This is true.
That Buck 009 looks like a good knife, I’d prefer a full tang but it’s cheap inexpensive.
If I wasn’t spent up for the next month I’d have one.
If you’re bothered about the reliability of it why don’t you buy another, at $8.78 it’s cheap enough, and do a “destruction test” type review, much as I hate destroying any serviceable knife it would either calm your fears about the construction or prove them true.
EDITED for lousy spelling.
It’s cheap but so are a couple of knives which are superior. So, for the price, I can have cheap and robust. For the same 10 bucks, I think a 480 would be superior.
I thought about it, but don’t think I would ever respect it or depend on it knowing it’s construction, even if it held up to some abuse. There’s no possible way it can be as robust as the other cheap fixed blades I have from FT: The 480 and the two Strider copies. Watch the video about the guy trying to kill the Strider clone in my other thread. This 009 wouldn’t survive a minute with that guy. I’ve always been tough on my gear, so for the most part if I can have tough for the same price, I’m going to go with it.
The Mora isn’t full tang and I trust it, but at least it’s just a single chunk of metal with a plastic handle slapped on. And it’s field proven. For literally a few bucks more than the 009 I could (and do) have a Mora.
For my camping trip tomorrow I’m taking the Mora Companion and Kershaw Bear Hunter as camp knives. The Kershaw was only $25 so I’m not afraid to kill it, and it has a beautiful and well fitting real leather sheath to go on my belt. And the flat grind makes it even better for good prep than the Mora.
In the U.K. we get a brand called Hultafors I’m sure you can get them in the U.S.A. as well. I have this one. and it’s not a full tang construction but they are very tough and cheap. There’s a video on YouTube testing the reliability and it passes with flying colours. Available in Carbon or Stainless steel. Very Good Value and like the Mora’s Very Reliable.
I wouldn’t worry about the Buck because it looks like you take a back-up blade.
Oh, and thanks for the review, very useful.
Hmmm those almost look like rebranded Moras. Looks like it has a better handle than the Mora: nice and grippy. I did a quick check on Amazon and they get good reviews, and they’re even cheaper than Mora. Thanks for the tip!
And yep, I take a backup to my backup (BK14 Eskabar), a folder (Spyderco Native), and a backup folder (Spyderco Tenacious). That’s 5 not counting the little Victorinox somewhere in my pack, and the blade on the Leatherman Wingman clipped to my “man purse”, oh yea, and the surgical scalpel in my first aid kit 
My “manbag” consists of a Maxpedition “fatty” EDC pouch, fits my cargo side pocket nicely and contains a Nitecore MT2A 8 rechargeable back up batteries, 2 countycomm widgy pry bars, a Spyderco Grasshopper a butane “jet” style lighter, pens etc. and about 30ft of 550 paracord.
The left leg gets another, smaller Maxpedition EDC pouch in the corresponding cargo pocket, containing paperwork and another 30ft hank of 550 paracord. - it’s useful to tie a couple of lanyards “man knitting” waiting for appointments etc. the lighter and knife come in handy then.
I like Moras for what they are but I’m pretty sure that rubber handled Buck would be much stronger than a Mora just because of how much thicker the steel is.
I am very tempted to buy one of those rubber handled Bucks and do some torture testing on it. My guess is it stands up to reasonable abuse just fine. I’m not going to just try and break it, rather put it to as extreme of stress as I will ever put any knife to and see what happens. I’m not going to put it in a vice and hit it with a 9lb sledge but I will chop hardwood, stab sheet metal, baton, food prep, split kindling, hack vines and roots and stuff like that.
My guess is it functions just fine. I bet it is much better than a Mora as hard use. I used to prefer full tang construction over anything else but you can’t get the same balance with a full tang knife as other tangs like stick tang or half tang. Not every knife needs to be able to pry bricks out of a wall to be worth having.
The Mora is one continuous piece of steel, even if it isn’t full tang. It doesn’t matter how thick the steel is if it ends at the handle. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. That Buck to me is what I would call a “no tang.” I just got back from a week of camping, and another week of camp-proven use for my Mora Companion. It looks like it’s been through the Apocalypse, but it’s still as good as new.
The Hultafors I ordered should be here today or tomorrow. It’s actually thicker than the Mora, and I’m interested to see how it stacks up. As always, I will take lots of pictures.
I ordered my very first thing from Fasttech this week and it was the 480 here (I didn’t realise you had to buy tracking so mine is supposedly on its way and hopefully not returned by HKP). I ordered it because it looks really nice and there was hope of it being a real Buck.
I have a question though…what is the idea behind the little cut outs in the blade (that look like hearts or a cored apple sliced in two!).
They are decorative little buck hooves. Personally I don’t like knives that do that because it just makes them harder to clean. But it doesn’t hurt the knife—it’s just decorative.
LOL Buck hooves! Now why didn’t I see that amongst my look-a-likes! 
fwiw mine never arrived 
but give them their due Fasttech gave me a full refund even though it was my first purchase from them.
I hope you’ve not been waiting since your post on 22nd Dec last year, I know FastTech customer service can be a bit slow at times but that’s a long time to wait.
Don’t let it put you off them, I have had a lot of orders from them and only ever had one go missing, they re-sent it after about 5 weeks when I started talking about PayPal disputes, they don’t like them.
I bought that little Buck Hartsook copy and it’s exactly the same loose rattling sheath and rubbish keyring and whistle, good letter opener though. EDIT It’s not a Hartsook copy it’s a Smidgen copy, whatever I’ve ordered the black coated one as well, silly money for what you get.
Have any of you had the 2310GT
Comes branded as a CRKT Ed Hallinan’s “Stiff Kiss” - A size up from the Buck neck knife but a chisel grind which I’m not keen on.
Excellent for the the ~ £2.50 price.
Sorry you didn’t get your order BT-UK. For whatever reason I’ve had like a 2 year good luck streak with them. I keep meaning to buy more knives. The last few times I went there to get some steel, I ordered flashlights or batteries instead. FT is one of the few China sellers I still like.
i have had the 480 and used it several times camping - its great!
The sheath isn’t that great, though. I’m still hoping to someday make a Kydex sheath for it.
yeah, youre right - i did find myself complaining about it a few times.
No. I was on the ball pretty quickly simply because DX orders were going missing and when I looked into it I realised I could have had Paypal fight my corner and found out about the time requirements. Fasttech did sync their own money back deal with the Paypal dispute deadline but I wasn’t going to let the Paypal deadline pass and then rely on Fasstech to keep their word, so I went with Paypal and got a refund from Fasstech within one or two days.