Bark River steel

G

Glassman1

Joined
May 27, 2019
Messages
6
Hello,
New here to the forum, long time lurker and enthusiast, but have a specific question in regards to bark river knives. Have heard rumors of possibly mislabeled steel from the company on a few of their products, resulting in consumers receiving products with inferior performance. however had some trouble finding many details. Have had my eye on the aurora 2 in 3v for a bit, and it seems that all the vendors are stocking them again. Anyone have any info on this subject, especially in regards to this model? Last thing i want to do is spring for a knife and wind up with a piece of steel that doesn't perform as it should.
Cheers
 
This topic comes pretty close to urban legend territory, IMHO. I have bought three Marble's blades (two Campcraft, one Fieldcraft) in 52100 from Mike's era there, and later, after he had set up Bark River, a Professional Series Woodland in A2. All are superb. I believe he and Lynn C Thompson worked together to develop the heat treat for Carbon V, another of my favorite steels. I wouldn't hesitate to buy anything coming out of Mike Stewart's shop.
 
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I recently purchased an A2 BR and it came to me with a broken tip. Thankfully the retailer refunded my money. I did not want a replacement. The tip should not have broken so easily. No faith in material means no faith in knife and I just wanted my cash back. To bad because it was a beauty of a big blade.

15 years ago or so MS told me that Busse's SR101 was designed and ordered by him and that it was 52100 with added chromium to bring it up to 5% Cr. When I asked Busse about this, they said that no it did not have 5% Cr and no it wasn't originally ordered by MS. Well, sometime later I tested SR101 myself and found it to have the std amount of Cr, that 52100 has. So MS was BS.

My experience. I have more stories that I was told by MS, but I tend to think most of those are BS as well based on the record.
 
There are plenty of BS regarding steel that MS have made. For example

-D2 is a shitty steel that won't hold an edge due to carbide fallout
-D2 and 440c has the same edge holding.
-3V and Cruwear has the same toughness.
-Z-Finit is a pot steel

and properly many more.
 
Alberta Ed said:
This topic comes pretty close to urban legend territory, IMHO. I have bought three Marble's blades (two Campcraft, one Fieldcraft) in 52100 from Mike's era there, and later, after he had set up Bark River, a Professional Series Woodland in A2. All are superb. I believe he and Lynn C Thompson worked together to develop the heat treat for Carbon V, another of my favorite steels. I wouldn't hesitate to buy anything coming out of Mike Stewart's shop.
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That's a bizarre response given that we've had several instances on this forum in which there has been hard evidence that Bark River shipped knives with mislabeled steel.
 
Insipid Moniker said:
That's a bizarre response given that we've had several instances on this forum in which there has been hard evidence that Bark River shipped knives with mislabeled steel.
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I'm speaking from my own experience, which has been excellent. YMMV, of course.
 
Alberta Ed said:
I'm speaking from my own experience, which has been excellent. YMMV, of course.
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Glad to hear your luck has been good, but unfortunately we know for sure that luck is what it is. Bark River has, pretty much undeniably, shipped knives with mislabeled steels on more than one occasion. I doubt the risk of getting one of those is particularly high, but it's about as far from an urban legend as you can get.
 
"15 years ago or so MS told me that Busse's SR101 was designed and ordered by him and that it was 52100 with added chromium to bring it up to 5% Cr." This is hilarious. So MS had a new alloy called "SR101" which supposedly was 52100 with 5% chromium? Does he mean A2? Essentially that is what it would be, more or less.
 
No, MS was definitely talking modified 52100 with extra Cr. He did not call it sr101. Like I said, he said that Busse sr101 was steel that was steel that he requested from a mill. Modified 52100. Just one of the many things we talked about. Like getting steel from Japan and how other manufacturers were being lied to and getting something other than what was told except for him.
 
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Ah I hear you. I misread the post. Still, the idea of “modifying” 52100 with 5% chromium essentially makes it A2.
 
Ok, I dont know what anyone is talking about here, but I know my own experiences. Bark river makes good knives and I have no complaints with mine. Maybe they mislabeled some steel at one point but I wouldnt let that stop me from getting their stuff if I wanted to. No person or company is 100% perfect all the time, but BRKT has good customer service if something isnt right.
You cant trust everything you read on the internet.
 
