Point in fact. Mad Dog never "looked" to the far east for higher prices. The far east found him. If Mad Dog sells his knives for half the price, they will be re-sold on the open market for double that, or more. Is it right that the person who invented, labored and still makes the pieces by hand with a rather high overhead in materials and time should make less on his work than someone who buys it, then turns around and re-sells it easily (as you yourself have experienced) for a huge profit? On top of this, the "haters" are quite silly. McClung is an "all american" father of five who has given every one of his personal carry Mad Dogs to deploying soldiers. He still does not have his own knives.. for the love of raising a family, and .. for supporting our troops, he has given his knives to those who truly need them, and sold them to raise a family.
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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
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Press Release & New Website for Mad Dog, McClung
- Thread starter VIMforMD
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No need to "promote" sales, they go quickly. I was simply astonished by the "haters" for no valid reason. As blade fans, I am disappointed in the interest here for the true art of a serious knife for serious use. It is understood that the price of Mad Dogs prohibits many. Kevin McClung, "Mad Dog" does not even own his own knives. This is a supply and demand issue.. demand being the point. As an art & function, true blade enthusiast appreciate the product. There are many other places to spend time conversing with real users. Not to say that Blade Forum's posters are not knife users, but there is certainly a lack of interest in true custom knife making. Much silliness here with haters and uniformed trash talkers. I, the CEO of VIM, joined here thinking it was a true quality knife enthusiast site and looking forward to feedback on not just Mad Dogs, but other popular blades. 90% of this has been silly uninformed hater talk and accusations for no apparent reason; totally unprovoked. Therefore, over and out.
Rather high overhead in materials and time? Ummmmmm, no. The materials are cheap in the scheme of things. I guess he values his time more than most.
At 8 knives a month, at the prices he charges, working a normal work week like most folks, he makes about $150 an hour. Boooo hoooo. If he has any overhead at all, it's because he charges too damned much and has inventory hanging around.
Why doesn't he (you) start a midtech line and charge reasonable prices? Stamp them as such so they won't get confused with the customs. That would give folks a chance to test out the designs (which I love) without having to get on a payment plan.
At 8 knives a month, at the prices he charges, working a normal work week like most folks, he makes about $150 an hour. Boooo hoooo. If he has any overhead at all, it's because he charges too damned much and has inventory hanging around.
Why doesn't he (you) start a midtech line and charge reasonable prices? Stamp them as such so they won't get confused with the customs. That would give folks a chance to test out the designs (which I love) without having to get on a payment plan.
You mean like Maxpedition did ?..... They are selling like hot cakes over here.
Yep, I guess so.... It would still be nice to see a midtech line overseen by the man himself.
Buy a CNC machine, hire a couple of competent employees, and get to work! A midtech Mad Dog for $300 or so? Awwww, skeet skeet skeet skeet! I'd buy one, maybe even two!
So it is unclear at this point, at least to me. Are you Mad Dog McClung talking like you are not, or are you another individual completely? VIM is listed as owning the trademark "Mad Dog" knives, and is also listed in the same area you mentioned the knives are made? Since the link you posted does not offer a physical address that I could find for the place of manufacture I was not able to compare them. Insulting the entire forum(though you tried to backtrack a bit) based on a handful of posts shows me you are willing to sink to the "haters" level. From a production standpoint you seem to be a pretty small operation, having a separate CEO in a small knife shop seems overkill, especially since you have zero need for promotion?
It is unfortunate that people jumped on you quickly though this whole thread is a bit odd IMO, and your last couple posts are Extremely strange. Your intention was to have a discussion about Mad Dog knives but not to promote them because they need no promoting? So you are here to inform us that your company has made some changes and to look into your product, but simply for informed discussion purposes?
I quick search turned up quite a bit of interesting facts and opinions about Mad Dog knives in years past.
This one is interesting...
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/129972-Update-on-7-knife-test-concerning-MAD-DOG
You also stated that Kevin is so generous "He still does not have his own knives.." However, google turned this up. Source:
http://www.elitemilitaryknives.com/HTML/ITEMS/atakiib.html
Quoting from Kevin AKA Mad Dog McClung:
"This is the rarest of the military SEAL ATAKs. There were only ten of these made. They were produced on the cusp of the design and marking changes mandated by the US Navy in 1993. So, no more of this pattern were ever made. Five (consecutively numbered) of these were used in the movie "Under Siege II" and disappeared into Seagal's footlocker, and the rest went to NAVSPECWAR for demos... except this one, the last one, #B10. I kept it, forgot about it, and found it while cleaning out the safe last week. The last one of these B series blades that sold went for $10,000.00 at a Safari Club International benefit auction several years ago. Stephen Seagal donated one of his for the fundraiser. The blade is a hand ground SEAL ATAK blade with hand cut file work, false edge, bright hard chrome and it is the first serrated ATAK pattern. Hand ground composite grip. Kevin sold B10 for $8,000 in February of 2006."
It would seem he did own his own product some 10+ years though a very collectible piece. Come on now, if he really wanted to own his own product he need look no further than his own safe. I am sorry but this sounds like a load of crap to me. I will offer my gratitude if he does indeed donate knives to outgoing troops. As stated above by another poster it would seem he is not a struggling knife maker just scraping by.
It was nice of you to try and inform us of your changes and products but when you insult the members here, provoked or not, things tend to come out of the woodwork. The "haters and uniformed trash talkers" make it a point to become informed.
