Mantis Knives any good?

SkagSig40

SkagSig40

Joined
Feb 1, 2001
Messages
2,671
I recently heard about Mantis knives and they have some cool designs. Seems like they use quality materials and I was wondering if anyone knows how their fit and finish is? Good warranty too. Here is a link to their website:

http://www.mantisknives.com/index.html

Thanks for any input!!!
 
They have a bad rep, do a search.
 
Lol I looked at their site; their descriptions of steels are pretty funny:
S30V is the best blade steel available. It is a high vanadium stainless steel with even higher edge retention.
154CM and BG-42 are two custom steels with much higher carbon content, giving them higher hardness ratings and dramatically higher edge retention.
420HC is a stainless steel that provides excellent rust resistance, is easy to re-sharpen and has good edge retention.
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I like how steels that weren't designed for the knife industry qualify as "custom steels," and S30V is somehow the best steel available with no explanation as to how they arrived at that conclusion.
 
I had no idea that my ZT 200 had "custom" steel:cool: I am going to sleep a whole lot better tonight because of this.
 
Thanks everyone! I'll read up on them. The one knife I was loking at the the "Bull dog" with a 1/4" thick blade. Seems like it would make for a solid little folder if a bit on the chunky side. Anyone know about this perticuler knife?
 
SkagSig40 said:
Thanks everyone! I'll read up on them. The one knife I was loking at the the "Bull dog" with a 1/4" thick blade. Seems like it would make for a solid little folder if a bit on the chunky side. Anyone know about this perticuler knife?
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You sure don't seem to be reading what people are saying, so either you've made-up your mind already and don't care what people are posting, or you're just trolling at this point.
 
CWL said:
You sure don't seem to be reading what people are saying, so either you've made-up your mind already and don't care what people are posting, or you're just trolling at this point.
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I understand what everyone is saying and I'm not a troll.....thought that would be obvious with my join date and post count. I own custom folders worth over $500 and also folders from just about every major brand of production knives. $50-100 is not a big risk for me so I may just buy one to test out and report back here. I am dissapointed to hear Mantis is a shady company. I emailed them some questions about their use of 440V. I will report back what they say.
 
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I suppose it might be worth it to buy one of their Pit Boss models, cut off a bit of the blade, lap it, etch it, look at the microstructure under a microscope, determine that it is not 440V due to the utter lack of even carbide distribution, then sue the company for blatantly lying about their products:thumbup:.
 
SkagSig40 said:
I understand what everyone is saying and I'm not a troll.....thought that would be obvious with my join date and post count. I own custom folders worth over $500 and also folders from just about every major brand of production knives. $50-100 is not a big risk for me so I may just buy one to test out and report back here. I am dissapointed to hear Mantis is a shady company. I emailed them some questions about their use of 440V. I will report back what they say.
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I definitely realize your join date and post count, which is why I wondered if you were just trolling, seems like you were messing the BF members.

If you want one, it isn't our business to stop anyone from owning knives. Just put up a review about what your experience with Mantis turns out to be.
 
I emailed them some questions about their use of 440V. I will report back what they say.
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Good luck with a reply. I called 3 times and asked, they told me the OWNER no less would contact me back on this important issue. That was 4 months ago.
 
According to everyone who's never owned one, they are terrible.

According to my sample of one, a B-4 Buzzard, it is an excellent knife.
 
shecky said:
According to everyone who's never owned one, they are terrible.

According to my sample of one, a B-4 Buzzard, it is an excellent knife.
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It's also made by a company that lies about the steel being used in the knife. And no, i don't have to own one of their knives to know that they don't use 440v.
 
SkagSig40 said:
I understand what everyone is saying and I'm not a troll.....thought that would be obvious with my join date and post count. I own custom folders worth over $500 and also folders from just about every major brand of production knives. $50-100 is not a big risk for me so I may just buy one to test out and report back here. I am dissapointed to hear Mantis is a shady company. I emailed them some questions about their use of 440V. I will report back what they say.
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The thing about emailing them as that they tend to either lie or read from the package. I asked Jared himself a question on a knife once and he literally just said "this is what the description says ...".

I've actually owned a few of the knives. Got 'em back when the company was unknown and picked them up for very little. I will say that the ones I had (The Chaos, that silver handled folder, and a couple other fixed blades) were very well put together and there wasn't a flaw on them. I never actually used them, so I can't speak on the edge holding or toughness, but the steels they list are most likely wrong. Maybe an overseas counterpart though. Don't know.
 
Kiah said:
..... but the steels they list are most likely wrong. Maybe an overseas counterpart though. Don't know.
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I think in legalese; however they worded it, the "claim" to the name of the steel could be the company stock number too. It just depends on the paperwork I would venture to guess. :D
 
ron_m80 said:
I think in legalese; however they worded it, the "claim" to the name of the steel could be the company stock number too. It just depends on the paperwork I would venture to guess. :D
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I doubt they care about legal anything. Jared told me that all the knives were made in California, which we know is BS. I've also never seen an import stamp on one, unless they've changed this recently. Not even a sticker. I do remember the Spyderco Byrd issue with the misnamed steels, but that was an oversight. I don't give Mantis that much credit.
 
Jared emailed me back. I asked him how Mantis could be using 440V when it has been out of production for years. He stated thet they find steel and machine shops that close up and Mantis buys up a lot of steel that way. He said they got a bunch of 440V from a shop that closed. He said they bought it for next to nothing so they can keep the price of the knife down.
 
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