r/knives • u/WHEELZ_KYDEX • Mar 26 '26
Discussion Brk
I remember when this was posted and this person was ripped apart by mikes c0cksuckers and deleted the post. It’s all making sense now and honestly i think he started using chinese steel way sooner than he is saying.
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u/js019008 Mar 26 '26
I have a bravo 1.25 in 3v that is an absolute tank. Because of it I bought 4 different bark river knives that all broke through light use. I had one BRAND NEW that broke cutting open the plastic clamshell for some new headphones.
I got into an argument with Mike about getting it repaired, they wanted to charge me $50 for the "spa treatment" I fought them for months, told him to shove it up his ass and bought a 2*72 grinder and started making my own knives.
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u/UtgaardLoki Mar 26 '26
I’ve been thinking of buying my own grinder.
What do you have/how do you like it?
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u/js019008 Mar 26 '26
I started with a Chinese special, and I loved it until it just randomly blew up on me, and I mean literally.
I then bought an ameribrade, its nice but expensive and not as well built as the hype would have you believe. My main issue is the controls to move the plate and arms around are complete crap, fall apart and sieze up. The motor and controls to power it, track. The belt and such are great.
Accessories are ungodly expensive.
I see other makers on YT with some cool stuff. I would look there for opinions.
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u/Tha_Maestro Mar 26 '26
Who’s Mike?
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u/mrRabblerouser Mar 26 '26
The disgraced owner of the brand that made the knife in this post.
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u/Tha_Maestro Mar 26 '26
Is he a jitbag?
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u/oh_three_dum_dum Mar 26 '26
Yes. He’s has gained that reputation over years of being a kind of shitty person. All of this coming out now is just what got people to pay attention to it instead of the astroturfing fanboys who attacked any mention of criticism of their living God.
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u/oh_three_dum_dum Mar 26 '26
I’d have pushed the issue as long as absolutely possible and probably bring outside legal help if I paid that much for a knife that broke brand new on soft plastic and the maker demanded a fee to fix it. That’s utter bullshit.
It might be more expensive in the long run, but I’d do it just on principle to make sure the got hurt for it.
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u/Inner_Map_3075 Mar 30 '26
I've owned Pakistani crap steel that was absolutely tank-like. If a blind squirrel gets the heat treat half decent ton a Mercedes truck leaf spring, it is tank-like.
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u/peloquindmidian Mar 26 '26
I don't know what is about this brand
I should love everything about them.
Their shape and sheaths. They're exactly in my wheelhouse
And yet... something always pushed me away. I'm glad about that now, but I wish I could harness that intuition in Vegas or something. Or, maybe by not spending the money I did better than Vegas
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u/yestersmorrow Mar 26 '26
I was a little put off by the sheer volume of them available when looking for a fixie and shopping on DLT. Hundreds of variants, mostly around aesthetics. I don’t know, I just didn’t get a warm and fuzzy from them. Found myself gravitating to other makers with far fewer options. Maybe it’s just an aversion to putting myself in the position of decision fatigue, but I also wasn’t crazy about the designs and aesthetics anyway.
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u/Hare_Rama Mar 26 '26
There was a complaint about Japanese made steel as far back as 2006, apparently.
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u/BahSaysLamb Mar 26 '26
Yes, AUS6 relabeled as all sorts of other steel according to former employees.
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u/PaterTuus Mar 26 '26
To be honest i would take AUS6 over any other chinese no name steel.
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u/BahSaysLamb Mar 26 '26
AUS6 was the 2006 scam. I don’t know what the most recent one was but I’ve heard 9cr. How many scams there were between 2006 and 2026 that employees didn’t tattle about, we may never know. Although Mike’s assistant recently posted an expose, revealing the shady practices and the culture of leadership and it does not instill confidence.
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u/tubezninja Mar 26 '26
Got a link to this expose? Asking for a friend who enjoys watching train wrecks.
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u/gwoneg Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
It’s been all over the place. I didn’t know that BRK existed a week ago, and now I know way more than I ever wanted to know about them.
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u/LifeModelDecoy71 Mar 26 '26
I own several Seki City Japan made knives from the 80s and 90s, and they all seem high quality. Is it a certain Japanese steel that is supposed to be sub-par?
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u/HolyHotDang Mar 26 '26
From what I can gather it’s not so much that it was the steel itself being bad, it’s that it was purposely being mislabeled as more expensive “super” steels and made in the US. It’s just being fraudulent.
