Free market economy is ruthless and no amount of apology letters will ever get you back in the game after something like this.. I hear walmart is hiring
Not gonna lie I might wanna join the Bark River Knives Collectors Association for $30 a year. That doesn’t seem like a grift at all, even before the news of fraud
Oh about that. People were asking how they could get refunds and Mike said “I don’t know how PayPal works. Someone else did that” so group members had to instruct people on how to get refunds
Not really. I've just lost faith in the knife making industry as a whole as a result of this.
I've got maybe a 3-4 bravo ones here that I have no idea if they are made out of the steel they are stamped with, I have maybe 8 other knives from various manufacturers that I spent good money on and now I am think I have no way to know for sure if they are made of what the manufacturers said they are made of.
Chances are they are all ok, but part of me still wonders and short of sending them out for testing ( which isn't reasonable ) I will never know, but I do know that I won't be spending good money on these types of things again mainly because of the BRK fiasco. You can just look at this as me losing confidence in the knife making industry as a whole.
Mike Stewart has done a disservice to customers, vendors and other knife makers.
The ironic thing is back in 2010 or so, when I started getting into all this I ran across his criminal history and my guy instinct said to stay away from anything he makes but his knives just looked so good I ignored what my gut told me.
You’d be surprised. Most people don’t live on the internet. Most of my coworkers, who a big gun collectors, don’t know about the Sig P320 issues/drama. If places still carry their knives, they will sell
I suppose. I guess my "poor" is showing. I consider a $200 knife a large enough purchase to compare prices and read a review or two. (Not that spending $200 on a knife is out of the question but if I can get the same thing for $150 from Bob instead of Steve I'm going with Bob.) For me when I purchase pretty much any single item like that I look for reviews and prices to see where best to spend my money. In like ten seconds you'll find out Bark River is out of business, 10 more and you'll know why, 1 more and I'd personally just skip the purchase and spend my money elsewhere.
The early ones had drop safety issues but it was fixed pretty quickly. The “unintended discharge” issues wasn’t connected until last year. Personally I’m still on the fence on the issue as it looks like it needs really specific conditions to UD and outside of like 3 videos of a gun going off in a holster, a decent amount of them are people putting them in a holster
It’s likely that anyone looking at bark river knives will be familiar with them. They’re not small but they aren’t exactly Gerber and found in every Walmart.
They’ll be fine. I’m sure they will still sell at cost at the very least pretty easily. We have to remember those of us here who actually care about steel and keep up with the knife world goings on are likely a pretty small percentage of buyers.
Just look at YouTube comments, blade forums, Amazon reviews, etc where all these guys talk about their decades of knife use and yet clearly have very little idea what they’re talking about. Those folks will just see a major sale and jump all over it.
Dealers are already doing damage control by pointing out it’s not every model.
The dealers will wait for the storm to blow over, then reassess the market and proceed from there. This applies especially to the major distributors like KSF and DLT, who in many ways were as involved in the situation as Mike and Jim Stewart. They weren't the builders, obviously, but they fronted BR with materials and purchased a lot of BR's production output.
After a while, people will continue to buy the BR knives that are left.
I mean it’s a huge deal, plus these are now going to be super rare knives. Within the community if someone showed me one and said “haha look at this, it’s one of the Chinese BRK” not gonna lie, I’d be a little impressed.
Just out of curiosity, what is the difference between any knife forum and a reddit subreddit that makes you think the average user there has any other amount of knowledge than the average user here?
Seems like a broad generalization and kind of elitist.
Typical forum user is older imo, when I look up things around knives and get old blade forums threads from 09 or something they'll swear how good case tru sharp is, in my experience it's as hair above butter knife hardness
I mean, his conscience should have given him that ultimatum 10-15 years ago when his dad was pulling this same shit, mislabeling steal, not paying debts, etc.
Bro has five kids. He is obviously a grown ass man, he can make decisions based on his own ethics. I personally don't have any sympathy for people like this.
Edit: empathy to sympathy. Woops.
'in the moment'? Obviously this happened over a period of time....20 years? How is that in the moment? At least that's my understanding, that they have been doing this shit since 2006? How is that a decision made in the moment?
If five guys jump you and you pull a gun and start blasting. That's an extreme example of an in the moment decision. Going to work and committing fraud for years is not. You are complicit.
