Buyer Beware.

[Dragon breath]

Take a look at Wish.com. Almost Everything there is Counterfeit. That “Zeiss” scope is about $100. You can find “Trijicon rmr’s” on there for $40. The same for high end name brand knives. I go there not to buy things (I have never bought anything from them), but to learn how to spot fakes.

Example. My buddy bought a Zero Tolerance 0562 knife off eBay used. When I picked it up, I was 90% sure it was fake. It was too stiff and too heavy. A quick look at Wish, and look right there. The ZT knife on Wish had the exact same serial number as his knife.

 

[DustyGmt]

Not all the Chinese stuff is junk. I have a couple of Benchmade knives, and a couple of their Chinese "copies". Side by side, you cant really tell them apart, unless you know exactly what youre looking for, and even then, its still hard to tell. All came in the exact same boxes, with the exact same paperwork.

Ive often wondered if what we think we are buying as "American Made", isnt, and that companies really arent just subbing things out and passing them off as made here.

I've handled a genuine Benchmade 42 and one of the better Chinese knockoff 42's side by side and I could immediate tell that the Chinese knockoff was of much lower quality. It was made of inferior components and it fell apart and was unusable inside of a month of use.

But, Chinese stuff isn't all junk, if you actually get what you pay for literally and you aren't buying a knockoff. They make what we ask them to make at the desired quality and spec.

I know of some decent knives to come from China, some really good knives come from Japan and some of the very best of the best from Taiwan. They are very skilled manufacturers and if you seek quality, they certainly have it.

 

[Mohican1]

I got a consignment in the other day that I thought was a little strange. It was a H&R Handi-rifle with a new 6-24X50 Zeiss Conquest. I didn't pay much attention to it until one of my brain cells kicked in. What is a $1000+ scope doing on a $300 rifle? While checking the price of said scope I ran across an article about counterfeit Zeiss coming out of China. I knew about Counterfeit Leupolds but not Zeiss. Meanwhile the gun sold on GunBroker. I contacted the buyer, told him what we had and cancelled the sale. So if you run across a Zeiss on Ebay for $400 you might want to scroll on by.

I bought a model 700 at a flea market 2yrs ago with one on it. Got burned too...

 

[Steve S.]

Remembering recent history, the Japanese manufacturing in it’s infancy began by making what was considered “junk” in this Country; “Made in Japan” was synonymous with cheap quality and low cost. But history also tells us that the Japanese learned and they learned well - today, Japanese manufacturing is now synonymous with quality (in our hobby - Miroku as an example) - the Japanese auto industry actually improved the quality of the US auto industry through head-to-head competition - the Japanese kept the US auto industry “honest”. The Chinese seem to be at a similar stage as the Japanese several decades ago - they will learn and they will learn well - the US will need to take note that another sleeping giant is about to wake, I think that the Chinese are already filled with great resolve and they will try to clean our clock - I think that they have a better than even odds chance to be successful. The US is way too occupied with making everyone “equal” - there is no such thing as everyone equal, never will be - we will fall way behind chasing some feel-good pipe dream when we had a the greatest advantage all along - very, very sad.

 

[Speedo66]

Some blame can go to the US Commerce Dept. Their rules OK having parts manufactured out of country, but if the product is assembled here from those foreign parts, they allow it to be labeled "made in USA".

If you think counterfeit knives or optics are a problem, imagine commercial jet engine parts. Each part is supposed to have a good bit of paper trail accompanying them, but it's sometimes just made up.

 

[Bush Pilot]

The Chinese are making counterfeit goods? Color me shocked! I collect and deal in high end coins for a hobby, some of the stuff coming from China is so good that even experts have a hard time distinguishing them from the real thing.

 

[kcofohio]

Yup, beware of Amazon. They were a significant source of the phony leupolds and I can't count how many people I've heard that got a knockoff knife from amazon. The Chinese are quite clever and industrious sob's, one small 2-3 man operation can impact thousands of people....

Chinese companies even fool their own. A company over in China placed 83 tons of supposed gold (value $4.2 bil.) as collateral for bank loans. Business didn't go well, banks found out the "gold" was copper with a thin layer of gold gilded over it. In Wuhan of all places.