I gather from my research you guys at Mad Dog make a decent custom knife that to me would be worth a few hundred dollars. It would appear over the years your knives were plagued with corrosion problems, failed handle adhesion, and complete failures all together. My post is getting to long so I will not post the magazine articles I found documenting problems. If you as the new CEO would like them PM me or I will post them here later. I have a hunch you are already aware of all of this but that is just my take on things.
I've never owned one but I've always been very interested in these knives believe it or not even if they aren't dipped in unicorn blood ,lol. If supply and demand command those prices more power to Ya.they are worth what people are willing to pay for them. Do I think they are too expensive, yep but who am I to say what to charge for your product . Honestly if I had a lot of disposable cash I'd probably purchase one.
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A piece of coated tool steel, with a bit of G-10 chucked on it, dressed up in kydex is only just worth about $300 to start with. You want to start upping that price to thousands we better be talking about self forged damascus, superbly exotic handle materials, assembled with the fit and finish of the gods. Have a look at what you can get from an ABS Master Smith for the price of one of those MDs and you will see the utter farce here.
The last hand made knife I bought was an ABS M.S. made "semi integral" takedown bowie with a hand forged W2 blade sporting an insane hamon, perfectly sculpted and hand finished elephant ivory handle with gold inlay on the blued steel fittings. Guess how much that cost ? ..........
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:thumbup: Someone needs to pay for a dealer's/maker's membership or whatever its called. This thread smells of something..... a lil...... oh I don't know ......maybe.....SPAM!!
Thanks for the post. This thread is entertaining. So is the website link in the OP. Who writes for that website? Fantastic! Lot's of quotable content from what I can see. My favorite quote from the website has to be the following.
"Can you kill someone with a factory knife, of course!"
But why kill someone with a cheap, mass produced knife when you can kill someone with style?
"Can you kill someone with a factory knife, of course!"
But why kill someone with a cheap, mass produced knife when you can kill someone with style?
That was quite a sour reaction to a relatively small amount of ribbing. I didn't see anything particularly provocative being said.
One thing that stood out to me, though, was the emphasis on resale value from the maker. It's fine for consumers to mention "they hold their value well, you can sell it for a profit, etc." when discussing the product. But for the maker to defend their product's value by mentioning resale rubs me the wrong way - product value should ideally be driven by the product itself. Can you imagine Chris Reeve publishing an article about Sebenzas being worth their high cost because of the secondary market? No, he simply puts out a quality product and advertises it as such.
Yikes. What a trainwreck this was.
One thing that stood out to me, though, was the emphasis on resale value from the maker. It's fine for consumers to mention "they hold their value well, you can sell it for a profit, etc." when discussing the product. But for the maker to defend their product's value by mentioning resale rubs me the wrong way - product value should ideally be driven by the product itself. Can you imagine Chris Reeve publishing an article about Sebenzas being worth their high cost because of the secondary market? No, he simply puts out a quality product and advertises it as such.
Yikes. What a trainwreck this was.
Gastonknife
Gold Member
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- 1,997
I would say that I would not pay those prices for a knife of that nature. I do not want to get into any personal/private feelings about the maker. However, it's America and he can charge whatever he wants.
Now, I do think it is a bit of self promotion coming on here to "update the knife community".
Now, I do think it is a bit of self promotion coming on here to "update the knife community".
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What Haze said is exactly right, full customs from ABS M.S. are much more reasonable and frankly made from better materials with people with skills far in excess of what I see from Mad Dog. They are just better workmen. They by the way hold there value just as well, as art usually does. Frankly the only way the prices are so high is trading on his name and gullible people with more money than sense thinking that having a mad dog knife will make them an uber tier one operator. Nothing wrong with taking advantage of that, but people who actually pay attention to well made knives aren't going to be your target audience.
wolfmann601
Gone, but not forgotton. RIP Ira.
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- Mar 12, 2001
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- 7,385
I wasn't badmouthing Mad Dog knives, nor am I a "hater".
I stated that I was an owner and enjoyed the knife and it's abilities and capabilities.
My only "issue", like many here are the prices, that is all ( for me anyway). And yes they do sell and very quickly even though the prices are high the price. And if Kevin turns out only eight knives a week/Month his overhead would be high??? Really
I think it's time I get out of this thread, stuff is getting misconstrued........................................................
I stated that I was an owner and enjoyed the knife and it's abilities and capabilities.
My only "issue", like many here are the prices, that is all ( for me anyway). And yes they do sell and very quickly even though the prices are high the price. And if Kevin turns out only eight knives a week/Month his overhead would be high??? Really
I think it's time I get out of this thread, stuff is getting misconstrued........................................................
wolfmann601
Gone, but not forgotton. RIP Ira.
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2001
- Messages
- 7,385
I wasn't badmouthing Mad Dog knives, nor am I a "hater".
I stated that I was an owner and enjoyed the knife and it's abilities and capabilities.
My only "issue", like many here are the prices, that is all ( for me anyway). And yes they do sell and very quickly even though the prices are high the price. And if Kevin turns out only eight knives a week/Month his overhead would be high, really????
I think it's time I get out of this thread, stuff is getting misconstrued........................................................
I stated that I was an owner and enjoyed the knife and it's abilities and capabilities.
My only "issue", like many here are the prices, that is all ( for me anyway). And yes they do sell and very quickly even though the prices are high the price. And if Kevin turns out only eight knives a week/Month his overhead would be high, really????
I think it's time I get out of this thread, stuff is getting misconstrued........................................................
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