Quartermaster QRTMSTR Knife Company Allegations (if you have proof I would like to see it)

It's been an amusing and informative thread.

I'm surprised a reputable retailer like Knifecenter would even stock them, given the compelling evidence.
 
knarfeng said:
I copied the pic from instagram and put it elsewhere, lest somebody figure out how bogus it is and take it down...
37lh7dU.jpg
Click to expand...
I purchased a QM knife unaware of the controversy. I had hope the complaints were bogus till I saw this. It looks like a miniature from a Godzilla movie! The scale is totally off and it is obviously a scam if someone is saying this is some sort of manufacturing plant. The whole thing is probably less than 6ft tall!
 
IMO Quartermaster knives / Jared West is nothing more than CFK / Jason Baker on steroids. Many similarities between the two exist of the same kind of BS: mystery country of origin, questionable steel being used, and vapor manufacturing facilities that no one has ever seem.
 
I signed on to BF for the first time in a couple months and laughed when I saw this thread had been resurrected. I had never looked closely at the pic of the facility (state of the art). It is a shed. Really a Shed (if you look close it looks like you can see a 4x4 post). They did update their "about us" page. It is better but still a really great read. Copy below (i highlighted my favorite lines):

Quartermaster Knives began as a single shop about an hour west of Austin, Texas but within 8 months of its inception, QTRMSTR outgrew the capacity of the shop and had to begin construction on their new state-of-the-art facility. Today, the QTRMSTR shop and satellite facilities run 6 days a week to keep up with the demand of our elite clientele which includes operators, contractors, LEO, and top shelf collectors.

QTRMSTR was started, and continues to run on a single principle: we make the finest knives on the planet- at any price, and we support this principle by offering the most comprehensive, unlimited lifetime warranty in the small arms industry.

This continues to be a great discussion.
 
Jraptor said:
I purchased a QM knife unaware of the controversy. I had hope the complaints were bogus till I saw this. It looks like a miniature from a Godzilla movie! The scale is totally off and it is obviously a scam if someone is saying this is some sort of manufacturing plant. The whole thing is probably less than 6ft tall!
Click to expand...

No kidding. Unless those nail or bolt heads along to top edge/flashing are the size of dinner plates, that thing is 6 yo 8 feet tall at best. If this is real, I'd like the see that hammer or drill.
 
If it wasn't for the trees in the backround, I would think its a goofy handmade little shed on a model railroad layout...
 
Hey, I know this is a long-dead thread, but I came across this when I had a chance to pick up a Quartermaster Qtr8 on the secondary market here in Japan for a cheap price.

I’ve only been into collecting knives for about a year, and had never heard of Quartermaster. I thought the knife looked interesting and proclaimed to be made in America, so I bought it. I was also interested because the steel on this knife was purported to be an exotic CTS-BD4P.

Then I started to research Quartermaster and I quickly had my doubts about their authenticity because they appear to have disappeared off the map. The website is still up, but it seems to be used solely for a knife blog Amazon affiliate.

Anyway, I happen to own an XRF spectrometer. When I tested the knife steel, it came back as an exact match for SUS410. This is just bizarre. Sometimes the spectrometer’s % reading can be off, but it never completely fails to detect an element that is present in a sample. The lack of any Vanadium definitely rules out most high-end knife steels.

But yeah, it’s definitely not made out of BD-4P. Probably some poorly quality controlled budget Chinese steel with similar enough composition to SUS410 to cause a false positive.

So to any who come across this thread considering whether to buy a Quartermaster on the secondary market - don’t do it.
 
If this is true

This man/company is obviously trying to deceive people who want to purchase US made products to support the US economy which is something I like to do and encourage others to do when possible.

Chinese knives are in many cases well made and Chinese knife steels made properly despite what people say are good quality. People will buy Chinese knives for various reasons such as lower price, unique designs that US factories refuse to make, and in a lot of cases better quality. I really like the Reate EXO-M for example. Selling Chinese made knives that are good quality should not be a problem. It's unfortunate but true. The Chinese are fierce competitors. We are going to have to come to terms with that.

All of these facts lead me to believe the man who runs this company is really mentally sick. It appears that he has a strong compulsion to cheat people who want to support US made products. I don't know what he has against us. Maybe he was hurt (due to his own fault or not ???) by someone or some people who happen to support US made products and decided to dispense with the use of his proper judgement by instead judging all people who support US products to be the same in his book.

It is obvious that he does not have any regard for the US economy or supporting any US labor, on the contrary he most likely has contempt and may even hate the principles of fair US labor building and supporting a strong US economy.

I think this guy is breaking a lot of laws and despite all the controversy has not even received a citation or any kind cease and desist order for his likely illegal well proven activities. I wonder who are the local political leaders that control law enforcement in his region.

I would not be surprised (whether this guy who runs these scams knows it or not) if he is getting console on how to keep this scam running straight from China's communist government since undermining US companies using unethical means is something they are known for. China's communist government is very well known for keeping very close tabs on and enforcing strong ties between them and any business entities (likely including company representatives that visit the US to make deals) operating in China.

