Where has the Gerber Love Gone....

M

Murphyslaw

Joined
Aug 13, 2008
Messages
428
...or was there any to begin with?

After reading a few threads, it appears to me that Gerbers may not be as good as I thought.

By way of background, back in the early 80's the local hunting/knive gurus in my area extolled the many virtues of Gerbers over Bucks. Based on such advice, I ran mostly Gerbers back then. IIRC, there wasn't the selection that there is now. I ended up with a bunch of Gerbers, including various folding hunters, LST's, Bolt-Actions and high-speed tool steel fixed blades. They all served me well. As time went by, more knives became both affordable and readily available. In the mid-80's I started running Gerber tactical knives, as there wasn't alot out there at the time... SOG, Cold Steel Al Mar and Pacific Cutlery are the ones that come to mind.

I also started buying Pacific Cutlery, Cold Steel, Benchmades, EKs and Spyderco's, and bought less and less Gerbers.

All of my Gerbers have served me well. The only issue we ever had with any Gerber was when a blade coming free from its handle with one of their tactical knives (don't remember the model designation) during 2-man live blade drills. A bit disconcerting.

Since then the only post-Fiscar Gerbers that I can remember buying are LST's and Brush Choppers, and a Freeman Caper to check its ergos. I do believe that my older LST's keep an edge better than the new ones.

So what have I missed? Your comments are appreciated.

BTW, this is a great site. Only downside is that I see that its going to cost me a bunch of money:)

Thanks,

Chris
 
I've got an LMF II ASEK as well as a Steadfast and love them both. That being said I don't really care for the rest of their line-up.
 
Hey Gerber makes some good knives at a reasonable price. Back in the 80's as well I bought two Gator's one big and it's smaller brother. They both offered good grip in my opinion and held a decent edge.

sean
 
I have a couple made in Seiki Japan. They are ok but, nothing special to brag about. I think their time has come as a knife manufacturer since the takeover.










i
 
the general opinion seems to be that gerber was a decent company, but that the vast majority of their products now are nowhere near the quality they used to be.
 
I just bought a Gerber Quick Draw from Walmart.
I kinda regret buying it now. It was a choice between the Kershaw Skyline and the Gerber. The Gerber won because I can't get used to the shape of the handle of the Skyline, and the Gerber was $10 cheaper.
I wish I had gone with the Skyline now. The gerber's safety is gritty when disengaging and keeps engaging itself when the knife is closed.
I cut up a few cardboard boxes with it earlier and the black finish on the blade has already started to wear away.
It's an assisted opener, but only has a thumb stud. There should really be a flipper on the blade, indeed if the ricasso was just a tiny bit bigger it would work as a flipper.
The pocket clip is for tip up carry. I prefer tip down, but there is no provision to relocate the clip.
I've read a lot of accounts of the assist mechanism of these knives breaking too.

It's not the worst knife in the world, but I really wish I had got the Skyline instead.
Of course, I threw away the packaging so I can't return it :mad:
 
Gerber used to be good when it was family owned, now that Fiskars owns them, its not the same.

I have some classic Marks II's from the 70's, a Guardian II from the late 70's, and a Mark I, some very nice knives.

LMF is not a bad knife though, worth every bit of $100.00 dollars.

I would go with Benchmade, Spyderco, or Kershaw for a production knife.
 
i like my freeman folder alot and my Hinderer rescue knife along with my mini fastdraw. All have performed well, and the fast draw has no right being round given the abuse i subjected it to.:D Not all Gerbers were created equal
Gerber makes alot of "less than stellar" pieces but dont lump them all together, personally i take them as i handle them rather than a blanket judgement... i will say that that paraframe is kinda weak, my sons buddy has one, definitely better choices out there gerber lineup or others...
Some of the Gerber line is still produced stateside for what its worth
ivan
 
I own several Gerber knives, I've never had any problems with them. They're for the most part good, not great but they're decent.
 
The only Gerber I have is a Paraframe and it pretty much blows. Blade is nowhere near centered, wasn't even sharp enough to cut paper out of the box, and it dulls in about a week of light use.
 
I'm with the rest of the posters. They were very good at one time. However, quality has declined for most of their line. I used to put them in the top 3 knives I would look at in the 80's. Now, they wouldn't be in the top 10; sadly I have pretty much written them off entirely.
 
I was perhaps a little harsh just now, this is after all a Gerber appreciation thread :D

The fast draw is a nice knife, I just think I would have preferred the Skyline.
To do it justice, I have just finished cutting up the rest of my boxes (heavy duty double thickness corrugated cardboard) and it slid through them with ease without becoming appreciably blunt in the process.
As a utility/work knife, you could certainly do a lot worse.

