Quality Chinese knives…WHAT?!?

Okay, so I want to avoid the whole anti-China-made products and politics issue, which I can understand, but instead, I want to just focus on knife designers, makers, and higher-end manufactures where some just happen to reside in China. There are several knife companies in China making high quality knives that have really stirred up some emotion in the knife industry. Now, just simply looking at the knives, their fit and finish, quality materials, etc., there’s no denying that there are some quality knife products in this mid-tech range coming out of China…just focusing on the product, not the origins or politics.

With that said, I saw a couple of moderately priced (each priced under $60) Artisan Cutlery knives. I know nothing about them, other than they are listed with several other Chinese-based knife manufacturers. I liked the designs of these two, the S-Waistliner and Apache liner locks, and figured I would see how well they were designed. I’m quite honestly surprised at the quality and attention to detail. Materials are average, D2 blade steel, G10 and/or aluminum handles, stainless liners and ball-bearing flipping actions; priced very reasonably.

Again, these are extremely well executed. The S-Waistliner has the G10 handled radiused which is a nice touch that most manufacturers ignore. Both liners lock up solid and centered, and the blades are perfectly centered. I’ve noticed no cut-corners, they seem almost hand finished compared to some higher end production knives I own (like Benchmade and ZT), but that just gives credit to their QA/QC manufacturing processes. I can honestly say you would be hard pressed to find many American-made knives in this price range for this level of quality. That’s a little embarrassing, but it also puts good pressure on our domestic made knives to step up their game.

Well, even if you don’t want to admit to buying a knife made in China, and the designs appeal to you, I can recommend that these are well-priced, high-quality folders that will likely surprise you. Now, I typically prefer “buy in America”, but this higher-end knife community in China are true knife-enthusiasts and craftsmen…my rationale is that I’ll support the broader, international knife community as well as on the home-front.

ROCK6

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Quality Chinese knives…WHAT?!?