Benchmade

None of my Benchmade knives hold an edge even close to what my Buck knives do. On that note, what the Lord gives, the Lord doth take away. Benchmades are easier to sharpen than a Buck though and I still like them ok. I carry one every day.

<*(((>< said:

Just for the record I've never said that Benchmade is anti-2A, but they are defacto in support of more gun control by supporting monetarily (against their own charitable guidelines, I'll mention again) anti-gun politicians.

Supporting lobbyists cuts both ways. Maybe Benchmade better take better stock as to the culture of beliefs that their customers have. It would be my assumption that many Benchmade knife owners are Pro-2A.

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Maybe but like I said earlier, I look at things realistically. We both agree that they aren't actually antigun, but rather the dispute is that they're donating to antigun candidates albeit for a separate but good cause.

When I taken into account that at heart, they are running a knife business, trying to support knife rights, and support law enforcement in a state where voters vote into office anti-gun candidates, I'm a little more realistic and understanding about their decision making process. If I'm a knife and gun guy who lived in state dominated by antigun candidates where the choice of viable candidates were between a knife rights friendly guy and one who wasn't, I too would probably support the knife rights guy. Either way, realistically, anti-gun Democrat is going to win, but if I support the pro-knife Democrat, at least I have a chance of getting favorable knife rights laws on the books. I honestly don't think that Benchmade would support the anti-gun, pro knife right candidate if there was a viable pro2A pro-knife option.

I know others might feel and think differently, but that's just my point of view. I don't agree with the backlash Benchmade is getting, but I understand and respect why others feel the why they do.

If it's going to be muddy water that I'm jumping in with my business, you can be sure that I would be doing my donations with private money that I've taken out of the company, and my decision would be held private. And if a pro-knife rights customer asks me what I'm doing to support knife rights with my political spending, I would tell them that's my personal business; my public business should be enough indication of where I stand on knife rights privately.

There's no chance if I were in Benchmade's position that I would agree to destroy firearms or support an anti-2A politician for the sake of knife rights, that's political suicide as far as I'm concerned with the beliefs that I would assume my customers hold on gun rights.

But really this is getting a little bit in the weeds as this was originally about Benchmade destroying firearms, which again I wouldn't be caught dead doing as a knife maker. I don't like the premise of destroying guns to prevent future crimes with them, the waste of public resources (utilizing tax payer funded police and courts and paying someone to destroy an inanimate object that could be sold to a law abiding FFL or individual to offset cost incurred, and I certainly don't like the portrayal of some good deed by a private company agreeing to destroy an inanimate object like it's doing some great service for mankind.

I think the outcry against Benchmade is justified (my personal opinion); they had better take stock in how they portray their business in the public realm, or if they are so sure of a public decision they better be ok with being challenged on it. I just find it interesting they state they don't contribute to political campaigns on their website and yet public records state otherwise, and it happens to be contributions to anti-gun politicians in light of their decision to destroy guns for an inept police department that can't do it themselves.

Anyways, I've said more than I should on this subject, and I'm sure people are tired of hearing it.

I am up to 4 Benchmades that rotate in and out of pocket knife life. Good quality and great customer service. 2 of them use D2 blades, not sure what the others are as they are discontinued Benchmades.

As far as their help to a PD to destroy firearms, sometimes it happens. The local PDs I worked with went to great lengths not to destroy firearms. Auctions to public, return to rightful owner, Officer purchase. By law, many departments are required to destroy evidence firearms after a certain amount of time has passed and all other methods of liquidation are tried.

This changed from a "Benchmade has great Service" to "Why we should boycott Benchmade". More than a little off path. I sent my mini grip to them over a year ago. It came back clean, extra sharp, and included a list of new parts that I didn't even know I needed. That's service. Same service that we see over and over. Love em or hate em, but Benchmade makes nice stuff and gives good service.

dh1633pm said:

This changed from a "Benchmade has great Service" to "Why we should boycott Benchmade". More than a little off path.

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Actually, it's not as far off the path as you make it out to be, @ExAgoradzo made the comment below in his original post. I was merely providing insight into customer service that is contrary to good customer service in my book. I'm sure they take care of their knife customers well, it's obvious by their public political contributions.

Still thinks its a bit off path, but thanks for the comments. I did read them thoughtfully. Thanks Luke for the edification.

This thread and further searches kind of upsets me because I am an avid supporter of Benchmade. I have bought many of their knives. I used to live near their facility and visited it a few times. I also went to the Kershaw and CRKT facilities and I have bought their knives as well.

Out of those 3 who do you think makes a great deal of their knives in the USA?

Benchmade phased out all of their Chinese made knives starting in 2010. As of 2013 over 90% of their products are made in USA.

CRKT as far as I can tell makes all knives overseas. A personal friend of mine designs for them and confirms that.

Kershaw does make some knives in the USA but the percentage is low as compared to imports.

To me this gives Benchmade a leg up but does not excuse stupidity.

Surefire has also been slammed for making political donations to definite anti-2A candidates.

Sometimes companies made huge blunders when trying to do what they think is the right thing in the moment.

I am not willing to throw Benchmade under the bus (yet) but I will be watching them. You can bet I will not purchase any more of there products unless they redeem themselves.

I have no issue with Benchmade doing this. In today's political environment it wouldn't make sense for a chief to risk having a firearm he put back on the street used in a crime. It might not even be his decision to make anyway. Benchmade was probably happy to help out with the disposal process and had no idea this would be turned against them. Most firearms in police evidence rooms are junk anyways.

