Maxpedition's Mad Dog Knives knockoffs?!

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TimberBlade0

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Want to confirm this: you guys heard of the recent dispute between Maxpedition CEO and Kevin from Mad Dog Knives?!
Google "Maxpedition Pulls New Knife Line after Dispute" and there are some reports on military.com and soldiersystems.net
http://kitup.military.com/2014/01/maxpedition-pulls-knife-line-dispute.html

Apparently last week at SHOT Show Tim from Maxpedition showed off his entire line of knockoff Mad Dog knives and sheaths! (WTH?!)

Mad Dog Kevin's daughters who were helping at the booth walked off in protest because Maxpedition did all these behind Kevin's back!
Tim said "our knives were inspired by (Mad Dog Knives)... and there is no trademark or patent infringement on a legal standpoint!"
Then he claimed to be Kevin's close family friend!? :mad::barf:
 
I hope they make up, fall in love, and eventually get married. Those two deserve each other.
 
Quiet said:
Oh, the drama.
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Tang told me he has dropped the entire project, an endeavor that cost him more than $100,000.

“I am actually close family friends with [McClung], so I don’t want to burn that bridge,” Tang said.
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In my eyes Maxpedition gains respect out of the situation.
I can only hope they come to a licensing situation rather than just scrapping the whole project.
 
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Hello:

It's a betrayal by Tim Tang on his former friend Kevin McClung. Tim created and released the project without Kevin's permission or knowledge. All of my Maxpedition gear is now given away or thrown out. I'll never recommend Maxpedition to anyone again. I've stopped being lazy and have replaced all my work gear with Original SOE. My bags will be replaced with GoRuck. I stand with Kevin McClung, Mad Dog Knives and all small business owners and custom knife makers who take pride in craftsmanship, doing things their own way and having the freedom from having your life's work knocked off in a cheap Production line copy by a person who treats you like family one day as stabs you in the back with said copy the next.
 
emptyglass said:
Hello:

It's a betrayal by Tim Tang on his former friend Kevin McClung. Tim created and released the project without Kevin's permission or knowledge. All of my Maxpedition gear is now given away or thrown out. I'll never recommend Maxpedition to anyone again. I've stopped being lazy and have replaced all my work gear with Original SOE. My bags will be replaced with GoRuck. I stand with Kevin McClung, Mad Dog Knives and all small business owners and custom knife makers who take pride in craftsmanship, doing things their own way and having the freedom from having your life's work knocked off in a cheap Production line copy by a person who treats you like family one day as stabs you in the back with said copy the next.
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Yeah! That big jerk...scrapped a $100,000 dollar project when he found out his friend was upset...what a meanie...
 
Hello:

So let me get this straight. Your supposed friend, who visits your house, uses your kids as booth workers at SHOT, in truth is probably one of if not the largest collector of your one off custom knives in the world, goes off and created $100 knockoffs which are obviously copies of your primary design without your knowledge or permission and or maybe let him cut you in on a craft you spent 25 years marketing , designing and manufacturing on your own and you'll just suck that up? I know there is Mad Dog animosity on this forum due to the Cliff Stamp/TUSK affair and the Mick Strider history saga but take out Kevin's name and Mad Dog Knives from the situation and drop in your own favorite custom maker. Apparently if you think this is above board behavior your definition of good conduct and friendship are much different than mine. Apparently Tim felt that his $100,000 investment and profits to be gained were better than having Kevin as a friend and supplier of some of the best made knives I've ever used. I think he was wrong and considering the market presence and success of Maxpedition I can't fathom why he would give that up to make some crappy knives.
 
Hello:

So let me get this straight. Your supposed friend, who visits your house, uses your kids as booth workers at SHOT, in truth is probably one of if not the largest collector of your one off custom knives in the world, goes off and created $100 knockoffs which are obviously copies of your primary design without your knowledge or permission and or maybe let him cut you in on a craft you spent 25 years marketing , designing and manufacturing on your own and you'll just suck that up? I know there is Mad Dog animosity on this forum due to the Cliff Stamp/TUSK affair and the Mick Strider history saga but take out Kevin's name and Mad Dog Knives from the situation and drop in your own favorite custom maker. Apparently if you think this is above board behavior your definition of good conduct and friendship are much different than mine. Apparently Tim felt that his $100,000 investment and profits to be gained were better than having Kevin as a friend and supplier of some of the best made knives I've ever used. I think he was wrong and considering the market presence and success of Maxpedition I can't fathom why he would give that up to make some crappy knive
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Why are you getting rabies over this? Are you McLung? His family member? What did Maxpedition do to you personally to get you this riled up? I can see no longer buying things from somebody you no longer trust but you really come across as someone taking this very personally. I'm just trying to figure out where you fit in.

