Decent, reliable knives like Ontario RAT I, Ka-bar Dozier, Spyderco Cara-Cara … are possible to get for almost the same price as Ganzo (almost…), so I really see no reason why I should use a copy when I can have a proven quality. My vote goes to Spyderco Byrd (I own two old discontinued models).
But this doesn’t mean that I don’t like chinese knives. On contrary, as exaple I got several awesome Kizers (from their Vanguard line) lately for $34 or so (shipping included). What a steal!
I use knife mainly as a tool, not as a toy to flip around when I am bored, but I must admit that all those images of Ganzo and Sanremu near people keyboards looks very nice
Sanrenmu for sure have manufactured many of Spyderco’s Chinese knives. SRM are the OEM for many Western brands Chinese-made products.
It’s possible that Ganzo are making some Byrd knives. Some of the Byrd FRN knives have very low quality FRN (the fit & finish of the texturing, embossed text etc) which reminds me of the garbage Ganzo delica copy.
I have had both brands. Ganzo lists 440C on most of their knives, but I suspect its 8cr or similar.
I am not a huge Spyderco fan but there is a noticeable difference in quality, action, and edge retention, despite the fact that the Byrd has an 8cr blade. It comes down to who they source their 8cr from and maybe more importantly, the heat treat. Spyderco has their process down pat. In my novice opinion, any Syperco is better in overall quality and reliability than any Ganzo.
Ontario, ka-bar etc are not possibly to get in Europe at prices of ganzo and other chinese brands. In EE.UU could be, but in Europe the prices a minimun twice or more, but a ganzo knife has the same price in the world.
Beyond the chemical composition of a given steel, ‘heat treating’ the blade is probably a bigger indicator of how well a given blade will perform for its designed task.
Many bladesmiths, like Gayle Bradley (M4), Jerry Busse (Infi) and Bob Dozier (D2) know how to heat treat their preferred steels and that along with blade geometry, probably determines, moreso, the overall quality of a particular blade.
You can tweak the chemical content here and there, say between 3V and Infi and probably not see any appreciable difference, but if you have a great steel and/or an improper heat treat, or blade geometry, you’re going to be left with a sucky knife.
Whether the Chinese do this in their budget knives, who knows?
I remember back in the 70s, people joking about Japanese steel and now look at things?
That’s bedtime story for people who actually believe that there is SRM or Ganzo factory. Is there actual Thorfire factory? Or maybe Sofirn factory? Or there’s maybe just XY factory (or many of them) with 24/7 production line which mass produce and print whatever client order, from generic OEMs to higher end demands. Whatever you order and pay for…
If one day there appear “Speadge knives cutlery” with nice logo included this doesn’t mean that I will actually own factory. Have you ever seen or heard for actual “SRM factory”?
It’s just brand printed on knife of unknown origins… produced by who know whom and where in China… and our chit-chat speculation on forums. It’s not like we know anything what you said for a fact.
I had to chuckle at the “bedtime story” comment. Look at Supbeam (Acebeam). They make (made?) lights for all sorts of high end companies and was little known not too long ago.
Look at all of our supermarket brands here in the States. PUBLIX down here in Miami isn’t making pasta noodles, cereal, or pop in their solely owned factories.
I bought a nice Finnish EnZo Birk 75 in D2 scandi and carbon fiber scales and it’s made to their specs in Taiwan.
Beautiful knife, but I was a bit miffed when I found out that it wasn’t made in Finland, only because I was on a Scandinavian knife binge at the time, lol.
It is the same in most industries. Example in the watch market: CK, Armani, Michael Kors etc are brands. They do not have any manufacturing capability…they just order stuff (maybe help to design it), brand it, advertise it, sell it. Fossil is a watch manufacturer, they make 90% of watches sold worldwide including those aforementioned brands. (they also choose to sell watches under their own brand).
It is well known that SRM is a large OEM, manufacturing knives for many Western brands. They also choose to sell knives under their own brand. Many of the knives they have sold under their own brand in the past were clearly produced using same components/production lines as those Western branded knives.
Eg the CRKT drifter and Sanrenmu 7007. The SRM is not a ‘clone’; Sanrenmu make both. They pop off same production line and one is stamped CRKT, the other is stamped SRM. This is a bit naughty and I am sure CRKT were not happy about it. But who knows who actually designed this knife? Maybe it was SRM. Some OEMs do a lot of the design work and the brand simply chooses what they want from a catalogue.
