Trying to buy the "same" Rikeknife, and getting...this

vanadium

vanadium

Joined
Apr 5, 2003
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About a year ago, I handled a Rike 1504A at a dealer was was really impressed. Smooth drop-shut action, absolutely perfect milling lines all around, awesome blade shape and edge geometry, beautiful blade finish, and wonderful ergonomics despite the very angular (and beautiful, to my eye) design. It was $350 and I passed on it.

Recently I had a chance to pick one up for substantially less, and I went for it. My friend did the same from another dealer. Both are reputable dealers. The knives that arrived were radically different. Here's an A versus B, where A is the knife I received, and B is the knife I saw a year ago and which my friend received.
  • Serious side-to-side blade play, v. no blade play
  • Coarse texturing near the pivot, v. fine texturing
  • Uneven spacing of fine milling lines, v. perfect spacing
  • Serious burr on the detent hole, v. no burr
  • Mushy detent with clicking sound, v. firmer and no click
  • Brown 'burn' marks around the detent hole and blade tang edge, v. none
  • Deep pitting of the lock bar face, v. none
  • Scary early lockup, v. 30% lockup
  • Thinner blade stock, v. thicker stock
  • Free-spinning non-tooled pivot on show side, vs. torx tooled
  • Poor-quality stop-and-go milled logo on the pivot, vs. no logo
  • Arrived w/ handle scratches, and a ding on the clip (under the ano), vs. none
For visual reference, here's knife A, the 'bad' one:
N8WPaFW.png


And here's a stock photo of the same area of knife B, which was excellent:
R87BHfl.png


The dealer of the 'bad' knife took it back without a problem, so I'm not out-of-pocket or anything. But I do find this quite odd.

Thoughts?

Hopefully we can avoid turning this into a China-bashing thread.
 
I've heard almost nothing but great things about the quality of Rike knives, to the point that I would wonder if this one was a clone or not. The fact that every aspect was just a hair off makes me think this sounds like a counterfeit Rike.
 
Maybe the dealer got a counterfeit ?

Maybe it was made on a Friday by someone who had a bad week ?
If nobody else has had this experience then you probably got a fluke.
 
vanadium said:
and B is the knife I saw a year ago and which my friend received.
Click to expand...

Not sure I follow - your friend bought the exact same knife you had handled at a dealer a year ago? If that's the case, a lot can happen to a knife in a year. It either might have been handled (and mis-handled) by staff or customers trying it in the store, or someone bought it, abused it, and returned it.

I've definitely gotten knives marked "new" from reputable dealers which had clearly been used and abused. I've also returned knives as defective where I discovered un-repairable flaws after using them, where they might have very easily been resold if the dealer wasn't paying attention. That's why return policies matter.
 
Oh how funny it would be if it was a counterfeit. If it isn't you might've received an early production run knife. Before they had everything dialed in?
Um, what (and why) are you blocking out down at the ricasso? You returned the knife so why not show it's ser. #?
 
If you look at the milling pattern to the right of the serial number, count the number of lines milled. The one in the top photo has obviously less lines meaning it was milled using different G-code. Seems a little unlikely that the programming was substantially changed during production, but I don't know.

Also the pivot screw is backwards in the top photo. Seems odd too.

All my Rike knives have been absolutely perfect.

EDIT- Best I can tell the Rike 1504 never had a pivot screw like the one in the top photo. Could still be a preproduction or prototype.
 
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Big thanks to everyone who offered helpful thoughts! :thumbsup:

I think 'fake' is the most likely explanation. I'm following up with the dealer to ask whether they sourced directly from Rike.
 
I've never seen a 1504 with the newer style decorative pivot so this is perplexing. My guess is it's not fake (although amusingly there are fake versions of Chinese knives, like the Maxace Covenant balisong) but an updated version, and you just happened to get a lemon. Happens with just about every company. I would contact the retailer, then maybe try DMing the Rike USA Instagram page about it. Rike unfortunately has done a much worse job of interfacing with western audiences than say WE or Reate.
 
I've seen fake Rikes for sale on line. I'm thinking that may be what knife A is. Good luck.
 
Just to follow up:

I told the dealer (Massdrop) that the knife seemed to be a fake, and I asked them whether they had acquired it directly from Rike. They replied that they would pass the message up the chain of command, to improve 'future drops'. :rolleyes:

I also pointed Rike to this thread, but no comment from them.
 
vanadium said:
I told the dealer (Massdrop) that the knife seemed to be a fake, and I asked them whether they had acquired it directly from Rike. They replied that they would pass the message up the chain of command, to improve 'future drops'. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Well, given it's Massdrop, I kinda doubt it's fake - their entire business model is pre-selling the knives and then ordering exactly enough to fill demand directly from the manufacturer. They've done several drops with Rike, I believe, so you'd figure they'd be in touch with the right people by now.

More likely, they probably placed an order for a model that Rike was no longer manufacturing. Rike probably threw some together, using whatever hardware they had on hand (hence the different pivots), and may not have been super concerned with QC, as I don't think Massdrop allows returns.
 
Of course, after posting that I go to check Massdrop out of curiosity, and they have a drop closing soon for the Rike Hummingbird for half price. I'm tempted, but now I don't know if I should trust Massdrop-procured Rike products :p
 
tyyreaun said:
Of course, after posting that I go to check Massdrop out of curiosity, and they have a drop closing soon for the Rike Hummingbird for half price. I'm tempted, but now I don't know if I should trust Massdrop-procured Rike products :p
Click to expand...
My Hummingbird (from MD) is top notch. I'm very picky when it comes to knives, and never expected to be blown away by the quality of a 1.6" blade. That's one model I can attest to the quality of.
 
I don't think I'll be getting any knives from Massdrop. It's just not for me after learning more about it.
 
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