I want to make it clear that China is not the only one that pulls this crap. The US does too but that is a whole other subject. My point is it is wrong and should not be supported by anyone.

This quarter master guy is a strong communist supporter whether he knows it or not. If he doesn't know then his customers are not the only ones he betrayed, he may have also betrayed himself. I bring this point up not because I am some extreme patriotic kook but because of the strong pro American marketing scheme this guy is pushing. It appears he is not who he says he is.

I do like and buy Chinese goods from time to time and I hope China eliminates it's human rights problems and becomes prosperous but if you want to support everything that is wrong with communist China and wrong in general then keep buying products from quartermaster while he keeps running this scam that directly targets people who want to keep the US economy, freedom, and fairness alive.
 
Last edited:
This is the knife I tested, along with the results of the XRF tested in three different locations of the blade:

https://imgur.com/a/EEqPc1G

For full disclosure, the XRF gun I have doesn’t read “light” elements, like Aluminum, Silicon and Carbon. Carbon is a little tricky because most knife steels have some. Despite that, it has still been able to correctly identify the 50 knives in my collection based on Chromium, Vanadium, Molybdenum, Cobalt, Manganese, Tungsten and Nickel (and Iron obviously…) content.

According to Carpenter’s spec sheet, CTS BD4P contains:
C 1 (unreadable for me)
Si 0.2 (unreadable)
Cr 14 (blade at 12.8ish, which is an acceptable difference)
Mn .5 (ND means non/detectable, but a trace amount is present. Much lower than the expected .5)
Mo 4 (.158 much too low)
V 0.1 (none detected)
W 0.1 (none detected)

Basically because the Moly is way off and there was no Vanadium or Tungsten detected at all, not even trace, it is absolutely impossible that this is BD4P.

It still contains many random elements that aren’t present in SUS410, which is why I think it’s just poor quality controlled stainless steel from China.

And on a final note- I find absolutely nothing wrong with Chinese knives or Chinese steel. It’s all about the manufacturer and their supplier, which can be good or bad for every country. The only reason Chinese steel has notoriety for poorly QCd steel is because they mass-produced steel smelted from unsorted scrap during China’s “Great Leap Forward” under Mao Zedong. That stuff still finds its way into the supply chain even now. Most reputable Chinese knife manufacturers use steel bought from overseas, and the ones that don’t partner with reputable domestic suppliers.

Quartermaster Knives wouldn’t have had a problem if they were just transparent about manufacturing in China, instead of trying to gain the “Made in America” clout. There’re plenty of small scale American knife designers today that have huge success while openly partnering with Chinese OEMs. Take The James Brand or EMP EDC for example.
 
Almost all iron contains some carbon, picked up in processing. Effectively, traces aside, iron without carbon is iron - not steel.
 
TC said:
Just curious: What would be a knife steel that does NOT contain any carbon?
Click to expand...
Good point, it ain’t steel w/o carbon. A hand held XRF is the wrong tool for cutlery elemental analysis anyway.
 
brownshoe said:
Good point, it ain’t steel w/o carbon. A hand held XRF is the wrong tool for cutlery elemental analysis anyway.
Click to expand...
Guys, please don’t get hung up on when I said “most knife steels have some (carbon.)” I’m not a steel expert but I know that all steels contain some carbon. It was just me typing a turn of phrase without thinking about the implication that I was claiming some steels don’t.
 
Last edited:
brownshoe said:
Good point, it ain’t steel w/o carbon. A hand held XRF is the wrong tool for cutlery elemental analysis anyway.
Click to expand...
I disagree strongly. A light metal XRF spectrometer is the perfect tool being portable and programmable. If you know how to program it, you can input every single known grade of steel’s composition, tolerances (fluctuation in baseline composition), and number of separate XRay pulses to average together (I use 10 x average) and it will literally print out the name of the steel, and whatever other information you want to include in a report format.

** Please note I’m talking about a light metal spectrometer, which can read all the light metals as well as the ones mine can. It’s just about 5x more expensive so I don’t own one.

If you know of something better, I’d love to know. Sincerely aim not being sarcastic so genuinely would like to know what would be better.
 
Double-Deuces said:
I disagree strongly. A light metal XRF spectrometer is the perfect tool being portable and programmable. If you know how to program it, you can input every single known grade of steel’s composition, tolerances (fluctuation in baseline composition), and number of separate XRay pulses to average together (I use 10 x average) and it will literally print out the name of the steel, and whatever other information you want to include in a report format.

** Please note I’m talking about a light metal spectrometer, which can read all the light metals as well as the ones mine can. It’s just about 5x more expensive so I don’t own one.

If you know of something better, I’d love to know. Sincerely aim not being sarcastic so genuinely would like to know what would be better.
Click to expand...
If your XRF can’t ”read” C, it’s not the right tool for cutlery where C and its concentration are very important.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top