S&W knives? any experience?

MORIMOTOM said:
s&w sold the rights to use their name on knives and other products like flashlights and generally crappy police type gear.
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Exactly, you're buying a brand name. If you can happen to find one of these on some of the wholesale sites where they drop from the insane MSRP down to under $20 then it's not really a big deal, but they're still not all that great. I wouldn't say they're terrible either... I mean, they're better than some gas station folder.

Anyone notice that Winchester has done this too? On the other hand the Winchester knife that I found seems to be much better than the S&W one, and it was $13 retail versus $50 retail for the S&W.
 
I like the looks of a couple of their fixed blades (A big fat spear point 'Extreme Ops' one and a wharncliffe in the HRT series in particular), and they're pretty cheap online. I'm tempted even though I bet they're going to have crappy steel compared to my usual brands. But for a beater knife where I don't really care what happens to it...
 
sweet_hitch-hiker said:
in short. if youre used to kershaw, spyderco, benchmade or higher, youll probably think theyre crap. but if youre used to crap chinese crap knives, youll think its pretty decent.
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S&W knives are chinese crap knives. I'll grant that they're not as bad as MTech or similar, but that's like saying that a Pinto is a better car than a Yugo.

440C steel is a decent steel if heat treated properly. The 440C that S&W uses (if it is 440C) is not heat treated properly. I had one that seemed OK otherwise (ie: decent lock-up, blade didn't contact the standoffs when closed like some I've seen did), but I could not get that thing sharp for the life of me. I could get a toothy cutting edge on it if I used the coarsest diamond hone I had, but if I tried to get a finer edge on it, no dice.

As mentioned above, there's plenty of Byrds, Kershaws, Bucks, and whatnot for similar money and they're all knives that you can trust not to fail and cut your fingers off.
 
I bought a cheapo Extreme Ops Auto a number of years ago just to have an auto in my collection. I can't carry it legally. I can't even walk outside with it legally. I just keep it around as a conversation piece. Fit and finish are OK. I can't tell you how well it takes and holds an edge because I haven't used and I don't intend to. It fires hard. I figure I'll fire it until the spring breaks. Then I'll throw it away.

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Yep. But I wouldn't count a knife out just because Taylor produces it. Some Taylor knives are better than others.
 
Pick one up if you have a chance and try it. I agree with most others you will see why it's <$20. I never understood why a company like S+W that is well respected in the firearms business would choose to produce a budget rate knife or license their name to let someone else sell it as an S+W product.

Kershaw or Gerber and some of the Bucks for that money.
 
I tested a few of them last year, four in total, and found out that one was built quite strong, a so called "extreme ops" knife. The others were crap. After using them for a while for tasks around my father his farm, the three that were crap had a lot of blade play after a week. Although the liner locks didn't fail, I had little trust in them, since they felt weak. The "extreme ops" performed better, did not get blade play, but all of them got dull very quickly.

If you're lucky, then you will have a quite strong beater knife. But why hope that you'll be lucky if you can get a decent knife for sure for the same price?
 
specgrade said:
Doesn't Taylor Cutlery own S&W now?
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Well, no. They license the name to put on their knives. Same with the Jeep knives, Hummer knives, etc. Taylor also owns the rights to the Schrade name.

As for why a company would willingly loan their name out to shoddy chinese companies, I suppose the only logical reason is for the money. Certainly there'll be people (like us) who might think that allowing their name to be put on crap besmirches their name, but the vast majority of people don't know any better. And that means more money for them.
 
Planterz said:
Well, no. They license the name to put on their knives. Same with the Jeep knives, Hummer knives, etc. Taylor also owns the rights to the Schrade name.

As for why a company would willingly loan their name out to shoddy chinese companies, I suppose the only logical reason is for the money. Certainly there'll be people (like us) who might think that allowing their name to be put on crap besmirches their name, but the vast majority of people don't know any better. And that means more money for them.
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I think we forget that there is a big world outside of BF and the cheaper knives sell a lot more than the ones we typically talk about here. :)

Knives in the $5 ~ $30 range.
 
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Ankerson said:
I think we forget that there is a world outside of BF and the cheaper knives sell a lot more than the ones we typically talk about here. :)

Knives in the $5 ~ $30 range.
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That is sooo true. When I first got into knives I bought what I could afford and what caught my eye, usually cheaper knives. My first knife was a Chicago Cutlery Stockman P16.

I like my HRT S&W as much as my Boker Trapperliner with stag handles. $100.00 is my extreme limit when buying a knife, you know, wife and kids and all :D ;)
 
singularity35 said:
Would you gamble your fingers that you got a good one?
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Yep. But only the Schrade non-stainless Extreme Survival fixed blades. Unless I did something incredibly stupid, I doubt my fingers would be in jeopardy using any of them. ;)
 
Ankerson said:
I am going to test it with an open mind like the rest of them, same as the Buck Ghost Rider I also have coming.

They will do how they do.
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I had the tanto version of this folder. It's heavy like a brick, but that didn't mean anything when the pivot screw fell out after a day of playing. Put some loctite on that sucker before you test it.

Dull from the minute I got it, and never bothered to fix it. the only knife purchase I truly regret. I look forward to seeing you smash the crap out of it lol. :D
 
I bought the small S&W knife, it might be called the Pocket Pal. 440c was the main selling point. It lasted one day. All I was doing was opening and closing it.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB3fUeK-KiM&feature=related

I got a SWGM fixed blade tanto it was cheap / similar steel I HOPE to the S+W fixed blade in the above link, it gets a good pounding @8:00 repetitively into sheet metal with little deformation to the tip. In a later vid same knife is batonned into a cinder block and does well, except it does eventually break at the stick tang. I have hopes for my knife yet, ... says he had broken some much more expensive knives much earlier on in his test routine.
 
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