I just really wish that the lock would stop accidentally engaging itself when the knife is closed.
I can't help thinking that the 'locked closed' feature was put there for the sake of it rather than because it is actually needed. When the knife is closed, the lock needs hardly any pressure to lock, but quite a lot of pressure to unlock.
The result is that the knife locks itself closed when you don't want it to, meaning that although it's an assisted opener, it takes longer to open than a manual knife with a thumb stud.
 
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I think of Gerber as a cautionary tale of how one's industry reputation can be completely gutted by having sold out to a conglomerate that squeezes every last bit of credibility out of the goodwill they purchased.

Gerber used to be as "legendary" as their motto. No longer.
 
jamesbeat said:
I was perhaps a little harsh just now, this is after all a Gerber appreciation thread :D
QUOTE]


I didn't mean for this to be a Gerber appreciation thread....

Its just that for one reason or another, in the last decade or so I have passed over Gerber offerings for other brands...and didn't even think of Gerber losing its cachet.

When I heard that Gerber was being acquired by Fiscars, I got a sick feeling in my gut... At one time Gerber had cutting edge designs that resulted in good working knives. At one time Gerber did special runs of their regularly produce knives....In retrospect, it looks like Gerber went from being a leader of the pack to just one of the pack.

Oh yeah, I just remembered that I have a Gerber folding Gator in ATS-34 that I can't seem to get as sharp as I like. Maybe its me, but I don't have any problems with my older Gerbers, including the high speed tool steel blades.

The truth of the matter is that we are living in good times for knife buying. I believe that I can get much more knife now for the same present valued 1980dollars. And the selection is mind-numbing...
Click to expand...
 
Have some old Gerbers that are fine; carried a First Production EZ out for years and still like it, the serrations are about gone but that old knife did everything I asked it to. Have a couple of later EZouts that aren't so impressive but not bad, just have moved on; gave an old MarkII to a deployed Marine and he loved it!
 
jamesbeat said:
I was perhaps a little harsh just now, this is after all a Gerber appreciation thread :D
...
I just really wish that the lock would stop accidentally engaging itself when the knife is closed.
I can't help thinking that the 'locked closed' feature was put there for the sake of it rather than because it is actually needed. When the knife is closed, the lock needs hardly any pressure to lock, but quite a lot of pressure to unlock.
The result is that the knife locks itself closed when you don't want it to, meaning that although it's an assisted opener, it takes longer to open than a manual knife with a thumb stud.
Click to expand...
James,
Welcome to BF and to the USA. :)
If the knife functions OK with the blade open and unlocked, I'd just loctite the lock open, and forget it.
I'm not familiar with the Quick Draw, so perhaps you need the lock when the blade is open...in which case, nevermind. :)

Off topic: How you you find the US, now that you've been here a while?
 
Gerber was the company that got me interested in knives in the early 1970's.

I bought a Mark II back then and later the Mark I and Paul knives, Silver Knights and LST's, etc. I still like the old knives and have a collection of a few including most Silver Knight and LST models, a few Mark II's, Pauls, Bolt Actions etc. but just the nicest or rarest ones. I have a yellow Neptune and also some of the older Benchmarks which I always considered a somewhat related company.

For the most part, I have not seen them make anything of interest in at least 10 years.
 
Their first Multi-plier toolkits were bombproof. I've still got the first model they released after ~15 years. I've put it through hell and back and it's saved my skin more than once. I'll never get rid of it.


Picked up an LMFII ASEK from LaPolice Gear 2 or 3 years ago ($60). Again, bombproof despite not technically being a full-tang knife. I've battoned camp kindling, hammered tent stakes, pried off corroded battery terminal connectors (2 times on the boat), and gutted/fixed a couple rainbows for dinner. Not one problem.


I had one of the old Gator folders, but lost it many years ago. I remember it being decent.


The majority of their current stuff may suck (I don't know anything about their multi-tools), but the LMFII ASEK is still a solid buy IMO (can be found for $60-65).
 
flashlife said:
James,
Welcome to BF and to the USA. :)
If the knife functions OK with the blade open and unlocked, I'd just loctite the lock open, and forget it.
I'm not familiar with the Quick Draw, so perhaps you need the lock when the blade is open...in which case, nevermind. :)

Off topic: How you you find the US, now that you've been here a while?
Click to expand...

Nope, loctite would make it so the blade didn't lock open too :mad:

I'm absolutely loving the States :D
Not having a work permit or a car yet means I'm pretty much confined to the house at the moment, but both of those will change soon.
Unfortunately, being in NY means that I won't be able to shoot handguns for quite some time, in fact I haven't had the opportunity to go shooting at all yet, but it's a million times better than the UK.
It's weird being a foreigner, some people have a hard time understanding me when I talk, but American folk (even New Yorkers :p) are generally very friendly people so it's ok.
 
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