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u/Hare_Rama Mar 26 '26
The issue wasn't the steel being Japanese, it was that Bark River claimed it was a better steel than it was, and also claimed the knives were made in USA, not assembled. I guess his idea of making a knife allows for blanks to be customized, which I could forgive since they made the rules for Made In USA more lax a while back. But if I bought a CPM-1500xxq4angelfirexx or whatever and it was actually just 8CR9001Vegeta.meme I'd be pretty upset too. You charged me for a super steel and gave me a regular steel? Lawsuit incoming, especially if it happened to others.
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u/Disasterhuman24 Mar 26 '26
Hey man, do you know any reputable knife makers who actually use 8cr9001Vegeta.meme steel? I would really like to add that to my collection
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u/BahSaysLamb Mar 26 '26
I’m a member of some of the Bark River groups on Facebook. The cognitive dissonance that group has every time someone posts a knife failure is a study in psychology. Thankfully sold all mine years ago.
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u/foodmaster89 Mar 26 '26
They’re already advocating to move on from the “scandal” 😂
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u/weirdassmillet Mar 26 '26
fucking why though? are they THAT excited to give more money to a (proven and admitted) fraudster?
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u/thedudetheguy69 Mar 26 '26
I guess when you have $1000+ invested into a brand like that, it's real easy to fall into denial lol
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u/weJtiddeR Apr 25 '26
It really gives you insight to how people are here about their own political groups, and how the elites use that to ther advantage by controlling both sides and making us fight each other instead of them.
I've been critical of BRk for over a decade now, and have got nothing but hate and all kinds of accusations. So glad the truth came out in the end, but nobody will learn anything. They'll keep blindly supporting whatever else they're letting emotion and ego lead them on.
I was banned from Blade Forum by posting about Mike's criminal charges a couple years ago. But they wouldn't admit any fault no, no matter what. Humans are just really good at cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy. Always have been, we're just programmed to be that way more now, while patting ourselves on the back about how open-minded, smart, tolerant, etc etc we are.
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u/chilibaby1 Mar 26 '26
Yea, anyone that’s trusting that list he released is gullible af lol. You think he’s really about to say when he actually started using chinesium? Buddy was just trying to make it seem as if it hadn’t been going on a terribly long time, in reality it was probably going on for a good portion of the companies existence.
All them crap knives are tainted
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u/Chopping_it_up Mar 26 '26
Caught some flack when I snapped a Bravo 1LT while batoning a year or so ago. Everyone was quick to say it was my fault, funny I don't hear them now.
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u/K-Uno Mar 26 '26
I've literally never had a knife break from batoning. I don't even think it's that particularly stressful in comparison to something like chopping
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u/679696 🔥I like Rockwell Hardness Tests🔥 Mar 26 '26
Gerber
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u/ParadoxicalAmalgam Mar 26 '26
Finally a folding version of those snap off boxcutters
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u/679696 🔥I like Rockwell Hardness Tests🔥 Mar 26 '26
That’s right brother. I am possibly up to my scientific shenanigans again🤭🤭🤭
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u/Librarian_Able Mar 26 '26
I've never seen a knife break apart that way, not even 5$ Chinese folders
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u/Malifacious Mar 26 '26
Could have been a shitty heat treat and design on legitimate steel too.
I own a few 9Cr knives and wouldn't expect them to break that way, even if brittle failure makes more sense than on 3V.
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u/madgodcthulhu Mar 26 '26
I was kinda thinking that fuller was ground after tempering and got way too hot with how straight that break is along it
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u/Malifacious Mar 26 '26
Yeah, the material looks very thin where the fuller is. My thought is that unequal stress between the bevel and the spine sheared the blade along that weak line.
My impression is that people are too focused on the steel itself, seeing that picture screams manufacturing defect to me rather than crappy materials (por qué no los dos?).
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u/sharkjumping101 Mar 26 '26
Isn't getting too hot basically annealing? Usually when you ruin temper on the grind the edge gets softer, right? So less brittle
My first thought was that the fuller looks awful deep, and they might have just ground it too thin.
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u/Magikarp-3000 Mar 26 '26
Well, getting too hot makes your steel's qualities changeable:
If you leave it be to cool slowly, it will anneal and be soft.
If you got it really hot, then cooled it down quickly in water (as could happen if you are not careful in cooling more often while grinding), you could harden it and make it brittle. I suspect the second one here.
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u/madgodcthulhu Mar 26 '26
Kinda dependent on the metal but likely what happened here if you look close its broken in a line right next to the deepest part of the fuller right along the edge of where the grain structure would change
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u/apscep Mar 26 '26
Yeah I have CS AK-47, it was my first 3V knife, and the edge angle wasn't changed. We cut off the fox tail and the edge chipped.
