Both are contractors for the Swiss Army. The issued knife is the one with 4 blades (cutting blade, punch, can opener, and combination screw driver and cap lifter) with silver colored aluminum handles.
This knife is just like our "Boy Scout" or utility style pocketknives. (I own one of each make - Vitorinox and Wenger). This is an excellent pocketknife. I wish the US Army issued a pocketknife to every soldier. I carried a similar one, actually issued to the military, made by Camillus - a good knife.
My opinion is that Wenger knives are better constructed, stronger, available in more models and Wenger is more innovative. Wenger is also usually less expensive. They even have a design your own knife program where you can pretty much specify which tools you want on a knife.(I am not sure if Victorinox has such a program).
Personally, I own several SAKs of each make. I have more Victorinox than Wenger but usually choose to carry a Wenger.
The SAK that I carry daily is the SwissBuck TaskMateII. (SwissBuck is a joint venture between Buck Knives and Wenger - Wenger makes the knives and Buck markets them). The SwissBuck TaskMate II has exactly the tools I need and only cost me $35. Not bad.
Most knockoff look-a-like SAKs are not even worth considering. The one exception is the line that was made by Rodgers in GB in the 70s. They had maroon handles and were pretty decent. Most cost under $5. I have a complete set of the series in my collection. Carried one for a while too.
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by gitarmac:
I'm confused, who is the real sak producer? I've noticed the wenger ones have what looks like a painted on logo and the victorinox ones have an inlayed silver looking logo. Plus the wengers are much cheaper. Are they different companies? I can't find too much on the web, except wenger is the "origional" and victorinox is the "authentic" or something like that. </font>
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Your survival knife is the knife you have on you when a survival situation arises.