Buck knife.

Awhile back. But it’s a gift from your brother!

I believe many are made in Idaho but some are made in China.

Buck is a global company. They have to compete with the market. The good news, like it or not, Chinese manufacturing is not the automatic junk it was 10 years ago. Many of their products can rival what we make domestically. Spyderco manufactures several knives their keeping tolerances tight while yielding a very good knife the average Joe can buy at Wal-Mart prices.

However, garbage in garbage out. Some companies will just churn out cheap junk. My opinion of the Buck knives made is that the are far from junk but not up to Spyderco quality. Truth be told, their traditional slippies aren't that bad. However, given the price I would just buy their US made ones. I think that they are better made than your average Case if a bit bland in design.

Buck, like most other companies carries several different price levels. Kershaw, Spyderco, Buck, Benchmade, all of them have knives made in the USA, China, Japan,and other places.

Many of the Chinese knives are VERY good for the money. Specifically some made by Kershaw and Spyderco. I have some Chinese made Kershaws that cost me under $20. The $200 Zero Tolerance knives that are a very similar design are somewhat better, but not 10X better.

280shooter said:

My brother gave me a Buck knife for my Birthday..
New in box.....Im looking it over..MADE IN CHINA
Are you kidding me? I have a few Buck folders.
They are not made in China...
When did they go to China?

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Been asleep for a while, Rip Van Winkle? According to Wiki, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Knives, Buck has had a factory in China since 2000. Maybe you missed this, but Uncle Henry and Old Timer, are all made in China. There are very few American knife manufacturer's. Queen knives closed Jan 2018, and since it has been four months, their workforce has to be doing something else now. It will be very hard for some one to restart Queen from scratch. I predict, Queen branded Chinese knives, sometime in the future.

280shooter said:

When did they go to China?

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Other Buck knives are made in the good old USA.

hso said:

Those twenty five companies manufacturing knives in the US (I left off the ones that don't have their own manufacturing space here that have American manufacturers make knives for them under their names)

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Do you know who makes Southern Grind's knives and GEC's knives, or do they also have their own manufacturing facilities?

hso said:

That depends upon how you look at it. The following American manufacturers have their own factories here in the U.S. - Bear, Benchmade, BRS, Brian Tigh & Friends, Brous, Buck, Case, Chris Reeve, Colonial, Emerson, First Edge, Gerber, GT, Hogue, HTM, Kershaw, Microtech, Ontario, ProTech, Rat, RKK, Spyderco, TOPS, Utica, Zero Tolerance. All legal automatic knives have to be made in the U.S. since they can't legally be imported. Same for balisongs. Those twenty five companies manufacturing knives in the US (I left off the ones that don't have their own manufacturing space here that have American manufacturers make knives for them under their names) span a much larger price range than American knife factories used to produce reflecting the change in the knife market that has evolved.

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We lost Camillus, now it is a Chinese brand. I toured Bear Cutlery when it first opened, the workers were American, I don't remember if the machine tools were, or the materials.

Of the brands listed, it would be interesting to know just how many American knives they sell, versus Chinese made. And it would be a very interesting number, the content of American knives made in the USA. Just how many hours of labor were put in by Americans, and the amount of American made materials. These things are measured as currency, not labor hours, because you can pay Chinese workers $3 dollars an hour. https://itac.nyc/chinese-workers-have-a-very-long-way-to-catch-up-to-american-manufacturing-wages/ So, Chinese perform almost all of the labor, but the dollar cost of their labor is less than the transportation costs to bring the item over from China. An American empties the box, puts the item in a new box, and the American labor rate for that labor is more than the Chinese cost of production for the knife. Content laws have been jiggered such that, made in America, is purposely meaningless.

Trump Team Readies for Nafta Fight Over Making Goods in America

New York Times Sep 22, 2017.

The rules for automobiles, for example, require 62.5 percent of the value of a car must be manufactured in Canada, Mexico or the United States for the automobile to move between the countries, duty-free. That means a car could source up to 37.5 percent of its value from a country like China and still be eligible for preferential treatment under Nafta.

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The FTC has a 42 page help guide,

Complying with the made in USA standard :

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain-language/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard.pdf

this was an interesting comment:

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/12/made-in-the-usa.asp

Enforcement is another issue altogether. The FTC has no proactive efforts to ensure compliance with labeling guidelines. Rather, enforcement relies on responding to specific complaints. Aggrieved parties are instructed to contact "the Division of Enforcement, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission, your state Attorney General, or the Better Business Bureau." You are also able to sue the company making the fraudulent claim if you can prove you were damaged by it. The sheer number of potential entities with which you can lodge a complaint suggests that achieving satisfaction may be a task with a magnitude of difficulty akin to complying with the rules themselves.

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When I researched this topic before, I found that between treaty partners, items flow without barriers. For what the US Government buys, the US Government has watered down “Buy American” to a meaningless standard. Take a look at all the countries that can sell products to the US Government, as made in America:

TAA Designated Countries

http://gsa.federalschedules.com/resources/taa-designated-countries/

48 CFR 25.003

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/48/25.003

A service man carrying a Buy American issue knife, may be carrying something made in one of a 142 foreign countries.

https://www.acquisition.gov/sites/default/files/current/far/html/52_223_226.html#wp1169151

jmr40 said:

Buck, like most other companies carries several different price levels. Kershaw, Spyderco, Buck, Benchmade, all of them have knives made in the USA, China, Japan,and other places. . . .

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Which Benchmade knives are made in China? I'm not aware of any.

Not all---------just some.

ugaarguy said:

Do you know who makes Southern Grind's knives and GEC's knives, or do they also have their own manufacturing facilities?

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They have their own manufacturing facilities.

There are some good brand name knives made offshore. The ones from Seki City, Japan and Taiwan come to mind.

GoPappy said:

Which Benchmade knives are made in China? I'm not aware of any.

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None currently. For several years they did have their Red Line that were made in China.

Madcap_Magician said:

They have their own manufacturing facilities.

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That was my understanding as well regarding GEC and Southern Grind, but hso has been collecting knives longer than I've been alive.

ugaarguy said:

None currently. For several years they did have their Red Line that were made in China.

That was my understanding as well regarding GEC and Southern Grind, but hso has been collecting knives longer than I've been alive.

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Southern Grind and GEC are both sole-source makers. GEC is in Titusville, PA, and Southern Grind is in Peachtree City, GA. I think only the bigger makers have any product families outsourced. Virtually all the small well-known companies are U.S.-made.

On the low-production number level, there are a fair number of U.S. custom makers who are having high-end midtech production knives based on their designs made by some of the top-quality Chinese makers. Reate will do OEM manufacturing for custom knife makers. In the U.S., Millit Knives will do the same. This is more limited-production runs of custom designs for knifemakers who don't have scaling production capacity, though.

Amazon makes it all clear ....

The traditional Buck models made in USA are one of the best values I think for hunting and camp knives. I don't know how they can keep their US prices down so low but I applaud Buck for still making average Joe affordable hunting knives of good quality. While I wise they would not make the spacer in their knife sheaths so thick (the knife rattles in it a bit), the leather sheath is good quality (though not sure it is US made) for such a low overall price. The Pathfinder is a nice handy size, and the 110 folder is robust and takes a fine edge. For a modern folder I like the Benchmade Axis lock. But the 110 in a leather pouch is a nice old fashion icon of hunting and camping.