Protech Malibu Numbers

R

Rattlehead114

Joined
Jul 22, 2020
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Thought it might be interesting to see what number and type Malibu people have and and see how they like them. I have black/reverse tanto PR1#361 and it was pretty much perfect out of the box although the edge could've been more slicey.
Curious to see how consistent they are through the run. If you have a Malibu drop a comment with your PR number and configuration!
 
I'd love to give some feedback but I have had zero luck getting a hold of the configuration that interests me (titanium and 20cv), they released a couple batches at different dealers and they sold out in minutes. Heck, just getting a hold of the standard aluminum and 20cv version is like pulling teeth. When I asked about another run of the titanium versions, I was told it would be quite some time before they got around to it. I gotta admit that I don't understand this very much. When you have a knife that literally sales as quickly as you can make them, why would you stop production and move on? They could be printing money right now. It just kind of seems like artificial scarcity and it leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
 
Pr1 #263

Wharnie with black handles. Flips like a dream, and tuned better than any flipper I've ever owned. Edge was scary sharp.

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Made a thread about it here also:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/protech-malibu.1733364/
 
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Fixall said:
I'd love to give some feedback but I have had zero luck getting a hold of the configuration that interests me (titanium and 20cv), they released a couple batches at different dealers and they sold out in minutes. Heck, just getting a hold of the standard aluminum and 20cv version is like pulling teeth. When I asked about another run of the titanium versions, I was told it would be quite some time before they got around to it. I gotta admit that I don't understand this very much. When you have a knife that literally sales as quickly as you can make them, why would you stop production and move on? They could be printing money right now. It just kind of seems like artificial scarcity and it leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
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Production capacity. They made so many of one model and changed tooling for the next model, etc. They're on a schedule and can't just jump up and retool to make another model without messing with the schedule they've laid out. Pretty common in a production environment.

They also probably have contracts for a certain number of X knife and have to meet deadlines as well.
 
Fixall said:
I'd love to give some feedback but I have had zero luck getting a hold of the configuration that interests me (titanium and 20cv), they released a couple batches at different dealers and they sold out in minutes. Heck, just getting a hold of the standard aluminum and 20cv version is like pulling teeth. When I asked about another run of the titanium versions, I was told it would be quite some time before they got around to it. I gotta admit that I don't understand this very much. When you have a knife that literally sales as quickly as you can make them, why would you stop production and move on? They could be printing money right now. It just kind of seems like artificial scarcity and it leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
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They just moved into a new (larger) facility, so their production was recently shut down for a little while. It's also worth remembering that pretty much every new product they've put out has sold through (operator series and polished compound grind knives being recent examples).
 
I picked this one up recently at a local dealer. It's same as the blue/damascus one which I've seen for sale at many online sellers (although I believe sold out everywhere now), except in bronze/gold. Have only seen other gold ones with smooth handle that has abalone inserts. It came in a generic Pro-Tech box without a label, I contacted them about it regarding production numbers but never heard a response.

It's a great knife!
 

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PR1 #106 Reverse Tanto. I like this knife a lot. The flipping action isn't quite as snappy as most frame/liner locks but it opens every time unless trying to fail it. It also doesn't make my finger as sore as some other flippers. All in all it has become my go-to pocket knife in its size range.
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OrangeBlueOrangeBlue said:
They just moved into a new (larger) facility, so their production was recently shut down for a little while. It's also worth remembering that pretty much every new product they've put out has sold through (operator series and polished compound grind knives being recent examples).
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All of this is true, they've been planning this move to a larger facility for a while, and hoped it would be before the Malibu first production runs, but COVID derailed a lot of those plans. Now they'll have increased production capacity. I also think they weren't ready for this sort of demand, especially because of the reaction to the Cambria and Mordax, their other two manual flippers. They said in a social media post that they used all the 20CV in their factory and were waiting for more, and they had doubled the order due to demand. I know plenty of Cambrias have sat on dealer shelves for years, but the Malibu is gone in seconds due to the hype from certain "influencers" over the past few months.

As for the OPs question, I have PR1 #35, a blue reverse tanto. It's beautiful, crisp detent, fall shut action. It came very sharp, but the edge bevel was a litle wavy and uneven. I don't mind, it'll even out as I use and sharpen it.

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I signed up for notifications at several sites.
Got lucky enough to snag it when they went up, and got exactly what I wanted - Blue, Warncliff blade, #205.
 
What is the difference between the wharncliffe and reverse tanto? The edge shape looks the same, just seems a difference in the spine.
 
The Warncliffe is #32, the Reverse Tanto is #301. As others have mentioned, the Reverse Tanto isn't quite as snappy so I added a thumb-stud. Works beautifully. Now I can flip it using the flipper or thumb stud, and I can middle flick it as well.
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soc_monki said:
Production capacity. They made so many of one model and changed tooling for the next model, etc. They're on a schedule and can't just jump up and retool to make another model without messing with the schedule they've laid out. Pretty common in a production environment.

They also probably have contracts for a certain number of X knife and have to meet deadlines as well.
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That makes sense and seems like a reasonable explanation. :)
 
Fixall said:
That makes sense and seems like a reasonable explanation. :)
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They know how much they can sell now, so they'll probably make more in subsequent runs to try and keep up with demand. That would be the smart thing to do!
 
Mine is a black handled wharncliffe. #357
I have a FF/Protech Mordax also. I'm really loving the button lock and action on these knives .

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colubrid said:
what are these selling for now on the secondary market?
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$200+ from what I've seen lately. That should drop when the new run is released later this month.
 
kovalser said:
I picked this one up recently at a local dealer. It's same as the blue/damascus one which I've seen for sale at many online sellers (although I believe sold out everywhere now), except in bronze/gold. Have only seen other gold ones with smooth handle that has abalone inserts. It came in a generic Pro-Tech box without a label, I contacted them about it regarding production numbers but never heard a response.

It's a great knife!
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Let me know if you ever want to trade that for the same knife in blue titanium! Reverse tanto, Chad Nichols damascus, MOP button, etc.

Back to OP - I've owned three Malibu's (all in ti). Two were perfect but one had some pretty bad centering and I ended up sending it back. Protech offered to fix it for free and they explained centering may change during shipping if there are large temperature swings. The detent on that knife was noticeably weaker than the others as well.
 
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