Are Rough Rider knives durable?

Fair enough. But, I think he is not asking about the durability of abalone inlays in the first post, if indeed that is what he was proposing to buy. He's asking how well the knife holds up to whittling. IMO those are separate questions.
 
To be clear, the premium select baby copperhead in my pocket right now does have black pearl and abalone, and buffalo horn. And I am curious about its durability.
 
CVamberbonehead said:
To be clear, the premium select baby copperhead in my pocket right now does have black pearl and abalone, and buffalo horn. And I am curious about its durability.
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Threads do drift, so that's a fair question to ask at this point in the thread. But any abalone or MOP knife is going to be more delicate than one with bone or wood.
 
Excellent! then there'd be two.
 
Unfortunately, I was not first. Whetrock is always one step ahead of me.

whetrock said:
Looks quite nice to my eyes. I never have been one for MOP or pearl handles due to durability as well as cost, but this stuff seems to be a fine medium. I like the Powder Horn Jack pattern as well and have had one off and on my short list for quite some time. All in all the #12 PJ in pearl seems to be an attractive knife IMO. I really like that combo.
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Leaving the white collar world and getting back into the blue, I wanted to get myself a nice stockman. I had bought only CASE knives since the mid 60s, and my last larger folder purchase was a 4" CASE copperhead purchased in 1976. (Still have it, love that knife!) Looked around for my favorite 4" pattern of a CASE stockman, but was informed by a trusted local dealer that the exact model I was after was discontinued. Although Boker made one like I wanted, at the time it was CASE or nothing.

Got discouraged and tried out less costly knives while waiting to score a "old stock" or lightly used model at the gun shows. Bought Remington, Boker (440c steel) and Rough Rider. That was 20 years ago, and they are all in service. I use them as my "second" to my larger work knife for my construction work. They cut fill plugs, trim moldings, sharpen pencils, strip wire (cut the really thin stuff), open packing and shipping boxes, dig out splinters, trim rough edges on boards, etc., etc. They have all held together as well as any knife I have ever owned. Since they were all inexpensive, I confess I have pushed them much harder than I would one of my CASE knives... but to no bad effects for the last 20 years.

I look at the CASE, Queen, etc., at the gun shows and am not interested. OTOH, I have purchased a few RRs for gifts since I had great luck with them and the recipients were thrilled. I have a tear drop jack and a Barlow from RR that I had to reorder to give them as gifts. The fit and finish are so good I just couldn't give them away. I did get a couple that were not of that quality, but dropped them in one of my tool boxes. Contrasting, when I bought Queen knives since I couldn't find a CASE I wanted, the quality was poor enough I returned 3 out of 3. The BF vendor that sold them to me agreed that the returns were poor specimens, but advised me that was the state of things in domestic knife manufacturing these days.

With that in mind, I buy one of the three mentioned brands when I am looking at work or gift knives. As you would any knife, I take it out of the box immediately and check it out. I haven't sent one back in the last several purchases, and haven't kept a worker model for myself as the RRs and their cousins are doing just fine. I am not a collector, and don't need anymore knives! Just knives that work.

Robert
 
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midnight flyer said:
Leaving the white collar world and getting back into the blue, I wanted to get myself a nice stockman. I had bought only CASE knives since the mid 60s, and my last larger folder purchase was a 4" CASE copperhead purchased in 1976. (Still have it, love that knife!) Looked around for my favorite 4" pattern of a CASE stockman, but was informed by a trusted local dealer that the exact model I was after was discontinued. Although Boker made one like I wanted, at the time it was CASE or nothing.

Got discouraged and tried out less costly knives while waiting to score a "old stock" or lightly used model at the gun shows. Bought Remington, Boker (440c steel) and Rough Rider. That was 20 years ago, and they are all in service. I use them as my "second" to my larger work knife for my construction work. They cut fill plugs, trim moldings, sharpen pencils, strip wire (cut the really thin stuff), open packing and shipping boxes, dig out splinters, trim rough edges on boards, etc., etc. They have all held together as well as any knife I have ever owned. Since they were all inexpensive, I confess I have pushed them much harder than I would one of my CASE knives... but to no bad effects for the last 20 years.

I look at the CASE, Queen, etc., at the gun shows and am not interested. OTOH, I have purchased a few RRs for gifts since I had great luck with them and the recipients were thrilled. I have a tear drop jack and a Barlow from RR that I had to reorder to give them as gifts. The fit and finish are so good I just couldn't give them away. I did get a couple that were not of that quality, but dropped them in one of my tool boxes. Contrasting, when I bought Queen knives since I couldn't find a CASE I wanted, the quality was poor enough I returned 3 out of 3. The BF vendor that sold them to me agreed that the returns were poor specimens, but advised me that was the state of things in domestic knife manufacturing these days.

With that in mind, I buy one of the three mentioned brands when I am looking at work or gift knives. As you would any knife, I take it out of the box immediately and check it out. I haven't sent one back in the last several purchases, and haven't kept a worker model for myself as the RRs and their cousins are doing just fine. I am not a collector, and don't need anymore knives! Just knives that work.

Robert
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Well you cant beat that, 20 years of work for the price is pretty good.
 
Well the RRs are still intact. Ive been using them steadily and they seem just as good as any other pocketknife. And now I have 2 Marbles pocketknives, and theyre excellent. In fact, the 3 blade trapper (gut hook blade) is one of the nicest knives Ive ever seen, at any price. Its got impeccable fit and finish, I really like it. Theyre all holding up well.
 
CVamberbonehead said:
Well, I still like the knives. I have been using the marbles 3 blade trapper on my trap line, and its great! The premium select knife is holding up fine too. And I have been impressed with the steel actually, it holds a decent edge.
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Thanks. Good to know.
 
I have had a RR Barlow and a Marbles hawkbill both fail recently as a result of broken springs. The Barlow was about three years old, the hawkbill about a month old. Neither gave any sign of trouble until the ping of doom.
 
Peregrin said:
I've never had a spring break. I've been on a few though, but that was many moons ago
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I have not had it happen either, except on those, and a Rite Edge Barlow that failed after about five years of use. On the Marbles and Rite Edge I think that there may have been flaws that were not polished out, but I haven't a guess what was the cause on the RR. Still 3-5 years of use is not bad for a disposable knife! I did have the coping blade on a RR whittler fail suddenly once as well, but this was when they first were imported. They probably have made the small blades thicker by now, but I tend to use Barlows rather than whittlers since then.
 
I had a RR peanut that was the match for a recently made Case

ended up giving it away to a mate but it was a solid folder
 
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