Were the early 503s made in house?

[Psychopomp]

Greetings all.

I just received a nice little 503, in nearly flawless condition.

But I'm curious about where and when this knife was made. It has the maroon (I guess you'd call it maroon) micarta scales with a three line stamp (Buck/503/USA). No dots, no date code, and the old script style Buck stamp.

Were these made in house by Buck, or is it a Camillus job? I tried the search but didn't come up with anything.

It's a great little knife, tight, no play and sharpened up easily.

Thanks for any information.

 

[Joe Houser]

Hello,
All of the 500 series were made in house by Buck. The 300 series of knives are the ones that were made by Camillus.
That 503 blade is 440c by the way. Great little knife! Another diference between that one and one made later is the blade/edge geometry. If you can get a good edge on it, you are an excellent sharpener. It was a nice edge, just hard to resharpen, thats why we changed to our new Edge 2x geometry.
Hope this helps,

 

[Psychopomp]

Thanks Joe. I've got an older 110 from the 440c days too. They are a bear to sharpen sometimes but this 503 came with a decent enough edge grind that it wasn't a big undertaking. I used a fine diamond stone to get the tough edge and then was able to go right to the Sharpmaker for a shaving sharp edge.

I have noticed that the Edge 2x blades are much easier to sharpen and seem to be ground a little better than the older knives. Unfortunately, three of the last four new Bucks I've bought weren't very sharp out of the box. But with the nice even grinds I was able to put a hair popping edge on them in no time.

Anyhoo, thanks for the info .