Rough Ryder Classic Carbon pocketknives

[Briar Lee]

B-E-A-utiful- BEAUTIFUL!! I really like the looks of that knife. I’m partial to Buck and carry a Buck 110 daily but I really like your knife. I may have to buy one at some point.

I own too many Buck knives to count as well, but Buck has always been a maker of the big fixed blade Woodsman, the 110, and working man’s pocket knives with black micarta handles.

People collect Case knives, and use the hell out of Buck knives.

My yellow Folding Hunter is so damned pretty I’m using it this deer season.

Somebody needs to find a big stash of true Algerian briar and go to the factory that makes Classic Carbon RR knives with some classic Marxman Jumbos.

And say here, make these.

 

[anotherbob]

I might own a hundred good pocketknives of every brand and size and quality. I’m a cheap Scottish American and like a bargain in everything.

I just got in today a $20 Rough Ryder Classic Carbon (T-10 steel) pocketknife that is the best bargain I’ve ever in my life found in a pocket knife. These are extremely righteous products. This is a hundred dollar bragging rights pocket knife if there ever was one, for only twenty bucks.

It’s heavy, perfectly made, flawless, sharp, and has good walk and talk and eye appeal.

Specify Classic Carbon. The other Rough Ryder knives are great but these are the best factory knives can get. Unbelievable quality, not just for the money, but that such goods arr still factory made in modern times at all.

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that pipe looks unsmokable sir. Also looks like if you did some how get it to work the tongue bite would be legendary.

 

[alsatmem]

Those are some gorgeous knives.
I’m more utilitarian in my blades.
Always and only a Benchmade. Usually one of my assisted opening combo blades. Such as this Barrage.

 

[username]

They look like they would make great plug cutting knives.

 

[Buzz Saw]

I might own a hundred good pocketknives of every brand and size and quality. I’m a cheap Scottish American and like a bargain in everything.

I just got in today a $20 Rough Ryder Classic Carbon (T-10 steel) pocketknife that is the best bargain I’ve ever in my life found in a pocket knife. These are extremely righteous products. This is a hundred dollar bragging rights pocket knife if there ever was one, for only twenty bucks.

It’s heavy, perfectly made, flawless, sharp, and has good walk and talk and eye appeal.

Specify Classic Carbon. The other Rough Ryder knives are great but these are the best factory knives can get. Unbelievable quality, not just for the money, but that such goods arr still factory made in modern times at all.

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Briar Lee, I read your review of these Knives with great interest as i have been looking for a good "Sunday" knife for quite some time but didn't want to break the bank in the process. I carry cheap knives for work as they invariably get used for gasket scrapers, wire strippers, and related abusive tasks. I like a single blade lockback knife, unfortunately Smoky Mountain had them unavailable on backorder. Found one on Ebay for just a couple dollars more so got one. It was delivered today and I have to say everything you said is spot on. I'm not a collector or knife connoisseur but it does seem to me to be very well made, heavy and tight. Thanks. for letting us know about these.

 

[Briar Lee]

Briar Lee, I read your review of these Knives with great interest as i have been looking for a good "Sunday" knife for quite some time but didn't want to break the bank in the process. I carry cheap knives for work as they invariably get used for gasket scrapers, wire strippers, and related abusive tasks. I like a single blade lockback knife, unfortunately Smoky Mountain had them unavailable on backorder. Found one on Ebay for just a couple dollars more so got one. It was delivered today and I have to say everything you said is spot on. I'm not a collector or knife connoisseur but it does seem to me to be very well made, heavy and tight. Thanks. for letting us know about these.

Good Lord, today one came in that was made by Chinese elves in Shang Ra La. . This is a $17.50 Classic Carbon II Half Hawk, with black micarta scales. Words cannot express the pocket jewelry workmanship this thing. The micarta is translucent and there’s a linen weave pattern visible. There’s a fine line blue spacer between the bolster and the scales, which are thin and hand sculpted

This is true custom maker quality for less than going through the drive thru at the Burger King. How do they do this?