I think it's easy to view this a certain way from inside the "gun guy" bubble. I'm not going to comment on whether Benchmade did something right or wrong. However, I think its important to understand that Benchmade probably doesn't make a TON of knife sales from hardcore "gun guys". What I mean to say is that I feel the Venn Diagram of consumers who purchase both guns and knives overlaps quite a bit...to a point. As the knife price goes up, it seems that a lot of folks on this board (and people in general) fall off that brand. That's totally cool and 100% OK. I get it. A $50 or $75 knife is all you need to cut stuff, and you can get a good one at that price. I may be way, way off base, but I see a lot of threads on this section of the board discussing that level of price for a knife and not a ton of $200+ folders. Once again, I get it. It leaves more money for guns and ammo. Never a bad thing

However, Benchmade tends to be a more expensive knife for most of their offerings. You start to get into knife knut territory (like myself). Lots of knife knuts use and carry guns. We buy them. We like them. We believe in the 2A, but I don't think we are, as a whole, single issue voters around the 2A. My carry knife costs more than my EDC gun. I'm going to go buy a Chris Reeve folder tomorrow that probably costs more than a SIG P320. Benchmade is still certainly a popular brand on the knife forums. Yes, BM certainly pissed off some of its customers cutting up the guns. However, I doubt the favor they did for the PD cost them more in overall sales than it gained them in local PR/potential political favor.

I think it's important to know remember that BM is a business. A business only has obligation to make money ethically. Now, the thing about this is that cutting up those guns was not unethical. It may be against your politics. It may seem like a waste of good guns. However, it's not like they cut them up instead of donating them to pro-democratic freedom fighters. BM operates in a more democratic part of the country. They have a long tradition of catering toward LEO/PD needs as lots of cops carry Benchmade knives, so helping out cops is just good PR. The majority of their consumers won't find this an unforgivable sin.

Now I don't own any BM knives. I think they are OK and probably well built, but they don't really speak to me. I nearly bought an Infidel but found the Ultratech checked off more of my knife needs. I won't NOT buy a Benchmade because of this though. There are plenty of other things that get my political panties in a twist than this.

Benchmade is a trigger word to me, I'm going to have to go to my safe place and hold my Microtech and try and get over this.

Personally, I find them overpriced for what they are. Just my opinion.

I've had a Benchmade for years.

Got my brother one. Got my wife one.

They are good knives, I love the axis lock.

But I'll probably but a spiderco or something in the future. I haven't had a need for a new folder since I got the Benchmade, though.

I have a Mini AFCK, which I use a lot, and a Mini-Griptillian. Both are great knives. As far as future purchasing goes, supporting anti-gun candidates (regardless of their motivations) is a deal breaker for me, they are in the same category as Dick's Sporting Goods.

ExAgoradzo said:

I know I am supposed to hate Benchmade because they melted confiscated firearms...but I don’t.

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My problem isn't that they provided this service to the local authorities.
My problem is that they thought that it would be a good idea to advertise that they provided this service.
What will their next bright idea be, with that kind of leadership?

theotherwaldo said:

My problem isn't that they provided this service to the local authorities.
My problem is that they thought that it would be a good idea to advertise that they provided this service.
What will their next bright idea be, with that kind of leadership?

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I still say, so what. As @Fiv3r pointed out, they really didn't do anything unethical and as others pointed out, the decision by the police department to destroy these guns are common practice. BM simply offered to support L.E. which makes sense because L.E. are some of their biggest customers.

As to your comments with regards to BM's leadership and decision to advertise this, it's my understanding that the police department were the one that advertised it on their Facebook page, not BM... If your problem wasn't that they cut up guns but with your incorrect understanding that BM advertised it, then you shouldn't have a problem being that BM did NOT advise it.

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There's a very popular forum I'm a member of called Bladeforums.com. As @Fiv3r also pointed out, most there who buy knives and own several $200+ Benchmades and other knives gun guys could not care any less. I buy mostly mid level Spydercos, Kershaws, CRKTs, Cold Steel, etc. Like most in the gun community, I'd spend the extra hundreds to thousands that most knives guys spend on Benchmades and the like on more guns, ammo, gun accessories, training, etc, long, long, long, long before I'd spend it on a knife.

IMHO, most gun owners and knife people do not care or see an issue with it, and most of the gun nuts who do aren't really spending $200+ on a knife anyway. Don't assume that because it's a big deal on internet gun forums and to the hardcore gunners, that the most others share your outrage.

-If the police were the ones that went public about the services that Benchmade provided then I apologize to Benchmade and its supporters.
They had no control over what was presented to the public.

Benchmade got left behind in the dust years ago. I won't even go into all that's been discussed with Benchmade being the only ones in town with an angle grinder, or politicians and secret money exchanging nefarious hands.

Or how they paid designers to make great knives only to cancel the lines and copy the designs then in house under a different name. Or running higher end "super" steels at "basic" hardness. And for this they gave a ridiculous excuse of having to make it easy to sharpen.

More so the quality and value of the materials is overshadowed by like 25 other companies now. Edge geometry has seemed to always be a challenge for Benchmade and folks decided they actually needed to cut with their knives. Years ago they stood as the iconic brand but as time passed other companies competed and have produced far superior blades for the cost. I want to get what I pay for, and Benchmade is just not there any more.

I have several Benchmades. My favorite is the bushcraft fixed blade. Of the folders, the 940 CF is awesome. ...and the Ti handled Balisong is just plain cool.

Doesn't bug me that they helped or worked w local Law Enforcement to destroy weapons/evidence that the general public would not have access to. Just my 2 cents. Hopefully no MP5s were killed in the process....