BRK's long history of sketchy work. Now, before I found out about all the fraud, I just kind of thought it was the tradeoff. They have hundreds of models and tens of thousands of knives in many different steels and in handle materials that are generally hard to find elsewhere and at a price that was typically not outrageous. The tradeoff was that the fit and finish on them was never great - grinds are uneven, some of the handle materials aren't perfectly fitted, that kind of thing. I always liked looking at the cool handle materials more than I liked buying the knives. I've only ever purchased one outright, won another in a charity raffle and two more in a normal raffle.
But now I'm kind of wondering if I should have avoided them even more clearly. It's hard for me because there are a lot of people associated with Bark River whom I like and respect - Jason Thoune and the DLT Trading people, Derrick Bohn from KSF and the new owner is also a decent fellow. Some of the associated makers who have done midtech runs with BRK like Dan Tope and Matt Martin and Alex Harrison. But it seems like everyone who had a negative experience with BRK kind of grumbled silently about it no matter how badly they got burned.
I won't repeat anyone else's experience, I'm not going to gossip third-hand, but here's my BRK experience:
1. Getting Mike to do anything personally is impossible. Actually, getting anything handled by Bark River was impossible, weirdly unless you talked to a female employee. Any time I needed anything at BRK specifically, Jackie Troutman was the only person who could actually make something happen. I won a raffle 'mystery knife' in a charity raffle to which I contributed. Mike promised to donate a knife for the charity raffle, but never sent it to the raffle organizer (not abnormal in those groups, a lot of the prizes get shipped directly from the donor to the recipient), but he never sent a picture or even stated what the knife was. Well, I got drawn for it, and I messaged him a couple times after a month went by, and he kept saying he'd get to it. After two or three months, I messaged Jackie instead, and the next day I had a UPS tracking number, and a week later, I had a Bark River Bravo 1 in 3V and firedog micarta. It was typical Bark River, fit and finish was OK but not great, and as a charity raffle win I couldn't really complain, but I didn't keep it.
2. In December 2023, Nick Troutman ran a raffle for six Bark River Gunny folders. These were highly anticipated and there was a preorder for them at DLT. However, they kept changing the designs and adding or changing features. I participated in this raffle, although I usually don't, because it happened right before DLT's 12 Days of Christmas and right after Black Friday sales started, so I figured correctly that the participation would be low and I'd have a high chance to win. I was right, I won two of the six for a net cash investment half of what retail price was. I had BRK die-hards wanting to buy them from me immediately.
Turns out the knives weren't actually completely
finished, and I didn't see them until March of 2024. When I received them (All six were bolster locks), the lock on one was minimally functionally and on the other was not functional... at all. Like... at all. It had the same blade security as an SAK classic, and you could close it readily. Forget spine whack tests, you could close it with that safety method you use on slipjoints where you pinch the handle in one hand and use the web between your thumb and forefinger on each hand to exert pressure against the backspring until the knife closes without ever having your fingers in the blade path.
Zero lock fitting. The clip was carbon fiber and screwed on as an afterthought and still had visible shreds of carbon fiber hanging off the cutout edges.
I posted about it and while I wouldn't say I was
jumped on per se, after I posted that I was having problems with it, I
immediately (while I was
in the process of uploading the video to Facebook to show what I was talking about) had people posting replies to my post saying I needed to prove it with video or shut up. Well, the videos finished uploading, and then the chorus changed to "just send it in and they'll take care of you!"
I sold the semi-functional one to a die-hard collector who was happy to have it for parts even with the disclosure about how poor the function was, and I sent the other back in to BRK to be fixed. That was also in March 2024. Since then, Nick and Jackie have left BRK, and during the past two years, I have received the following explanations:
"Nick is still going in on weekends to fix these."
"It's on his desk, I'll remind him."
"I'm really sorry, but they lost a bunch of CAD files and have to re-do them."
"They have to order new materials to re-machine some parts for you."
And then eventually after they left, they just stopped replying entirely.
And during this whole debacle,
Mike hops into the Bark River Boys group to announce that the Bark River Gunny Folder project isn't a Bark River knife, it was a side project by Nick Troutman alone, and anyone who has a problem with them needs to take it up with Nick.
Here's the top-quality work on my Gunny folder, which I know I will never see again. I don't even care about the knife, I still have a buyer who wants it for parts.
unicourt.com