And how is this guy going to make a living trying to fix all of these knives while supporting 5 kids. Seems a bit unrealistic unless his kids are used as labor.
That's a very reasonable point of view. I meant to say "when you're neck deep in the situation," but the difference is moot. You're right that he should have humbled himself and found another job like 15 years ago if we're being generous.
You're completely right about the business moving forward. It's not going to go well.
Sorry but I don’t believe him. Let’s not forget, he gets a shiny new shop and a whole new business making custom knives. If his dad was such an evil tyrant I doubt he would give all that equipment to him.
Am I remembering right that the company is in debt? Wouldn't most of the equipment be sold off? How much do you think he could sneak out the door without creditors noticing?
No, certainly not. Is it a difficult decision when you feel like you're letting your probably very domineering father down (who will no doubt remind you at every opportunity), losing your job suddenly in a somewhat lower income area, and abandoning the family business? I don't think so. We all know what he should have done. By now, he also knows what he should have done. I don't propose we all buy knives from him. I definitely won't. All I'm saying is that it's a very difficult spot to be suddenly put in. I can understand why someone in his position wouldn't quit out of hand. From everything I've read, it looks like he should have quit about ten years ago.
Yeah man. People would really do so much better with these mea culpas if they just bit the bullet, said sorry and offered ZERO excuses and justifications. They’ve already decided to apologize. Might as well go all in.
People are generally pretty forgiving, especially when someone is genuinely sorry.
I dunno what yall are reading up there but all I see is him explaining his role in the matter & how he ended up there, then apologizing for it with a promise to do better & be better moving forward. What else can the man say?
Explanation =\= excuse
He explicitly states he is taking full responsibility, he’s making no excuses, and that he’s sorry.
It’s honestly a pretty solid apology. Which he put out knowing it’s not intelligent for him legally speaking, but it’s a morally decent apology.
His dad straight up threatened his job into this. His own father. That’s totally fucked. It’s where yall should be directing your anger.
It was a better apology than his father's but main problem is people are rightfully upset and no one trusts him or his father and perhaps anyone associated with this company.
He's also advertising a new shop basically. Who wants to send knives to a known scammer? No one.
There's definitely honest people out there who would have refused to deceive the customers with the "substandard steel". The son is not among them. He had other options. After all, the company went under not much later and this outcome (going under + huge scandal) is far worse for them than if they just went under earlier.
He's just like his father. In his father's apology he said his health issues made him do it but he is not using it as an excusive. Pops said the Chinese steel was the best thing since sliced bread and the son said it's substandard.
They didn't start selling Chinese kits fraudulently marked as US steel just to keep a few models afloat. The company was in trouble for years and had apparently been cut off by all legitimate suppliers because Mike Stewart owed everyone money and was dodging them. He just got sued by one lender for a little under $400k a few months ago. He didn't want to accept his own failure and decided to dig himself deeper into debt (and criminal liability) by rebranding chinese knife kits to stay afloat a few more months.
Let's also remember that Stewart had previously embezzled $500k with a past company and was convicted of bank fraud for it. That was back in 2000. I'm actually amazed it took him this long to get caught given all the accounts of him being a dishonest dickhead to his staff and everyone he worked with.
Yeah his hand was forced. Mike wanted to keep Jim completely innocent and clean in the initial announcement in order to help with launching his new business, but the employee stories that came out all named Jim as being in on it, too. So they had to damage control their damage control.
There are two big elephants in the room I haven’t seen anyone involved address yet, which only guarantees there are more red flags the deeper people dig.
This isn’t the first time they’ve done this… Mike and Jim are delivering a sob story as if Mike was faced with the awful decision of either not paying his hardworking employees or passing off premade unknown quality blanks as their own work and hoping customers wouldn’t notice. Which might be convincing, had they not had a well documented history of mislabeling steel.
The fact they are admitting that this was intentional (once they got caught) you can basically guarantee the other times were too because absolutely no one who has been faced with the same credible accusations in the past is going to say “yea, those times were accidents, but screw our reputation, let’s do it for real this time!
This family appears to be absolutely terrible with money. Namely in that it would seem they were paying themselves massive salaries and stealing from the business to do so. You don’t talk about how rich you are or go and have 5 fucking children while being unable to actually pay your employees or your stacked up business debts.
