Are Tac-Force knives any good?

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Trovaa

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Jun 7, 2017
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I've been looking around on amazon for cheap yet good quality flippers and I made another thread about cheap flippers.

Found Tac-Force on amazon and they sound good, but they are one of those brands that are really cheap but look well made.
To any of you who have lots of cheap knives and have used Tac-Force knives before, are they any good for practical and impractical use? How long do they last? What knives would be better?
 
Absolute garbage.

Better off buying from a website that specifically sell knives, such as knifeworks or BladeHQ.
 
Sorry about the long reply.

Where you buy the knives isn't as important as what you buy.

A Little over a year ago, I had three acquaintances that are good friends with each other (they think of me as dad-like figure), purchase Tac-Force knives off Amazon and bring them to me to sharpen on my Wicked Edge sharpening system. These were $10-$15 knives that looked cool, but...

I disassembled the first knife for deep cleaning and it was complete crap. The lock was downright dangerous! All attempts to fix it proved to be a waste of time. The action and lockup of the other two were terrible and the blade geometry was a joke. I stopped and put all the parts in a bag and reassembled the worst one.

I immediately went on Amazon and purchased a Spyderco Tenacious, Byrd Cara Cara 2 and Ontario Rat 1. When the knives arrived, they were all sharp out of box. All had excellent action and secure locks, but I gave them the spa treatment and amazing edges anyway.

I gifted the knives to the three Tac-Force purchasers and showed them what made their super cheap import knives a bad value. I also explained that some moderately priced import knives (Keyshaw, Spyderco, Byrd, Ontario, etc.) are extremely well made and rival higher end knives. They agreed and tossed the bag of parts.

Every now and then one of the three converts brings me a nice new knife for sharpening.
 
No.

I agree with the post above. Might as well save up a little more and purchase something durable and quality ( RAT 1 is my recommendation) than deal with garbage. RAT 1 is 30 USD. Some kershaws might be even cheaper.
 
No...don't waste your money...as others mentioned, save up or spend more $$ and get a blade from a reputable company.
 
I'd agree, unless you just need a knife shaped object and have $20 I would suggest at least sticking to a budget offering from a quality company - Spyderco, CRKT, etc most of the big guys offer lower cost knives that are at least usable. Finding a decent cheap flipper may be harder, the CRKT M-16 sorta fits the bill but, at least the one I handled recently, wasn't that great - my hunch though was it needed some TLC, my friend looks to have used his hard.
 
augustus88 said:
I immediately went on Amazon and purchased a Spyderco Tenacious, Byrd Cara Cara 2 and Ontario Rat 1. When the knives arrived, they were all sharp out of box. All had excellent action and secure locks, but I gave them the spa treatment and amazing edges anyway.

I gifted the knives to the three Tac-Force purchasers and showed them what made their super cheap import knives a bad value. I also explained that some moderately priced import knives (Keyshaw, Spyderco, Byrd, Ontario, etc.) are extremely well made and rival higher end knives. They agreed and tossed the bag of parts.
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Ippon98 said:
I agree with the post above. Might as well save up a little more and purchase something durable and quality ( RAT 1 is my recommendation) than deal with garbage. RAT 1 is 30 USD. Some kershaws might be even cheaper.
Click to expand...
Not trying to turn this into a RAT appreciation thread but ... buy a RAT.
 
Before I got into knives I was in the same predicament.

Long story short.

Tac force is a waste of money you can put towards something that works.

Look at that new cutjack by steel will.
If your really scraping the bottom of the piggy bank just get a kabar Dozier
 
If you like flippers, Kershaw makes a few ball bearing ones for under $30. Not a bad knife and you won't be afraid to use it.

 
Tac force knives look nice in pictures, that's about it.

For budget flippers, I think Kershaw has the best, at least that I've seen. If you're not married to a flipper, ontario rat or esse zancudo are great budget folders as well as the spyderco chinese knives (including byrd). Smith and wesson also comes to mind but they're still very low end but I think they're at least safe to use; the black ops line especially seems to at least hit with other entry level knives. I would still go for a kershaw though for tactical looking value folder.

Edit: not all cheap knives are garbage. Opinel is a traditional knife for a few bucks that does very well.
 
I will also speak up and recommend the Rat 1. Others, Enlan/Bee L05 with 8cr13mov is very good for the money and Harnds Talisman is a nice full sized flipper with AUS8. I actually like the Harnds Talisman better than the Rat 1 but that is personal preference.
 
I would rather use a utility knife over any Tac-Force product.
If you are looking for a more "cool" looking knife. Like What makes Tac-Fart knives appealing. I would consider the following

Ontario Utilitac II (not a flipper. Thumbstud)
ontario-knife-company-utilitac-ii-jpt-4s-o8916.jpg

Kershaw Flourish
Kershaw-Flourish-CF-G-10-Black-Wash-3935-BHQ-52176-jr.jpg

Kershaw Malt
Kershaw-GTC-Malt-assisted-opening-knife-gray-5520-BHQ-52192-er.jpg
 
Prolly gonna go with Ontario or M-16.
I found some knives by Schrade who I've heard of a bunch. Are they any good either?
Thanks for the answers.
 
Just an aside. If you do a lot of shopping on Amazon, do yourself a favor and compare the prices of the knife you want to one of the major online knife dealers like KW, BHq, KSF, KC, etc. I often find that these online knife dealers have better prices. Additionally, the only bad folder I've purchased was a Rat folder off of Amazon. It had a defect on the blade under the washer. I returned it via Amazons return policy and have been purchasing knives from one of the dealers I mentioned ever since (locally when possible). Edit: I bought the RAT again from one of the dealers I mentioned above and it was perfect, just got a lemon sent to me by Amazon's vendor.

Additionally some of those online dealers have a note section during the purchase process that allow you to ask them to check for blade centering, lockup, etc. I've had them call me to verify if they even think I might be dissatisfied with the knife before they ship it because of my added notes (ty KW).
 
Tac-force knives don't even look good for a knife ( cool for an object or nick nack ) and none of the ones I have are good knives, my brother buys them for 8$ and they last him about 2 months of daily use at the very most before the last screw falls out.
If you only have a little bit to spend I would forget about what looks cool or about having a flipper, just get a Victorinox recruit for 15$.
If you have to have a tactical style modern folder with a flipper you'll have to save up a bit to get something with the same quality of that 15$ Victorinox tinker.
In short I'm saying go for quality over features when on a budget, it may not be cool and modern but it'll last you years if not decades.
 
Trovaa said:
Prolly gonna go with Ontario or M-16.
I found some knives by Schrade who I've heard of a bunch. Are they any good either?
Thanks for the answers.
Click to expand...
Schrade is made in china now and they're modern type folders are often just cheapo knives rebranded ( I've seen some that were the same as tac- force knives )
Are your priorities to get a good functional cutting tool or does it have to be something cool and fast ?
 
Trovaa said:
Prolly gonna go with Ontario or M-16.
I found some knives by Schrade who I've heard of a bunch. Are they any good either?
Thanks for the answers.
Click to expand...

Schrade's 1095 carbon steel frontier fixed blades are a good value. Their folders are garbage
 
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