M-Tech Bargain Folders

Cougar Allen said:
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I didn't mean it to be doing any advertisement....sorry.
But why did you removal the rest of the post?
 
I have to agree that M-TECH is a waste of money. Yes, they are better built than most Chinese made knives but, the blade is the most important part. My M-TECH would not hold an edge. I just got tired of having to sharpen it again and again after just light use. Finally i just threw it away. That's what is good about cheap knives.
 
sdt11670 said:
M-TECH is Chinese junk! Dont waste your money, instead save it and buy a real knife. A real knife is made in the U.S.A., Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain and a few other countries. Something that looks like a knife is made in China.
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Not all junk is equal. As I type, I've got three knives in front of me. One's a Gerber EZ-Out which goes for twenty-something dollars. The other two are the Chinese M-Tech under discussion and a Smith & Wesson CK6A for ten bucks or so.

Given my choice between the three, I'd take the M-Tech first, the Smith second, and the Gerber third. Just flipping through my CRKT catalog, I see one knife after another with blades made from 420j2 stainless. This steel, incidentally, is what they were using almost exclusively to make liners from just a year or two ago. I don't ever recall someone using it as a blade steel.

Anyway, what makes a Gerber or CRKT with 420j2 blades better than an M-Tech with a blade made from 440A at a fraction of the price?

For their price, neither the Smith nor the M-Tech are as horrible as some people would have you believe. I could use any of the three knives in a pinch, but none would be a top pick that a Benchmade, Spyderco, or Cold Steel Voyager-series might be.
 
Good ergos, nice scales...however, my M-Tech folder's liner lock is worthless. It's pretty much a tactical-looking slipjoint.
If you want a cheap locking folder, get an Opinel.
 
Confederate said:
Anyway, what makes a Gerber or CRKT with 420j2 blades better than an M-Tech with a blade made from 440A at a fraction of the price?
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Nothing IMHO, but some might say the heat treat will be better. I wouldn't buy any of them. M-Tech would be my last choice of the three, however, because they shamelessly steal other companies' designs. Gerber does this also (Evo). The only CRKT I have is an S-2 with an ATS-34 blade, which I got for a price I simply couldn't refuse. I wouldn't have paid full price for it.
 
Quiet Storm got a bum knife as mine locks up fine, cuts fine. As for heat treat, it's probably not an issue with 420j2 blades. I'd rather have cheap 440A than good 420j2. And, realistically, there might not be much of a difference at all. None of the knives I mentioned meet my standard as a good EDC knife; however, the question I raise is that as companies like Gerber and CRKT lower their blade qualities, everyone will have to reconsider what's junk and what's not. Doesn't seem fair to keep trashing Chinese knives in a day when the blade in your back pocket might be a 420j2!
 
Confederate said:
Quiet Storm got a bum knife as mine locks up fine, cuts fine. As for heat treat, it's probably not an issue with 420j2 blades. I'd rather have cheap 440A than good 420j2. And, realistically, there might not be much of a difference at all. None of the knives I mentioned meet my standard as a good EDC knife; however, the question I raise is that as companies like Gerber and CRKT lower their blade qualities, everyone will have to reconsider what's junk and what's not. Doesn't seem fair to keep trashing Chinese knives in a day when the blade in your back pocket might be a 420j2!
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There is nothing to "reconsider"- Junk is still junk no matter who makes it.

There are good chinese knives, just not any of the ones you mention.

BTW, that isn't a "question", it is an erroneous statement.
 
Confederate said:
I'd rather have cheap 440A than good 420j2.
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So you'd rather have 440A@45HRC than 420J2@54HRC? :confused:
In that case, the 420J2 blade would be vastly superior to the 440A one.

Not that all inexpensive 420J2 knives are necessarily HTed better than cheap 440A specimens, but some people greatly underestimate the importance of proper HT.
 
Well, the best bet is to buy a good knife to begin with. I haven't found any of the three knives I mentioned to be either better or worse than the others.
 
When you buy a chinese made knife you will never know exactly whats in the steel no matter what they call it surely it will never be pure and one thing you can be sure of is that it is not properly heat treated or tempered which are not the same thing.
 
Over the years, I've sold hundreds of Mtechs, Maxams, and other cheap lnife brands at gun shows. For the price I sell them for, they are a good deal. They are supposed to be cheap. Most people can't afford to by $100 knives.

Yes, they lose an edge faster then the better steels (duh). But it can still be a great camp or work knife. Just don't bother with the Sharpmaker. Just hit it a few times with one of those cheap "V" shaped carbide sharpeners and maybe a swipe on a stone and you're ready to go again.

