ANYWAY.
Responding to the OP: I've heard about 50/50 positive/negative reviews on the Inron, but my 763 is pretty nice - although a little too small for me.
To those who criticize a knife for going full after weeks of use: It's the same steel as a Tenacious, and, after using 10+ Enlans and SanRenMus, I can say that the wear resistance seemed identical. I wouldn't even necessarily say my Tenacious is better-built. I know it's not USA made, but I also don't expect sub-$40 knives to have S30V levels of edge retention.
8Cr13MoV is easy to sharpen. Five minutes tops, and you have it back to where it was before. Oh, you broke your knife? Okay. $10 to replace it.
I gifted a black-bladed SRM 710 to a friend at work, and he beats the crap out of it day in and day out. I tighten it up once a week or so (no longer, actually, since I finally got loctite), and it's smooth and solid as a rock. The blade has a few chips from abuse, but it's a high hollow grind with an easy-to-sharpen steel. That knife has plenty of life left.
You can whine and complain that it's "theft", but when it comes down to it, nobody is losing anything. Theft involves the loss of something - what's happened here at worst is a violation of intellectual property. The designs of the knives are similar, but certainly not easily mistaken for the real thing. We're not talking about those knockoffs that you can find that actually put the original manufacturer's logo on there and try to pass off as the real thing - these are knives that have been inspired by much more expensive knives.
I suppose what it really comes down to is this:
Chris Reeve isn't losing any customers to the SRM 710, Benchmade isn't losing any customers to the Enlan EL-02, and Rick Hinderer isn't losing anyone over the Inron MY803. They're similar looking knives with similar features, but I doubt any of the larger manufacturers are losing any sleep over 'em.
Now, if SRM starts putting out knives with, say, titanium and/or coated D2 (which are available to Chinese manufacturers, as you can see by the proliferation of Hinderer and CRK clones that use them) ... They might have some real competition.
Ganzo, however, is a different story. They lift designs whole-cloth, but put their own logos on 'em. I'm not sure where I stand with those. I'm not particularly offended by them, but I can see why other people might be.
There's a non-subtle difference between inspiration and duplication.