CVamberbonehead said:
Ok, I dont know what anyone is talking about here, but I know my own experiences. Bark river makes good knives and I have no complaints with mine. Maybe they mislabeled some steel at one point but I wouldnt let that stop me from getting their stuff if I wanted to. No person or company is 100% perfect all the time, but BRKT has good customer service if something isnt right.
You cant trust everything you read on the internet.
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including this.:rolleyes:

IF you do not know what everyone is talking about then you have likely been living in a cave.
 
Cobalt said:
including this.:rolleyes:

IF you do not know what everyone is talking about then you have likely been living in a cave.
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More under a rock than in a true cave actually. Im not technically underground. Lol
I suppose looking back that I worded my post wrong. I know about the mislabelled steel issue. Ive read the threads, Ive seen the pictures and the outrage yadda yadda etc... what I meant is that people are kind of getting into the weeds here... You guys are getting into the minute details of Mike Stewarts description of Busse steel and all that. That seems a bit silly, off topic and unquantifiable to me.
I was telling the OP to take internet gossip with a grain of salt. I think thats good advice for everyone. Yes, Bark River mislabelled some steel but they fixed their mistakes for the same part from what I saw. More importantly, from my first hand experience, they have good customer service and will try to help you out if they gave you a knife that is mislabelled. They dont make money if customers leave because they were mistreated. My other experience is with their knives. I have a Blackjack 125 made by them, a Zoe Crist backpacker made by them and a Bark River Trailmate. They have all been good and are all A2 steel as advertised. I dont have any supersteel models.
I have used the Blackjack the most since it is my main hunting knife, and I am an outdoorsman. It sees a lot of use, from skinning deer to working on my trapline in the winters cutting wood. It does everything I want it to, and does it all well. The other knives are the same way, they havent let me down yet.
At the end of the day, theres a good chance that the OP will be happy with their purchase, and if they arent they can return it. I say buy what you want and you be the judge of it.
 
CVamberbonehead said:
Ok, I dont know what anyone is talking about here, but I know my own experiences. Bark river makes good knives and I have no complaints with mine. Maybe they mislabeled some steel at one point but I wouldnt let that stop me from getting their stuff if I wanted to. No person or company is 100% perfect all the time, but BRKT has good customer service if something isnt right.
You cant trust everything you read on the internet.
Click to expand...

CVamberbonehead said:
More under a rock than in a true cave actually. Im not technically underground. Lol
I suppose looking back that I worded my post wrong. I know about the mislabelled steel issue. Ive read the threads, Ive seen the pictures and the outrage yadda yadda etc... what I meant is that people are kind of getting into the weeds here... You guys are getting into the minute details of Mike Stewarts description of Busse steel and all that. That seems a bit silly, off topic and unquantifiable to me.
I was telling the OP to take internet gossip with a grain of salt. I think thats good advice for everyone. Yes, Bark River mislabelled some steel but they fixed their mistakes for the same part from what I saw. More importantly, from my first hand experience, they have good customer service and will try to help you out if they gave you a knife that is mislabelled. They dont make money if customers leave because they were mistreated. My other experience is with their knives. I have a Blackjack 125 made by them, a Zoe Crist backpacker made by them and a Bark River Trailmate. They have all been good and are all A2 steel as advertised. I dont have any supersteel models.
I have used the Blackjack the most since it is my main hunting knife, and I am an outdoorsman. It sees a lot of use, from skinning deer to working on my trapline in the winters cutting wood. It does everything I want it to, and does it all well. The other knives are the same way, they havent let me down yet.
At the end of the day, theres a good chance that the OP will be happy with their purchase, and if they arent they can return it. I say buy what you want and you be the judge of it.
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In the 20cv thread they did not fix their mistake. A dealer had to get involved and do it for them. In fact, brkt said there was no problem and the 20cv was acting normally even though we could all see it was acting like 10xx steel.

They proved themselves fools on the customer service end there. And that is just one recent instance....
 
CVamberbonehead said:
They dont make money if customers leave because they were mistreated.
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I, for one, left because I was mistreated by a childish temper tantrum throwing Mike Stewart (personal communications, not through a second party). I sold off all but one of their knives and will never buy another.
 
What did Barnum say, "there's a sucker born every minute"? Many people become rich following that truth.
 
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I have several knives in Bark River's A2 and they are all superb. It does what it is supposed to do and more.
 
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