Most M-tech's are 440A. There are many other brands, including CRKT, that sell blades of 420J2. One post said that 420 was harder than 440A. I disagree with this. Charts will not always give the same numbers but the one I'm looking at shows 420 the softest steel used in knife making. For example: "420J2 - 49-53" and "440A - 56". I know edge treatment can add to the hardness but that is not what I'm talking about here.

Are Mtechs good knives? No, not really. Can they be useful for someone that can only afford $8 - $15? Yes, they can. Everything has it's place.
 
Eh i have about 3 of em and there decent but not great.....steel is crappy but the edge is fairly decent. i got mine to hold a hair shaving edge for a week but it lost it shortly afterwards. but they look great and are cheaper than dirt.
 
The simple truth is that just a few years ago, 420j2 was crap steel used only for liners -- for the structural integrity of the knife, okay? Maybe some company out there was making them into blades and seeing if he could put an edge on them, but overall I don't recall anyone offering 420j2 blades except for possibly some Chinese companies.

Most people today use knives for opening mail, boxes and packages. When they get a new chair in, they cut off all the bubblewrap, then cut the tags. Then they might open them or keep them close when going through dark parking lots at night. M-Techs are okay for this kind of duty, but if you need to cut marine cable, camp, hunt or have one for emergencies, your better knives obviously are the ones to go with.

Bladeprince hit it right on the nose. The M-Techs sharpen up nicely with those "V" sharpeners -- and I would take the 440A blades over the 420j2 blades, but really, what does it matter? Can a Gerber junk blade be substantially better than an M-Tech with a junk blade? All I'm saying is that it's time to put all these knives together when we label them and not let them off because they happen to be made by Gerber or CRKT.
 
The M-Tech knives may even be manufactured at the same Chinese cutleries
that also produce knives and/or blades for other US knife companies.

With today's outsourcing to China it wouldn't surprise me. Just have a look at
how many blades from well-known US knife companies are already made in China.

Andy
 
If you cant afford a really good U.S.A. manufactured knife then you can always buy a swedish blade which costs around the same as a chinese blade but with an rc of around 63 (laminated steel) or rc60 for carbon blades it will cut along side the best of the best.
 
sdt11670,

Where can I find 'em? The laminated Swedish-made knife I have is HRC61 and the mono-steel carbon one is noticeably softer.

I have an Mtech fixed blade kerambit and it took a hair-popping edge on my Sharpmaker quicker than many other blades. It's kept its edge because it's been in a drawer ever since, but man does it look cool!
 
YEAH. I love the high quality expensive knives. I have a few camilluis CQB1's and 3 striders. One day while visiting my Dad in M.O. I was at a convience store and they hade alittle knife display.they had a bunch of these m-techs. I enspected a few and they seemed O.K. especially for the price, 5 to 10 dolars. so I bought a few. I Love this one little italian style stiletto. I bought a bunch of them. They can be sharpened scary sharp and I abuse the hell out of them.and they hold up pretty well. especially for the price. Funny I was going to post a pic of the knives I got and ask if anyone has ever heard of them too!!
 
I bought one recently. Someone here had posted that they'd had pretty good luck with one particular model (model MT005B, the one that looks like a Microtech Amphibian), and it was a good-looking knife; so when I saw it for sale when I was buying something else, I dropped a whopping $7 on one just to see how bad they really are.

mt005b.jpg


Hey, "know thy enemy" and all that. Anyway, I was actually quite surprised by good a knife $7 got me!

It came about CRKT-sharp, not Spydie- or Kershaw-sharp, but better than I'd expected.

It has a black crinkle finish on the blade, which I'm not really fond of, but it's holding up better than a lot of other coated blades I've used.

The handle scales are G-10, and very well fitted, with a nice grippy texture.

The liner lock locks up pretty well, originally about halfway across the tang, now about 2/3 now that it's broken in a bit; more than I'd like, but it seems to have stabilized, so if it stays there for a while, I'll be happy.

The edges of the handle could stand a bit more radius; I'll fix that one of these days with some sandpaper. But besides that, the ergonomics are pretty good. It's comfortable and secure in every grip I've tried.

I was impressed enough that I just bought the same knife with a satin-finish blade, just fer grins.

MT005S.jpg


I'm tellin' ya, American knifemakers better watch out. The Chinese are learning how to make decent knives, and they're learning fast! :eek:
 
Knives are like sex. Like a friend told me once, "even the worst sex he ever had was fantastic".

To paraphrase, even the crappiest knife is still great in one sense, it's a knife.
 
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