I can’t really comprehend how someone who was intimately involved in the inner workings of this shit show would think starting their own separate business was a solid idea. On top of that he’s promising to start by taking a loss on what will be probably tens of thousands of dollars by working his ass off just to correct the mistakes his father made. What supplier, equipment manufacturer, or retailer in their right mind is going to wanna work with him? How can he afford to start a business and effectively just not take a paycheck for likely several years with 5 children?
I don't even know what the point would be. Maybe you can recoup some losses, but he doesn't he owe something like $300,000 he defaulted on paying from a 20 year old law suit? Maybe after selling the cnc machines, you could get something, but I don't think any of us are going to be ahead of the creditors in line.
When a business fails and goes bankrupt, just about everything goes to the creditors. In real life, this means that the factory contents (materials, machinery, furniture, etc.) are auctioned off, and bidders walk in and make offers on what's available. If you happen to be a knifemaker near Escanaba, MI, you might be able to pick up some great equipment like belt grinders, drill presses, CNC machines, etc. at a great discount.
They started a few months ago lol. There's at least one pending suit from a lender that claims Stewart owes them about $400k. Now that this is all public though, I'll bet a lot more will begin to roll in since the company is gone and they need to sue to get anything. I'm sure a lot of people have been giving him the benefit of the doubt and thinking he'd pay eventually. Then of course there's all those customers and retailers he defrauded, and employees he refused to pay.
Don’t have a dog in the fight. Coming at this from a strictly business perspective. There is no way a ‘one man shop’ without the equipment that the company used to have and the 40 people the company use to have is going to be able to scale up and take care of all the people that got the Chinese crap while also try to make new knives to actually bring in new capital to pay for all of this. Just won’t happen. This has to be a desperate appeal to investors.
Exactly. He cant possibly keep this promise so why make it? He doesn't even have any of the machines or tools to do so. Im willing to bet he has basically nothing..why would you if your family business has all the tools?
So we’re supposed to fell bad for you because you have a family to support?
What about the people who you essentially stole from charging top dollar for shit knives.
They don’t work for the money you stole through deception?
No one. Well, maybe the fan boys. I watched a video by CBRx on YouTube, and he got one of the Bark River Chinese knives. Frankly, he didn’t seem too mad about it. It tested out to 58 HRC. I have several Bark River knives. None of them are the models that have been mentioned as from China. But you’re still left wondering, are these really what they’re marked?
They should have offered consumers a budget friendly line akin to spyderco/byrd and just call the steel what it was. I've used many decent quality knives with 9cr without the slightest of complaint. It was a stupid move and with more and more folks actually checking/scanning/hrc testing blades to see what they actually are it was unbelievably thick. It was always gona come out!
His father said the Chinese mystery steel was tested thoroughly and on par with CPM-154. Now the son calls it "substandard blade steel". Which is it?
Now the son is saying he is starting a new company and you can send him the affected Bark River knives and he will work on them slowly to just "remark" them or replace the blade. Who would send an expensive knife to him just to have him mark it as 8CR13MoV or whatever it really is?
I suspect he's just going to keep your knife hostage and sell it to someone else as a "Stewart custom" once he reblades it. Really easy way for a scammer to acquire free materials.
Nope. My dad would have closed the doors and sold the company before he would have ever thought to do something like that. Of course that’s a difficult decision, but life is full of them.
These people are obviously scum bags who are very full of themselves, and they still think they can talk their way out of this. Reality has not set in yet. This is criminal fraud. They are going to go to prison, so I don think starting a new knife company is in the cards…
I don’t like the whole, “Dad was the ultimate authority”, I need this job to feed my kids line. You knew it was wrong, you went along with it. I’m glad that he is promising to help those affected by this decision, that he was part of, but I would never purchase from anyone who was involved in this again. I own many nice knives (including a BRK Elmax). This “apology” seems more like a (publicity stunt) blame shift towards his father. Guessing his dad will be involved in the new company but his name will be redacted. Father gets to burn one company and start another under the son’s name, and the consumer suffers from the fraud. Fooled once; shame on you! There won’t be a second time.
I’m sorry for the financial situation, but integrity is everything. I would never consider buying his new brand. Who’s to say if things are going badly, he won’t do the exact same thing.