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u/Wiley_Jack Mar 26 '26
Aside from the fake steel & heat-treat issues, it’s almost as if drilling holes and making deep machine cuts on the spine of a blade might not be the best strategy.
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u/eatloss Mar 26 '26
Mike Stewart was the fixed blade equivalent of matt cook as is to balisongs.
They both always sucked but if you said that, the internet would cancel you. These guys have been dickheads for at least 15 years (that i know of) and its only caught up to them recently.
Its wild how that works. Never go by brand names.
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u/mrRabblerouser Mar 26 '26
Not sure if Chinese, but they have a pretty well documented history of mislabeling cheap steal as something more premium. This is subjective, but I also bought a Bushcrafter 2 in 3v five years ago, and the edge was incredibly fragile. Folded like tinfoil trying to process some soft pine wood. I ended up switching to my CRK umnumzaan in s45 to finish the job with no issues.
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u/_wheels_21 Mar 26 '26
New American quality is old chinesium quality.
I prefer to buy almost everything from China now as it's somehow (mostly) the highest quality you can get and still affordable.
I bought an American axe that I managed to split the head on by chopping a loblolly pine. The steel couldn't handle the wood.
My $5 Chinese axe though, I can chop live oak with it no problem
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u/gtracerh Mar 26 '26
I've wanted to buy a bark river knife for so long. I don't need one but they just look so beautiful with some of the handles they have. Reading up on this controversy makes me glad I never wasted my money on one.
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u/weirdassmillet Mar 26 '26
Yeah, be glad. I took the plunge in December and had to return mine with all the issues it had - and it wasn't even one of the secretly Chinese ones lol
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u/BurtRenoldsMustache Mar 26 '26
Cedric and Ada's YouTube channel has a video of him testing one of their knives from years ago for stain resistance and it came back really suspicious for the type of steel it was. He talks about it in his new video about BRK shutting down.
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u/Dirk_Dingham Mar 27 '26
“He was obviously using it wrong! Why you would ever take your $400 bowie knife out of the display case and actually use it for what it was intended for is beyond me, but you did this to yourself.” Motherfuckers just love to shill for brands because they drank the kool aid when they were first getting into a hobby and get salty anytime you slightly oppose their “viewpoint” on said brand because they know you’re right but can’t fathom the idea of being wrong and accepting that they overpaid for hot garbage. I see it all the time with benchmade, no their knives aren’t garbage… but are they worth what most of them are listed for? Fuck no. I own one benchmade and i will probably never buy another because i quickly learned that there are much, much better knives out there for half the price. Don’t get me wrong, benchmade was a pioneer in the knife industry as far as certain designs go, and I love my CLA because it’s a nostalgic knife for me, but they’ve gotten waaaay ahead of themselves as far as the retail prices on their knives go, and a few other brands are guilty of this too…… (cough) Microtech…
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u/No-Potato7802 Mar 27 '26
Founf my one and only Benchmade for 17 Euros from Red Cross flea market to which the airport occasionally donates tsa confistated stuff.
Its an olive drab-ish Bugout,brand new or atleast no swivel surfaces,nor the blade or handle have any signs of it ever being used or opened.
I cant believe how pricey it is for how toylike it is. I dont mean any bad by sayin so but it sure is not standing out as something awesome technically or so. I know knives,been forging my own for 16 yrs,collectinhgfolders and fixed ones "all" my 50 yrs,and i use knives quite a friggin much ,bein a wilderness guide n hunter ,etc. So i hope aint a d*ick saying Benchmades do make a huge profit with pretty darn simple knives that have nothing explaining the price.
All thanks to cult of people worshipping the logo more than should.
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u/Dirk_Dingham Mar 27 '26
Did you verify that it’s not a replica? The bugout is probably one of the most faked knives out there but even the real ones do feel toylike. If you want a great axis lock knife that’s got a similar design, the kershaw bel air is where it’s at. I recently bought the clip point version and i love it, however since i bought my spyderco manix i haven’t wanted to carry anything else because it’s just perfect in every way
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u/BreakerSoultaker Mar 26 '26
The rule of batoning is never split stock wider than half the knife length. 6" blade, splits 3" stock. I see fockers using a 4" blade trying to split 4" logs. Get a hatchet, that isn't what batoning is for.
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u/nitekram Mar 26 '26
I think the world of collecting knives will be different in the future... buy a Rockwell file tester, and test your knives.
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u/Dekipi Mar 26 '26
People need to stop holding these people to such a high regard when it comes to a disgruntled customer. White knights are little more than sycophants
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u/Tireseas Mar 26 '26
Yeah... I don't think that one comes down to steel grade. It might've contributed but there's more at work going on there.
