You have some manufacturers that try to expand market and sell items for which they are not professionals in production quality. In this case, gun manufacturers, such as Smith and Wesson and Remington, like to play the knife market, which could be a great thing. Except for one problem: you rarely encounter a manufacturer that bothers to defer to a company that understands the knife market, and what people are actually after. Frequently, they jump into the market, without a clue how different the standards are. Thus begins the topic of conversation.
It is one of those issues of whether you can expect a company to sell good quality knives, machetes, and tomahawks, without tarnishing their reputation. The issue is their firearms tend to be the point from which they coast to sell their knives. What happens is one of two things. Either their firearms are comparable to their knives, and both sell well. Otherwise, the knives are such low quality, everyone foregoes them for the more reputable brands. Smith and Wesson, when Skallagrim, an independent youtuber who regularly reviews knives calls out hit and miss production quality, it is time to step up .
Honestly, you can trust tool manufacturers, like Estwing, which make good products for the price, more than these wannabe knife companies. My Tomahawk cost $30 dollars from Rural King, and, believe me, they are built like actual tools, not cheap toys.
I will review the Estwing tomahawk, but for interest sake, it will be more worth it to do a review comparing it to a CRKT traditional tomahawk, to be a much more balanced analysis of performance level. Needless to say, however, it is bleak when production quality standards for an S & W revolver are not the same as with their knives.
Are there any good examples of gun manufacturers producing good knives? Surprisingly, there is. Ruger is a good example of this trend. Ruger has developed a line up of knives for which are sold and marketed under Ruger, but are manufactured by CRKT. That is not a minor thing; that is huge. A gun company expanding retail by trusting a tried and tested knife manufacturer to manufacture their knives for them. That is what is called deference: a rare quality to find in this day and age. If you do not know enough about service or product, ask someone more experienced to teach you how to make it. Another major knife making company in the firearms business is Browning. The Browning series has actually done well for itself in diversifying their portfolio of knives they market. I myself own the Black Label No Boundaries Drop Point that has served me for the better part of two to three years without complaint from me. The diversity in knife types and applications has put it, in this reviewers mind at least, close to Schrade and Kershaw level in terms of quality.
The Black Label is commonly called a tactical series, which is another major complaint about both standard knife and gun/knife manufacturers. Quit marketing the deadliness of your products. The minute you do so, and if we should, heaven forbid, defend ourselves from a would be assailant, the last thing we want to hear in court is that we were gunning for a guy because of an edc knife in our lives. The person who defends themselves is wanting to go home to their friends and family, not walk into a fight that they cannot get out of. Even gun manufacturers with their firearms do this, and it does not do the gun owners, of which I am one, but hate the tacticool guns, any favors. So quite making the purchasers of your products look like blood thirsty lunatics by badly marketing your products as tools of wannabe Rambo's and Wick's.
This rant could go on forever, but here is the rub. Gun manufacturers need to know their limits in manufacturing and knowledge of a product market, and defer to knife companies when they are in over their head. The kind of knife manufacturers, who double as gun manufacturers, you want to steer clear of are the tacticool mall ninja commando types. Some knives are good to keep at home, but tactical knives, because of legal idiots who do not grasp that it is a marketing term, not a combat efficacy term, will jump at the first chance of you carrying said knife. My edc knife is the RJ1 model speed safe from Kershaw, a typical bladed assisted opening design, but gets marketed as a tactical knife. Unfortunately, the market is booming in tactical knives because of marketing such as this, so such terms are not going away. This carries over into the main topic this way. Smith and Wesson thinks that people care more about tacticool budget knives than quality traditional knives. I am the reverse. A knife is a knife, and should be judged by design, handling, price value, etc., do not ride on marketing, do not ride on your firearms manufacturing quality, and do not ride on pricing.