Mission 10" MPK-S received

Rick, bottom line it is plain wrong to say something like "our knives are as strong as Busse's" but then have a much weaker warrenty. You are making very strong claims and not standing behind them. Rick you seem like a decent guy but surely you have to see the problem here.

-Cliff
 
Cliff,

In Rick's last post he stated that they're working on a warrenty policy for the A2 MPKs. You're interpreting his cautions, albiet I agree that he's being extremely over cautious, as being Mission's warrenty. Not so.

Rick,
But I have to agree with Cliff that Mission would be remiss in not providing a warrenty to match Busse and MadDog with whom the MPKS series competes. To do anything less undermines the marketing and gives the competition an advantage. I mean think about it, just how many knives, realistically, are going to get broken? And now compare the replacement costs of those against increased sales and the good will you'll garner in competition against Busse and Maddog. Seems a simple answer exists... Mission should provide "a break it and we'll replace it warranty"... period.


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-=[Bob]=-

I did NOT escape from the institution! They gave me a day pass!

 
Bob,

You're interpreting his cautions, albiet I agree that he's being extremely over cautious, as being Mission's warrenty.
Click to expand...

I have asked multiple times, both on the forums and in email what exactly the warrenty policy is and have recieved no reply. Until I get a definate answer then I am going to assume Rick's cautions are the same as any other - use the knife to do this and void the warrenty. If this is not the case and there is a Busse type policy I would be very interested.

Speaking of Mission and warrenties. When I became interested in the MPF awhile ago I went through the same process. It was very dificult to get a straight answer on exactly what the MPF could be expected to take. Finally I just decribed in detail what I expected and intended to do with the MPF to Sid and he confirmed with Rick that the knife should not have any problems - being a reasonable person I assume that if it will then it is covered. However i never did get a direct statement of the warrenty policy and the MPF has been out awhile.

As for working on the warrenty - the knives are in peoples hands already. This warrenty should have been set in stone long before that happened unless they are sending out prototypes to be tested. It seems very odd to me to have a company working out exactly what the warrenty policy is after the product is sold.

-Cliff

[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 19 May 1999).]
 
Our warranty is and has always been "we will replace any knife that has a manufacturing and/or materials defect."

Does this help?
Rick
 
That's only a little bit better than the notorious "two-part guarantee" (if it breaks in half you get both parts). If a knife is designed so it loses its edge in 30 seconds of normal use, two minutes later the blade breaks in half, and five minutes later the handle falls off -- those are design problems, not covered by warranty, have a nice day....

A good warranty for the kind of heavy-duty knives Mission markets theirs as would be "if it ever fails you we'll replace it." An acceptable warranty would be "if it ever fails you and you weren't abusing it we'll replace it" -- provided the manufacturer doesn't try to call the kind of uses the knife is marketed for "abuse."

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
Cougar - You wrote..."If a knife is designed so it loses its edge in 30 seconds of normal use, two minutes later the blade breaks in half, and five minutes later the handle falls off -- those are design problems, not covered by warranty, have a nice day".

I beg to differ with you. If a manufacturer designs a knife this way, they won't be a manufacturer for long. This is a small industry and, believe me, the word would get around FAST.

I do believe these are really all manufacturing problems.

Loseing an edge in 30 seconds is the result of a bad heat treatment (i.e. manufacturing process)

Blade breaks in half - depends on how it broke? Were you trying to suspend an SUV from the knife or just cutting butter?

Handle falls off - did it fall off due to a hacksaw cutting it off, or did it fall off during cutting a slice of bread. If it fell off by cutting a slice of bread, then it was not placed on the knife correctly and the knife will be replaced free of charge.

I'm glad you brought up the last point. Your last example is what we were implying in the warranty - "it ever fails you and you weren't abusing it we'll replace it" We stand behind this statement. We have never had a dissatisfied customer. We have even swapped out customers knives that had a change in mind from non-serrated to serrated. One guy even tried to sharpen the titanium MPK and really messed up the edge. To keep the customer happy, I resharpened it for free.

Regards to the "other" guy and warranty that you are referring to "...and carry an unconditional Lifetime Guarantee. No fine print." This is sheer idiocy and lunacy. Two things here,

#1 - how easy is it to put this guy out of business? I could go out right now and purchase 1,000 of his knives, run them over with a tank and break everyone. I would then take these 1,000 broken knives back to him and ask for replacements. He would have to honor his warranty and service me first before shipping another knife out to another customer. I would turn right around and the next day be back at his shop with another 1,000 broken knives. After 5 or 6 times, I would then ask for my money back - which he would have to honor due to "unconditional lifetime guarantee". The only GUARANTEE here is that he would be bankrupt after this. Why haven't I done it, yet?