 

[captainsousie]

I'm sorry but no. As a knife collector, these may punch above their weight but they're not a replacement for true quality knives. Are they good, yes. Are they a match for a good folder costing 5x-10x as much, no. Let them be what they are. A good folder at a bargain price. I'd have one as a beater EDC if I didn't work in a place where it could get me fired and jailed but it cant replace my US made classics.

 

[Briar Lee]

My father was from a hillbilly aristocratic family where all the family photos were studio made and my ancestors look like they were posing for old time sepia movie star publicity shots.

One of my father’s cousins was so gorgeous I had impure thoughts about her when she was about fifty and I was ten. She not only threatened to ignite the atmosphere where she walked, she had a low kitten’s purr of a gravelly voice. Her husband was a naval aviator who matched her perfectly, a wealthy banker who traded for a new Lincoln Continental convertible with suicide doors each fall when the leaves turned.

Each Christmas these glamorous relatives would present me with a Case knife or a Cross pen which have all disappeared, lost trough the floorboards of my life.

The banker had walnut show cases in their mansion full of Case knives, all lit up on display.

That banker had no better Case knives than we can but today from China for $20.

My father was the happiest man I ever knew. Instead of a huge collection of Case knives, he’d buy a $2 Shrade from the Western Auto and when it couldn’t be sharpened very well, he’d buy another.

He owned a 300 acre farm and a dairy herd and had exactly one red tool box. His heavy socket set was a pair of Crecent wrenches.

I can’t count all my pocket knives and tool sets, pipes and watches.

I’d be better off with one of each, except for pipes. A pipesmoker needs a dozen, and all over that is vanity.

 

[Briar Lee]

I'm sorry but no. As a knife collector, these may punch above their weight but they're not a replacement for true quality knives. Are they good, yes. Are they a match for a good folder costing 5x-10x as much, no. Let them be what they are. A good folder at a bargain price. I'd have one as a beater EDC if I didn't work in a place where it could get me fired and jailed but it cant replace my US made classics.

Yes, of course. These are kind of like cubic zirconia.

But what Smokey Mountain Knife has done is use high carbon steel and plastic handles to exploit extremely highly skilled workers in some Chinese factory.

The workmanship is simply amazing.

These are the same El Cheapo knives we’ve bought at gas stations for twenty years, only made by master craftsmen.

 

[captainsousie]

Yes, of course. These are kind of like cubic zirconia.

But what Smokey Mountain Knife has done is use high carbon steel and plastic handles to exploit extremely highly skilled workers in some Chinese factory.

The workmanship is simply amazing.

These are the same El Cheapo knives we’ve bought at gas stations for twenty years, only made by master craftsmen.

This, I can get behind.

 

[Buzz Saw]

I'm sorry but no. As a knife collector, these may punch above their weight but they're not a replacement for true quality knives. Are they good, yes. Are they a match for a good folder costing 5x-10x as much, no. Let them be what they are. A good folder at a bargain price. I'd have one as a beater EDC if I didn't work in a place where it could get me fired and jailed but it cant replace my US made classics.

I do agree, they are what they are, I do think they are a good value for the money as they seem to be well made. My life will most likely not depend on this knife and for me it is a decent knife that didn't cost a lot. I'll carry it with pride and we'll see how it holds up. For now I like it a lot. Thanks again Lee.

 

[Briar Lee]

What amazes me is that so far as I know, slip joint traditional pocket knives are made the same way they have been for over a hundred years.

The only material cost savings on these is using yellow composition or black linen micarta scales instead of animal bones for scales.

The rough blades are no doubt stamped out on big presses.

The nickel silver bolsters are probably cast, but could be stamped.

The brass liners are stamped out of a sheet of brass, as are the scales from plastics.

There’s a big punch press punching out springs.

All the total materials are Chinese made and likely cost less than a dollar.

The heat treat on the T-10 blades is likely done in trays in big ovens. Only hard use can tell how well they heat treated the blades, but they come out of the box scary, wickedly sharp, which is a good omen.

Modern flipper knives are put together with screws. These are hand assembled with infinitely great skill.