As far as the "cliff Stamp" thing....Who is "cliff Stamp"? Do you see him posting or arguing against Mad Dog knives here? If he did in the past, how long ago was it?

He no longer comes here so I don't know why you would bring up animosity. Animosity seems to come from you. No one else.
 
Animosity? No animosity here. This is an open forum and I thought we could voice our opinions. This is mine. This is blatant knockoff marketing made worse by the known relationship both guys had. Here are the answers to your questions.

1. I'm not Kevin. I do support Kevin and many other custom knife makers. I like Kevin's work and have his knives. I don't like people who take someone else's work and attempt to claim it as their own.

2. Not family. Just a customer and supporter of small business and custom makers.

3. Do your homework. Cliff Stamp and Kevin had a disagreement years ago that was rather bellicose here. As such, I've seen some continued animosity toward Mad Dog Knives over it and some other issues that I feel is undeserved. Bringing it up is a matter of history not animosity.

I've been a member here for over a decade now so my dog in this fight so to speak, is to support the side I feel is in the right. That's it. I ditched my Maxpedition gear at my expense because I believe in putting my money where my mouth is. Most people are more mouth than anything else.
 
Don't own anymore max stuff, don't own anymore mad dogs because lets face it I sold eveyone at a nice profit. Throught the years of buying MDs he was Nothing but nice to me great customer service with that being said if someone or company knocked off most makers design the knife community would have strung them up. There are plenty of knock off threads here outlining how it is a detested practice, but not for mcclung? You may think he is a jerk sellong overpriced knives etc, but still he is a maker who has work a good portion of his life building his brand snd it gets knocked if.
 
Who's knocking off his designs? I'm not unsympathetic to McClung in this story, but it also explicitly says that the line of alleged knock offs were scrapped. Yeah, if Mr. Tang had gone ahead with the line and given Mr. McClung the proverbial finger I could see the anger, but it sounds like the guy is eating a loss specifically to avoid angering a friend and generating controversy. He made a mistake and, so far, seems to have handled it well.
 
All I can say is this...we will probably never know exactly what they agreed on (maybe Tim just had a different understanding of the agreement, maybe their really was no agreement). Maxpedition is still a great company, but it's just that. It's a company. It isn't a charity and it isn't some moral organization. They messed up in this situation but their products are excellent and they've been very ingenuitive. They've come up with hundreds of product designs.

EVERY company steals designs from other companies. Benchmade, spyderco, emerson, strider, cold steel...all of these companies have designs that are very similar to other companies products. Tim may have handled this poorly, and I really hope he can turn it around, but his company is no worse than any other in the industry. It's the fricking knife industry...you should expect some backstabbing! ;)

I now feel the need to defend myself...I'm not a Maxpedition rep. I love their products but I'm not selling out for them. Just figure that everyone in the industry deserves a second chance. Everyone has scandals.
 
True. At this point the matter appears to be settled. Also this isn't the first time Tim has done this. The Liger Belt is another example. That being said I see no issue with holding people in charge of business to a good practice standard of how they do business. As far as I am aware there was no agreement. The only reason Kevin knew about it was that his daughters were working the Maxpedition booth when the knives were shown and others started calling him to let him know. In any case I think it is important for things like this to be observed and recorded so companies are held to account for bad behavior. Too often it seems nowadays that people just go along with poor behavior without holding others to account for their actions. The old "fix the problem not the blame" meme. Well sometimes the problem and the blame are fixed by attaching them to the proper person.
 
I agree that it was pretty terrible of Tim to do. My only point is that we shouldn't rule out all of his products because he made one unsavory business decision (or two, hadn't heard of the belt). I don't like how Lynn Thompson does things but I like Cold Steel's products. Sometimes businesses should just let the products speak for themselves.
 
Well, when there are better US made alternatives out there who don't engage in this behavior, I'll put my cash and trust with them (OSOE, Tactical Tailor, GoRuck etc...).
 
emptyglass said:
Well, when there are better US made alternatives out there who don't engage in this behavior, I'll put my cash and trust with them (OSOE, Tactical Tailor, GoRuck etc...).
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Yes, OSOE, because Willis is the standard of ethics against which all others should be measured...
 
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