Bark River Knives closing?

[sal]

Hi All,

Just heard that Bark River Knives may be closing. (Thanx WilliamMunny for your note).

Mike Stewart has been around the knife, and even gun industry for along time. If it's true that BRK is closing, I thought it might make an interesting study for discussion here. Who, what, when where and Why (the 5 "W's").

I read a few posts on another forum, but I suspect that a few here might be more savvy? If you know it to be a true comment, great. If it's "you heard", please say so? Truth is often elusive.

sal

[srivats]

Some chatter on Reddit that I saw yesterday.





I never never purchased anything from them, so I have no direct experiences.

[raygixxer89]

Dang, that's a bummer. I've ought quite a few blades from them over the years. Although my last purchase was about 2017. It was the Shining Mountain Bowie.

[Skywalker]

Thread on bladeforums as well, hard to tell at this point what's fact, speculation, hearsay, or libel.

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/jus ... e.2069073/

[WilliamMunny]

I have only heard online rumors. This is all just online research, none of it is fact, only making assumptions from unverified posts. Nothing is 100% and I have no inside knowledge. I don’t know Mike and have no knowledge if he did something wrong.

-Some people are saying that BRK mislabeled steel (used a cheap Chinese steel but labeled it 154cm) to save money to keep enough profits to keep the company going in tough economic times.

- in March Mike announced he was fighting cancer.

-There may be a statement from Mike tomorrow.

-One employee, the grind room supervisor, claims BRK kept employees there until the last minute, no warning and no pay check.

-These comments were made regarding the BRK Aurora 3. When asked about steels being relabeled Mike stated “not this one”, implying others may have been. Mike said these had DLT supplied steel and therefore were okay.

[Halfneck]

I remember hearing sketchy stuff about BRK back in the early 2000's. There were a few of their knives that interested me, but I only owned one over the years. Wasn't really impressed with it so I traded it away for something else. After that I just kept hearing negative stories regarding Mike Stewart. It was secondhand, but from people whose opinion I respected. Based on that I just never bought any Bark River Knives. Also helps there's so many other alternatives from other makers that are good people.

[Fireman]

Sad. Well I have some of their knives and enjoy them. Looks like the prices on secondary will jump

[Wowbagger]

.

[Doc Dan]

I hate to see any knife or gun company go out of business. If this is true, it is sad, indeed. However, if Mike has cancer, I know how that can affect a business.

[Wowbagger]

My first thought was :
Call them on the phone .
I went to their website ; it's still up .
There was no phone number .
There was no "contact us" button . of course "contact us " buttons are pass'e ; I got no response when I used the one here in this forum
There was an e-mail address but clicking on it did nothing .

The good news is I found , in their frequently asked questions page , this :

Face: The Flat side of the blade.
((inside joke with BeggerSo))

[Wartstein]

I always liked the looks of their knives and that they do convex grind, but somehow I have a more "rational / just a tool" approach to fixed blades, already have the ones that cover my needs and thus never felt like laying out the money for a Bark River.

Had no idea about those rumors that they´d be closing (looks like a bit more than just rumors at this point...?), but did a quick research right now. Found some things I would not exactly like if actually true, but don´t feel like spreading those as long as it is not confirmed THAT they are true.

[vanka]

I've read a thread about Bark River mislabeling steels. It was in the bladeforum about 10y ago or so. A few people went testing their blades and what they got was far off from what was labeled. I don't know if that was true, I mean anyone can write anything for whatever reason. But I've noticed there was a lot of rage against BRK. Back then I didn't know anything about BRK so I've decided to just stay away from the brand. What I'm trying to say is that bad rumors and few mistakes can ruin a good name and for long years to come.

[bearfacedkiller]

I own quite a few. I will never part with my WildernessExplorer or Kephart 4. I haven’t bought any in a while because much like every other knife company they have gotten expensive. I am glad I was hoarding knives ten years ago.

I can only speculate what is going on. Mike has always been a polarizing figure and I am just a basic customer. It will be interesting to see what happens.

[Evil D]

Always liked their knives but not much of a fixed blade guy so never bought one. They've always been on my short list of options if I ever did though.

[BeggarSo]

I have 2 from them an A2 steel Sax which is very cool and a Magnacut bush knife name forgotten.

I even bought a D2 Parang it was a beast gave that one away.

Good quality stuff but I am not into fixed blades and Folder taste goes to Spyderco.

[vivi]

I always liked the looks of certain models they made, but their pricing was never very competitive VS small time custom makers,and I'm not a fan of maintaining convex grinds.

I did trade into a few of their models over the years, but none stuck around.

Sad to see another american knife company potentially bite the dust, regardless of the reasons.

[Steelearner]

I just read that: https://www.reddit.com/r/knives/s/a0dmGn5JCY
Now wait and see what Mike Stewart will say.

[BeggarSo]

Wow, wow, wow. It's official DLT did a good write up. What a shame I always thought they made great products.

Maybe some other company will take over operations. Hmm. Hey Sal ready for a new adventure?

[Skywalker]

One other comment about the spillover effect of this kind of thing - allegations of mislabeled steel are not new for BRKT, some of them pretty well documented. The rusting "mangacut" with "contaminated belts" were only the latest in a longer line.

To be completely honest it made me look a little sideways at dealers - especially DLT and KSF - that continued to do so much business with BRKT even with such issues widely known.

I had hoped KSF at least would've reduced the relationship after they moved from MI to TN but it didn't really look like it over the years.

[BeggarSo]

I can guess why they continued dealing with them, probably due to what they were selling the stuff is pretty nice.

Yeah not cool misrepresenting steel and origin. But what can a dealer do just say ok that's it were dropping our stock back to you give us our money back and forget about legal agreements?

Nope. I guess they simply did not even know and if they did I have spoken to DLT enough to get the impression they are stand up guys and simply would take them out of stock for sale and deal with it behind the scenes.