Has anyone else had a long wait for a ZT301? I know the new ZT 301 st just came out recently, which is the same knife with serrations, but I'm just not a fan of them! I have one on back ordered now with Grand Prairie Knives? Anybody else ever dealt with them? I've tried them out since they were recommended here on the forum. Any info would be greatly appreciated!!
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Waiting on a ZT301
- Thread starter MATT29man
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gpknives is great but if its on back order cancel it other stores have it in stock right now
mongomondo
SUPPRESSING FIRE
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I bought mine from Kershawguy a few days ago.
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- Oct 27, 2003
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I think that's probably good advice.
I bought one some weeks ago, but didn't find any clearly in-stock at the dealers at the time, bought it from someone here... the only ones that didn't show it as OOS were the ones that NEVER show anything as OOS, and I've learned to avoid those.
There's been a thread started about model discontinuations in 2012, and Thomas confirms that there are "a lot" of them. I'd have to guess that means that we've probably seen the end of production on the Ken Onion designs, that's "a lot".
If that's true (and again, it's just a guess), if the dealers don't have it now, they're very unlikely to again.
Pressumed,
Is this your opinion that all ken onion designs will be disco'd? Or is this verified/ rumored? From what I've seen, that is a huge chunk of the kershaw product line. That would be crazy. Especially to me since my favorite knife is the 0301. Wish I had the dough to stock up on those.
Is this your opinion that all ken onion designs will be disco'd? Or is this verified/ rumored? From what I've seen, that is a huge chunk of the kershaw product line. That would be crazy. Especially to me since my favorite knife is the 0301. Wish I had the dough to stock up on those.
I'm very interested in this knife. It is my first semi-custom production knife. I would love to afford a strider, but this design offers me both the strenght of strider's titanium framelock with the speed of Ken Onions awesome speedsafe opening. I went with GPKnives because of opinions on the forums and the price. I'm hoping that they are still honoring the orginial purchase price instead of the new price listed on their website. The knife is still listed as out of stock and its been almost three months since I made the order. Hopefully its more demand than supply!! I really hope ZT not getting rid of this design.
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I said it was a guess, and repeated with emphasis that it was just a guess. I have absolutely no information beyond what's been stated in forums like this one... and the obvious fact that the KO design NT's have become pretty scarce among the dealers lately... and we do have Thomas stating that there will be "a lot" of discontinuations for 2012. I'm pretty sure they aren't going to be the newest models. What does that leave?
If the KO/ZT collaboration is no longer active for whatever reason (as has been widely reported), then beyond any possible contractual issues there's the simple question of how long ZT wants devote production runs to older designs when they have newer, exciting designs waiting to be produced that need those same resources. I have no idea what they have in mind, and it could well be that they would rather leave room in their plans to react to demand (once you announce a decision, no matter how flexible you intend to be, it takes on a life of its own), but it seems likely that it's just a question of timing.
I'm not a big fan of recurves myself and I'm really looking forward to more Hinderer collaboration designs, so I don't personally find it a concern. The whole industry is turning out better and better production knives at a rate undreampt-of until recently, so I wouldn't be concerned with "stocking up". Let the collectors hoard the older models, I think there's even better stuff coming, but that's just my take on it.
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It would make more sense to base those decisions on sales figures vs who the designer was.
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Perhaps. I (of course) have no clue what the contractual arrangements were, but it's certainly possible that they did not transfer the rights to produce the designs indefinitely after the relationship terminated. After the RAT/Ontario thing I think it was pretty evident to everyone in the industry what the downside of that was.
Even if the decision is based solely on net income, the older designs don't exist in a vacuum, they must compete for production resources (limited, in this economy) with projected net income (not necessarily the same as sales) for newer designs. It might be possible to produce them at a profit for decades to come, but that doesn't make doing so the most profitable allocation of resources.
None of us on the outside have enough information to do more than guess... but the fact that a model is still selling doesn't guarantee it a place in the product line, there are many other factors. Waiting until models are actually NOT selling before moving on could cost a company a lot over time.
I don't know if you are looking for one in stock or not, but I was just at Quantico Tactical in San Diego about a week ago and they had the at least one on the shelves and the store in Quantico VA had one also a about a week before. If you are looking for one, google them and give them a call. Not sure of the price.
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FWIW, happy to report that my guess appears to be WRONG. According to the 2011 Discontinuations thread, the only ZT models currently expected to be phased out are:
0400
0400ST
JB1 & 2
0400
0400ST
JB1 & 2