Why do you guys dislike the Smith & Wesson knives by Taylor Cutlery?

S

Spill

Joined
Dec 10, 2001
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I got one as a birthday present a couple of weeks ago and it seems nice enough. I have not found any problems with it yet. It looks nice and cuts well, the blade is less than 3.0" which I like. I just would like to understand what exactly you guys find wrong with these knives. Thanks for your responces,

S.
 
A) Many firearms owners resent Smith & Wesson, and hence the brand name on Taylor Cutlery knives, because of Smith & Wesson's capitulation to the Clinton Administration regarding certain firearms law concepts.

B) Taylor Cutlery and its Smith & Wesson line are notorious for ripping off the designs of other makers.

C) Taylor Cutlery's quality, at the price level Taylor charges, is shitty.

Take your pick.
 
Asked and answered :D

The evil men do lives after them ... Smith & Wesson is no longer owned by the capitulators, and Taylor Cutlery is now dealing directly with designers instead of just ripping off their ideas.

But with so many companies who retained their integrity all along, it's still hard for us to buy from even reformed thieves.
 
Ouch.

But true. Pick up a Benchmade and handle it side by side. The S&W's don't walk and talk as well.

At least S&W is under new management. Still cranking out Harley parts, too. Nice propaganda piece in the American Rifleman last year. Made me put them right ahead of Ruger on my list of things I might get around to buying if I was rich and famous.
 
SW has a machine shop that 'out sources' work for numerous clients. They even published this in one of their catalogs.

They have a new president, and I hope that the animousity over their products dies down; I believe it has already.

Frankly, I think SW screwed the Clinton administration. They did not produce a 'smart gun' like the left wanted, they did not suspend production of models (in fact they invented more) and they have been a valued partner to law enforcement.

They put a gun lock in a box at the behest of a dope-smoking, womanizing, draft dodger. It is unfortunate, I would like to believe that I would have fought it, but in the end, so what?
 
Yeh, I tried to fight it, too, but the dope smoking and womanizing got me anyway. At least I retired from the Reserves.
 
In another thread some posters said their boot knives were pretty good for the money. I would not use their folders though. I bought two on sale for $10.00 each and the liners locks have to be pushed into place manually for them to engage. :rolleyes: I don't expect a Benchmade or Emerson for that price, but I do expect something to at least work. A cheap fixed blade is ok if that is all you can afford but I would not use a cheap folder since I don't like blades folding on my fingers. By cheap I mean in quality not price.

I did buy a few Taylor knives when I was in junior high and high school and they were ok but not anywhere near Cold Steel's quality. The ones I had were better than the United knives I've handled and about the same as Parker, so I guess they were good knives for beginners though now there are better options.
 
I recieved an S&W special edition something or another for being a groomsman in my cousin's wedding. Fit and finish aren't that great and the edge sucked. On the blade nice and big it states "Hammer Forged: China" On the handle is has USA written all over it..pretty disgusting how they try to decieve people. At any rate, lately they seem to be pulling their name out of the mud with their new flipper and framelock. I hope they continue this trend.
Matt
 
Knives for beginners. Hmmm, I've thought that before. Then I found out that bank tellers learn to find counterfeits by handling only good bills.
Maybe we don't get to learn how to tell good knives because of all the counterfeits that go through out hands?
Of course, if life was fair, we'd have a good knife first, then a good woman, a good car . . .
At least work toward excellence.
 
By "beginner" I meant people who were in my position when I really got into knives. That was when I was 12 to 14 in the 1980s. At 12, I couldn't afford a Gerber MK II so the Parker Big Smokey for $18.00 was pretty good. I couldn't talk my dad into buying a $100.00 Cold Steel Tanto but I was able to talk him into buying the $32.00 Taylor-Seto tanto. I used that for everything from camping, preparing food, and work around the house until I got my Cold Steel Tanto a few years later and even then I used it more because I considerd my CS "too good" to use.:rolleyes: (I've since reformed:D . Knives are made to be used)It held up but it has long been retired.

Today things are different. Good knives are more readily available for low prices. Camillus has the Becker line, Cold Steel has their Carbon V line, Ontario the Specplus, etc. Stores are also more likely to carry better quality knives than before. With the internet, you don't even have to worry about stores and affordable custom makers are very easy to find. For adults, pretty much any production knife is affordable if you save up a few weeks. I usually reccommend a Spyderco Endura for a first folder and a CS SRK or Recon Tanto for a first fixed blade.
 