#2 - this "unconditional" warranty is only as good as the person behind it - 'nuff said.
 
Rick look at it from the consumers point of view. What exactly does that tell them? Does that indicate at all where the breaking point levels can be expected to be found?

To be specific, and refering to Bob's above post, does this warrenty cover damage endured while chopping, prying and digging? If I am digging a hole and the tip breaks, am I covered? If I am chopping and the blade ripples or chips out, am I covered, if I am prying and the blade takes a bend or snaps am I covered?

The A1 in VG-10 has had no problems with any of that - including chopping right at rocks let alone wood (it wasn't indented on the softer metals and I was getting curious as to what it would take). The edge just rolled slightly (impactions were about .01 cm deep) and would have easily been able to be put back into place except I got curious if I could sharpen it on a brick.

-Cliff
 
The strongest warrenties around Rick cover accidental failure of any kind. And there are people out there who have had much stronger warrenties than what you quote and have had them for a long time, Busse for example so it is quite possible. Most custom makers have an even stronger policy. All the ones I have dealt with are "return if you are not satisfied".

These are mainly small run shops so you can't buy 1000 knives at a time nor can you repeatly do what you describe. And if even if you could you don't live in a vaccum. Life is not that simple, if you did what you wrote in the above you would be quickly hauled into court. I am not a lawyer - but I can't see you having firm ground in that situation as you are acting with malice. There are lots of tools in the hardware section of any dept. store that have full replacement warrenties - no questions asked. How come a rival company does not do as you suggested is possible?

-Cliff


[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 19 May 1999).]
 
Cliff - to be fair, we will go back and readdress our warranty statements.

One question though, why would I be hauled into court by breaking his knives? His advertising dares me to break his knives, and if I do, there is an unconditional/no fine print/no questions asked/lifetime warranty. Seems to me that I can hand back a broken knife to him and it doesn't matter how I broke it, the knife will either be replaced or money refunded, no fine print, no questions asked, unconditionally, for the lifetime of the product. Now, take this to the extreme of breaking 1,000 of his knives and you can see the issue that the manufacturer now faces. Seems to me I would easily win a court case if it went that far. How could you possibly see it differently?

Why don't more of the larger manufacturers have this type of warranty - i.e., Buck, Spyderco, Benchmade, etc.? Because they have more business smarts.
 
Rick, the reason why those manufacturers you mentioned don't have that unconditional warranty is because at the low prices they are available they don't need to. When I get a $100 spyderco versus a $325 sebenza or $400 MPF, I expect much more out of the expensive knives than my Spy. or BM. I don't expect to get my $50 CS SRK replaced if I break it and I really don't much care if I do. But If my MPK, Project 1 or 2, Battle Mistress, etc. break I do expect replacement.

Cliff, I'm not sure what you want to do with the MPF, but remember it's just a folder that fits in your pocket with a clip. I don't care how good a folder is, you can break it if you try.
 
Rick, as far as someone trying to break your business by purposely breaking your knives, I think it's obvious that after the first 4 or 5, all parties concerned would have figured out that it is just not the knife for him. There is an old saying that can be modified slightly to fit this problem; " Break two of my knives shame on me, break the third, shame on you". Basically, after breaking a couple of said knives, I should already know that I will break the third and, thus, If I break a third knife then I was at fault. Makes sense?

Oh, and Cliff, I know what you are going to say about my folder comments; The uluchet did not fail? True, but the uluchet is not a concealable folder like your typical folding knife, thus, it's more the size of a fixed blade. The only advantage a folder has, in my opinion, is concealability, without which it's not really a folder, but just a folding fixed blade,hehe. Now if you can stuff the uluchet in your pocket easily and walk around all day, then it's a concealable folder. But if someone comes up to you and says "is that an Ahbrams M-1 tank in you pocket, or are you just happy to see me?", then it's not really concealable. I think the Vaquero Grande is on the upper limmit of concealability.
 
Rick, as I said it is not done and there are lots of tools with full replacement warrenties. If it was possible obviously it would have been done as there are people out there that will do anything to succeed.

Cobat, if the Uluchet had a knife blade instead of an axe head it would not be difficult to carry. As for what I intend to do with the MPF : it will be chopping, digging, prying and slicing. I went over this in detail with Sid Post before I ordered it and he discussed it with Rick. I specifically asked about the durability of the lock in this regard and of course the blade.