To make this profitable the Chinese factory couldn’t charge more than five dollars for a twenty dollar knife.

What is just beyond belief is there aren’t any tool marks on these.

If you love knives, buy a hundred dollars worth.

This can’t last.

 

[username]

They look like they would make great plug cutting knives.

Just ordered one from flea bay. Should know of my initial assessment was correct.

 

[crusader]

Just bought one. @Briar Lee , you have an eye for quality on a beer budget. I bought a couple Lee's on your fascination with them and i admit, they are great quality. These knives look to be the same.

 

[jpberg]

I’m not buying prison camp Chinese shit as long as there is an American made alternative.
Edited to add, I posted this from my iPhone.
I know…..

 

[Briar Lee]

Today I got in the mail this $15 Diamond 10” sharpener and once again the Chinese have figured out a way to sell some article related to knives at such a low price I cannot see how it’s possible.

You need several of these, if you like knives. They are extremely fine grit and will cut the hardest D2 or other super steels like butter. Then after you get an edge a few strokes on a steel or a ceramic rod is all you’ll need. Just an amazingly good product.



My son has taken over my Rough Ryder Classic Carbon stockman and reports it’s among the best knifes I’ve ever given him, and he actually uses them.

I’ve ordered a Carbon Cotton Sampler, and these have cinnamon bone scales.

It should make a dandy patch knife for a muzzle loader, for only $22.

 

[Briar Lee]

I want to clarify the over the top gooderns are the Classic Carbon series from Rough Ryder.

A little browsing on knife forums reveals these previously were marketed as Colt knives.

I own several other stainless Rough Ryder knives and while those are good, cheap knives there simply is no comparison with the Classic Carbon and Classic Carbon II series.

The most obvious upgrade is heft. I’ve read the blades are twice as wide as the usual standards, a full 1/16”. The springs are beefed up to match the blades. While maybe not twice as heavy they are at least half again heavier than the modern pocketknives we’ve grown used to.

The workmanship is just obviously better. How much better is subjective, but I’ve never seen any factory knives exceed these at any price.

And the T-10 carbon steel used is 1095 “plus” that is used for those mall ninja swords. It will rust, but it takes a keen edge, and sharpens easily.

Get these while you can. No matter how cheep Chinese labor and materials are these are a quantum leap over the typical gas station knife, which is much cheaper to make anywhere.

 

[woodsroad]

Where are they made?

 

[Briar Lee]

Where are they made?

China.

I have too many really nice USA, German and Japanese made knives to count.

Life’s been good to me. The vast majority of my knife stash cost under $50.


The top knife is a Schatt and Morgan I bought for forty some dollars at least 15 years ago, and the bottom a stainless Case small trapper my son gave me three years ago.

I’ve never really used either one, but I carry them like pocket jewelry.

The Schatt and Morgan has 420 HC steel blades like the Case. It’s made to a little higher standards. And Queen went bankrupt a few years ago making them.

Like our pipes, every pattern we now use today was developed in Sheffield England and Solingen Germany before American Yankees made them in Knife Valley New York at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

After World War Two the city of Seiki Japan had it’s time in the sun.

Somewhere over in China is a westerner, likely a German, who has learned Chinese and taught a group of Chinese to exploit the cheapest truly skilled labor on earth to fashion a dollar’s worth of material into a twenty dollar piece of pocket jewelry.

If you can remember Neil Armstrong landing on the moon you’ll love a Rough Ryder Classic Carbon.

When you were a kid that $1.50 Schrade Barlow was an upgrade from the 99 cent Sabre. And you could not afford the $10 Case Barlow.

These are the finest knives for gray haired kids ever made.

 

[woodsroad]

Very nice knives, and I completely understand the attraction to well made utilitarian devices. These are very nice. But as to your puzzlement "the Chinese have figured out a way to sell some article related to knives at such a low price I cannot see how it’s possible", I'm pretty sure that you know the answer. It's why I now avoid, whenever possible, buying any Chinese products. I'm just glad that I bought those Chinese counterfeit DuPont lighters already!