My first was a german made boys knife on a chain. Looked like a frame from B. Levine's book - metal scales, etc. I'm tracking, though. It's much easier to start out these days - if the young guy has access to the I-net, etc.
Lots of times it's still buddy's word of mouth flea market stuff (if it don't say China it's not in the budget.) I just smile and not say anything stupid when the neighbor boy shows me his latest cool pos. After all, how's he gonna keep an interest if I dog him? So, bite tongue and make nice noises time. After some trust is developed maybe I can show him some good stuff and whet the appetite.
Of course, I've found it's just better not to show off your toys. Maybe that's why we have formal occasions like Blade shows ?
 
Originally posted by Benjamin Liu
I bought two on sale for $10.00 each and the liners locks have to be pushed into place manually for them to engage. :rolleyes: I don't expect a Benchmade or Emerson for that price, but I do expect something to at least work.
Click to expand...

Totally OT but I had the same experience on a ... Strider on the Bandland booth at Blade. Pretty appaling QC.
 
The original SWAT series weren't too bad, the quality is decent and they probably used decent steel at first too.

But now they are decieving. They mark USA and Hammer Forged 440C, but are actually made in China of 420J2 or 440A. The quality is decent, but they sell the knives for a lot more than they're worth. Some of their desgins are cool, and a real collaberations, but about a quarter of the products are very obvious knock off designs, and the other half are really reatarded. Their "Border Guard" series looks like Fury-type ****.

Another reason I avoid them is because they have retarded names like HRT, Border Guard, Homeland Security, Anti-Terrorist knife, Extreme Ops, Special Forces, etc.
 
The problems aren't just limited to their copies..
There's more, they take an interesting, quite intelligent design like the Powerglide and make a complete mess of it.

Out of the box its impossible to open with one hand, a very slight loosening of the screws, and it develops NASTY blade play, so much so that the blade rubs off the insides, and the Teflon wears down on the blade. With a little more thought, this problem could have been sidestepped..There's no way its blade could be anything more than 440a, it has very poor edge retention. Worse than my Leek which is 420.


Like 90% of knives Taylor/SW products are built to a price, not by a company that actually feels driven to provide excellent knives to the public.

Oh and then there's the 'neck tanto' i bought, I didn't expect much for $15, but it wasn't even sharp.
 
Carrol Shelby is reputed to have named the GT350 Mustang because of the distance from the office to the plant - 350 ft. That and "If it doesn't sell nobody will remember and if it does nobody will care."
Authentic tools don't have to trade off an image "Navy Seal Approved!" Randall #14s are hot for what they are, not because they're named "THE EVISCERATOR" or something equally dumb. Kind of like aliases .... (and I'm asking to change mine.)
 
I can understand calling a line "SWAT" but "HRT" is a bit much. At least they don't have an "ATF" line. Then again, maybe the ATF should use linerlocks that don't engage. :D I wonder if it a Janet Reno knife (with her signature) commemorating the HRT victory at Waco would sell.

I'm surprised at the Strider part. I've had linerlocks from Emerson, Buck and CRKT and never had this problem. I guess that's another reason to buy knives at gun or knife shows. That way you can test them first and still get a good deal.
 
Regardless of their somewhat free-spirited interpretation of copyright law, treating the customer like a moron, and hijacking names and logos that shouldn't be on their knives; the main gripe that I have with S&W knives is that they just aren't very good.

With companies like CRKT and Gerber there is no reason to pay as much as S&W wants to charge for the quality of products that they produce.
 
As was mentioned earlier, S&W/Taylor is slowly trying to become more reputable. That's a battle that will take years to win.

The quality of their knives in general is poor. The HRT line is, for the most part easily comparable to CRKT. Several of the designs are from Darrel Ralph. He worked pretty closly with them to get the production quality up. I believe all of his designs are made in Taiwan at the "A" level factory. If my facts are correct, there are 3 levels of knife manufacturing, A- Best, B-Moderate, C- wellll.

I beleive CRKT gets their knives from the "A" shop.

Of course this couls all be an acid flash back, but how would I know?:confused: :)
 
I think that they are doing better, the FL2 is well designed and executed.
 
I think what you'll find if you do some searches on taylor cutlery or smith and wesson knives, is that they made piss poor quality ripoffs for years. Combine that with the politics of smith and wesson, and a lot of folks got left with a bad taste in their mouth and a great dislike of S and W.
Fast forward to now, things are changing. I have read at least a dozen posts like yours where someone got a S and W knife, either as a gift or just for the hell of it, and could not find all the notorious flaws that were garuanteed to be there.
They seem to be working towards better quality on some of their knives, but quality seems to be pretty inconsistent. And there's 1000's of unhappy customers from the past who haven't looked at a smith and wesson knife in years to know if changes are being made. Why take a chance on getting burned again with so many GOOD manufacturers out there, and some of them with even lower prices ?
 
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