-Cliff
 
Mission builds a great knife. Period. Can you break one? Yes. Can you break one doing knife things, I don't think so. Mission has a proven track record with Military users who are very hard on knives and has not had a problem so, I would be really surprised if it failed in a normal users hands.

Is there any doubt that Mission would take care of a customer who broke a knife due to a manufacturing defect? If you read most (not all) warranties, there is a clause in there about extreme uses. What do you define as extreme?

Sid
 
Hmm ... no business smarts? Why haven't all the hundreds of knifemakers who give unconditional guarantees gone bankrupt? Himalayan Imports, for instance -- when a customer broke 3/8 of an inch off the point of his kukuri, the only question Bill Martino asked was would he prefer to have the knife replaced or the point reground? Why hasn't HI gone bankrupt with a warranty like that? Could it be because that's the only time an HI knife has ever broken?

That last post looks much better than the previous, though. Now all that remains is to define "abuse." As long as customers who use a knife for the things it's advertised to do aren't told they abused it and voided the warranty, an exception for abuse is acceptable to me (not to everybody, though, just because it's impossible to define abuse precisely, and you'd certainly sell more knives with an unconditional warranty. Maybe in your case you'd spend more money replacing broken knives than you'd gain from the extra sales, though; you'd know better than I.)

Judging from your posts I would think it would be just about impossible to break a Mission knife while doing anything any remotely sane person would attempt to do with a tactical knife, at least the larger titanium models. It sure looks like you ought to be able to pry at things, bash at things with the pommel, chop hardwood, cut wire, do just about anything with it. What kind of uses would you call abuse?

For a purely hypothetical example, if a company were to feature a picture of one of their knives being hammered through an iron bar in their ads and yet exclude that use from the warranty, I would consider that unethical and refuse to buy anything from that company. Whether I have any need for my knife to be that tough or not, when I know one of a knifemaker's claims is exaggerated I doubt everything else that company says.

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
Sid :

What do you define as extreme?
Click to expand...

Depends on the knife. For the 15" A2 MPK I would expect it to chop, dig, pry and slice. I would expect no chipping during slicing or chopping regardless of the materials being chopped, no bending or breaking during prying, and no damage during digging regardless of the material being dug through. None of that is extreme, that is what the knife should do.

To be even more specific :

http://www.physics.mun.ca:80/~sstamp/knives/reviews.html

If Mission does not want to warrenty against that, that's fine with me, there are lots of people that will. The Busse Basics are coming out soon and they are cheaper than the MPK and Busse has no concerns about any of the above.

And I could not agree more with the last paragraph that Cougar has wrote in the above post (and everything else but the last bit especially).

-Cliff


[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 20 May 1999).]
 
Cliff, are you getting the steel blade or Ti blade MPF?

regarding the uluchet, maybe they should come out with a blade version. It might just do very well. especially in the D-2(one of my favorites) they use.
 
Rick, in regards to toughness. I am a bit confused as to how Ti is stronger than A2 when its tensile strength is much lower. All I can figure is that it might have a higher elastic limit. Since whatever whatever way the tensile strength is measured can also obtain the elastic limit, you should have both numbers. I would be very curious as to what they are.

This behavior is evident for example in aluminum which can have its elastic limit just under the tensile strength, for example :

Al Alloy : 50 : 56
Annealed Steel : 30 : 50

These are the elastic limits and tensile strengths, respectively (in 10^7 N/m^2). You will note that while the Al and Steel have almost identical tensile strengths the Al has a much higer (>65% increase) in its elastic limit. This means that while both materials will be pulled apart long at about the same stress level, the Al will retain its shape much longer than the Steel.

For reference, the tensile strength is the breaking point in a stretch. If you surpass this the material comes apart. The elastic limit is the deformation point, if you surpass this then the material will take a perm. bend. In regards to knife users it is very important to know the elastic limits as well as the tensile strengths.

-Cliff
 
Has anyone actually purchased this knife?It seems like you'd have to drive a stake thru it's heart in order to break it. Is everyone scared off by the warranty snafu? If anyone has bought it have they had a chance to use it? How does it compaer to a Busse or Reeve
knife? It seems like it would be on equal footing and have a better blade coating? what about sharpness and resharpening? any info I'd like to hear it.

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Somedays you eat the bear....somedays the bear
eats you.
 
Hey Bob,
How the hell do you garner 60 replies to a knife review? There must be something to being bald that I'm just missing! Great review.
 
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