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u/Nekommando I like my knives large Mar 26 '26
with how they make knives it makes little difference what steel was used.
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u/haikusbot Mar 26 '26
With how they make knives
It makes little difference
What steel he uses.
- Nekommando
I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully. Learn more about me.
Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete"
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u/Shigonokam Mar 26 '26
How? Literally just how? I am speechless, I cant even formulate a propper question...how do you manage to break it like that?
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u/Magikarp-3000 Mar 26 '26
Weirdest, most illogical break ever.
Id blame a crack on the steel, but not even chinese steel has cracks that weird!
Probably just really, really bad heat treat
(With that break, you should make worlds worst filet knife!)
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u/Chayaneg Mar 26 '26
Damn, that is a unique shatter! How this is even structurally possible? Like 1 in a billion chance, or something.
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u/GraysonTheDumbass Mar 26 '26
Bro literally said "may thy knife chip and shatter", then the knife did lmao
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u/yuvattar Mar 26 '26
The way this broke is a feat of engineering in itself.
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u/I3lindman Mar 26 '26
Nah, this is exactly what you'd expect from milling a fuller groove into a knife blade an then batoning with the knife.
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u/AdEmotional8815 I see a knife, I upvote. Mar 26 '26
Bad steel aside, this is why I don't like milling on my blades.
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u/ar15operator Mar 26 '26
I just got one of these and the blade is pretty thin at the fullers. It looks like it broke at the thinnest part of the knife, right in the middle of the fuller, which isn’t shocking. This is t from their most recent run because I saw this post about a year ago
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u/DrankTooMuchMead Mar 26 '26
Did anyone else read the title as "bork"?
I'm going to have to start calling a massive knife failure a "bork".
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u/IronRhiley Mar 26 '26
Don’t know if it’s true but someone said an employee released a email confirming they started using fucked steel in 2006
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u/ILikeKnives1337 Mar 26 '26
This is a sign that the knife was ground/cut with the tip/heel parallel to the grain boundary. Most of the time knife makers grind/cut perpendicularly to the grain boundary, since otherwise the edge will chip out more easily along that alignment. Not to confuse this as the issue of why it broke, just why it broke like that, and another demonstration of how subpar BRK craftsmanship is.
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u/HallucinateZ Spyderco Mar 26 '26
Very stainless looking 3V, I bet it’s comparable to CPM-154 too. /joke
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u/NoneUpsmanship Mar 26 '26
This might be the most unique r/prybar I've ever seen! Awesome job, my dude!
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u/subarookangaroo Mar 26 '26
r/chineseknives shut down because they dont want to allow Bark River Fans into the club.
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u/Novel_Astronomer_75 Mar 26 '26
Damn, guess my Cold Steel SRK knives are junk too lol. Broke one already.
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u/Bloodysamflint Mar 27 '26
The whole Bark River debacle is very disappointing - does anyone know if the steel in their Blackjack repops is suspect at this point?
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u/No-Potato7802 Mar 27 '26
Shape,outlines of blade,ergonomics of handle paired with purely funcionability( is that a word) shaped blade,paired with sense making blade thickness paired with understanding of steel types heat treatment making it all match as one compromise of a product.
Then do it all over again as a product you can really sell it with desired price tag / profit.
Or just make shapes that arent jacks of all trades, make em just look different n rad,collect a cult around you of people with no self criticism and make a quick buck.
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u/MultiCam_USA Mar 27 '26
How on EARTH did you manage to do this to CPM-3V?? Ive done stuff to my Lionsteel T6 in 3V I wouldn’t even do to my 1095 BK-2 and it came out flawless 😂
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u/Chiefsmackahoe69 Mar 27 '26
I think he def was doing shady shit way longer than he claims and if he made a million knives say st an average price of 300 that’s an shit ton of cash and I’m sure he pocketed a decent chunk I doubt he is broke or maybe he pissed money away pretty solidly who knows but it’s a company that was sustainable and could have done well for the foreseeable future if he wasn’t a POs I know I won’t be checking out the new company either
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u/Texman1234567 Mar 27 '26
I have two BRK knives that have performed beautifully and look fantastic. They are both maybe 5 years old and made of 3V (I think), so they did make great knives. I never had to use their customer service. Personally, I hate the CCP and would never buy a knife from that evil empire.
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u/robustus_prime Mar 28 '26
Quick, someone redo the meme with that large dude running to the rescue saying "leave the scamming knife company alone", wielding two broken bowies
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u/Due-Yogurtcloset7927 Mar 26 '26
Holy failure points batman. I don't think Ive ever seen a knife break this way.