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Who makes what for whom?

T

Temper

Joined
Oct 30, 2002
Messages
3,011
Guys,
Im looking for a list of companies that do not really make their own stuff or a good portion of it is made by a third party.

Of the brands I know of there are

Fallkniven (Japan )
Cold Steel (Japan and the US)

Are there any more like this?

For example who makes MOD knives, are they a dedicated company or is it farmed out?
 
Blackwater gear, HK, NRA, and Bradley Cutlery Co are all made by benchmade. :eek: If you cant beat the best............ you might as well have them make your knives for you. :D
 
Smith & Wesson is made by Taylor Cutlery in China.
Kershaw distributes a lot of knives made by KAI. I don't know who does their Chinese blades.
Also, Cold Steel is mostly in Taiwan now.
 
pickupman said:
I know that Camillus does a lot of production for Buck and Kabar.
Click to expand...

That doesn't sound right to me. I know Camillus made the original Kabar knives, but this new company Ka-Bar is its own entity, is it not?
As for the Buck part, that is news to me too.
 
BenchmadeNut said:
Blackwater gear, HK, NRA, and Bradley Cutlery Co are all made by benchmade. :eek: If you cant beat the best............ you might as well have them make your knives for you. :D
Click to expand...

Bradley Cutlery knives aren't made by Benchmade.
 
Ka-Bar has a lot of its new knives made in Italy.
Camillus makes the Carbon V knives for Cold Steel.
The gun companies contract out their names to knife makers, not just S&W but Browning and Remington, too.

(Emerson's Hard Wear line looks like it was made in Japan by people who do Spyderco there, and so do Ka-Bar's Dozier folders. :) )

Spyderco makes its own knives in the US, and has some knives made in Japan, and very well made, and now they have the Byrd line made in China.

Kai Cutlery is the parent firm which bought Kershaw some years ago. Quality hasn't slipped a bit. They also now own and run a factory in China, with their own management maintaining quality. Their new assisted openers are made for them by another company in the US.

MOD, like their friends at MicroTech, are a US company, designing and manufacturing their own knives. They recently sold out to Blackhawk Industries and are now a subsidiary.
 
Esav, when you say 'Like their friends at MicroTech' do you mean they have or have had a close relationship or that they are just 100% U.S.A made?

Thanks everyone for the info
 
AGRussell knives are made by a variety of people from Italy to Japan, including the US.

Canal street is assembled and finished by them out of Queen parts.

Many if not most of Spyderco is made by contract manufacturers. The US branded ones are made in their factory (except for the BRK-native). They have used manufacturers in Europe, Taiwan but mostly Japan. The chinese Byrds are technically not spydercos.

Benchmades redbox line is made in Taiwan.

Buck's slipjoints used to be by Cammillus and may now be chinese.

Al Mar is all contract work from Japan.

Gerber's used a variety of contractors in the past, but now they probably are big enough to do all their own.

Modern Remingtons and Winchesters are probably by Queen or Cammilus

In the past Randall used blades made by others for certain models. They currently sell a Vitronix paring knife with their name on it.

Lone Wolf uses Japan, US and Italian contractors.

Case has used Queen for some of their high end folders.
 
Do you really want to know? If I tell you I'll have to kill you! ;)

Many knife companies subcontract portions of the manufacturing process. I personally know of a blade grinding company that grinds blades for lots of knife companies. There is also a different heat treating company who does work for knife companies and aerospace companies.

Subcontracting allows knife companies to react to the market (that's us folks) rather than having their designs tied to outdated manufacturing equipment. If I were a knife company I would want someone else worry about maintaining expensive CNC equipment. I would spend the money on new designs and R&D.

I personally don't care who does the work as long as it is done well.
 
Chuck Bybee
Titanium Man

Do you really want to know? If I tell you I'll have to kill you!

Many knife companies subcontract portions of the manufacturing process. I personally know of a blade grinding company that grinds blades for lots of knife
companies. There is also a different heat treating company who does work for knife companies and aerospace companies.

Subcontracting allows knife companies to react to the market (that's us folks) rather than having their designs tied to outdated manufacturing equipment.
If I were a knife company I would want someone else worry about maintaining expensive CNC equipment. I would spend the money on new designs and R&D.



I personally don't care who does the work as long as it is done well.

I couldn’t agree more. What would a Fallkniven cost if it was made in Sweden? According to my relatives in Sweden about twice as much.
 
I don't mind either, in this age of CNC it doesnt matter who puts the work piece into the machine. Its purely a desire to know, nothing more.
 
Knifeclerk said:
Smith & Wesson is made by Taylor Cutlery in China.
Kershaw distributes a lot of knives made by KAI. I don't know who does their Chinese blades.
Also, Cold Steel is mostly in Taiwan now.
Click to expand...

Kershaw is actually owned by KAI. Not sure if it always was that way or not.
 
brownshoe said:
Buck's slipjoints used to be by Cammillus and may now be chinese.
Click to expand...
Buck still has US-made 300-series slipjoints (black plastic handle slabs). They also have 370 series slipjoints from China (wood slabs).
 
Lil Timmy said:
Bradley Cutlery knives aren't made by Benchmade.
Click to expand...

I have been wondering about this. Do they have their own shop, farm out any work, just buy their clips from bm?
 
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