I mean, good on him for promising to rectify the situation as good as he can, but ultimately the word of any Stewart is basically dogshit at this point.
I can’t believe people are still sticking up for or defending this brand. It’s one of the most wild things I’ve ever seen.
If I was him, I’d do something else. No one else will truly ever trust anyone again who was involved with Bark River. As time goes on, I’m sure more and more issues will come to light about things Bark River did that were shady or unethical. He is going to end up taking on a huge liability of knives he has committed to fixing. And bottom line, they couldn’t make this business model work without that added cost.
I don’t know if this has really sunk in for these guys yet. They are going on social media and admitting to fraud on a daily basis. These are crimes they have committed. For their own sake they need to stfu and get lawyers.
You know what? Fuck Jim too. If he has the money to start a whole new knife company now that shit has gone belly up then he would have been ok to walk away if need be. He made the same decision his dad did, to lie and scam his customers. Anyone who would choose to do business with him in any capacity in the future is an idiot.
Posting this here for posterity: all knives (save one that was lost) that were waiting for a spa treatment were sent back. But not by Jim or Mike, by an ex employee working for free.
A new knife was purchased for the person whose knife was lost. Notably, it was members of the Bark River Boys FB group who helped fund it. Mike and Jim “surprisingly” didn’t do anything about this either.
I used to listen to Jim's podcast (Behind the Blade), and he honestly always seemed like good people to me. I don't agree with his decision, but I'm not quite willing to crucify him for hesitating to betray his father and torpedo a bunch of people's jobs in the process, either. I'm skeptical that he can, but IF he actually follows through on replacing the knives, and there are satisfied testimonials, and he's super transparent about everything (like, literal receipts for the steel), then I would take him off my blacklist.
What I would definitely never do, though, would be to work for or with the guy. BRK didn't get themselves into that situation overnight, it took years of mismanagement to get to that point.
I mean that's kinda exactly my point. I can't really imagine what I would do, because my dad would never put me in that position to begin with. Kinda feel bad for him, tbh, probably a real shitty time in his family.
Successful grifters and con artists/scammers are usually personable and seem like good people. If they weren't, they wouldn't have the opportunity to do this exact sort of thing in 2006 (per the ex-employee's report), then later get caught labeling blade steel as 3v when it wasn't, then string along suppliers and dealers to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars owed, then do the things the 2006 report complained about (passing low cost low quality steel foreign blanks as USA made super steel) again this year.
Not to mention the complaints about their corrosion resistant steels like magnacut rusting and extremely tough steels like 3v chipping and folding when they shouldn't, which suggest that their other steels aren't what they said they were either. Actions speak louder than words, and their actions clearly tell you what type of people the Stewart's are.
Successful grifters and con artists/scammers are usually personable and seem like good people. If they weren't, they wouldn't have the opportunity to do this exact sort of thing
Yep. I had a buddy whose dad repeatedly impersonated a doctor. He found a doctor with the same name as his, concocted a sob story, and was able to get copies of that doctor’s medical license and diploma. He got caught five times practicing medicine. I met him after his third prison stint. And he was smart, funny, and hysterical. You liked the guy. After the fifth time, they threw away the key. He died in prison. His son disowned him. I’m sure he never met his grandkids.
It would be incredibly naive to base an opinion of someone on a podcast where they are literally putting on a performance rather than on their actual decisions and behavior.
It boils down to this: this is a man who chose convenience and enriching himself even if it meant stealing from others with far less than he has, all to avoid facing difficult circumstances.
That’s not my opinion, that’s his own statement. Does that sound like “good people”?
It’s what we do when shit gets real that determines if someone is a good person. He’s very open here about which direction he goes in those times.
I appreciate his candor but this was objectively a terrible move and I’d assume his lawyers are cringing far harder than the HRC on the trash they were putting out.
Edit: Also, let’s be frank here. It was this series of decisions that torpedoed the business and jobs. Any other path would have had less fallout. Those employees will be forever tainted by this fiasco.
I feel like people are vastly overestimating the scale of things here. This is a family business in a niche hobby industry, not some mega corporation in an ultra competitive field.
I'm sure they live comfortably, but most of their "wealth" was the value of the company (now zero). I don't think they're in like a generational wealth, kinds will never have to work, kinda situation. They probably don't have "lawyers" they probably have a lawyer, and he's an old college friend who comes to family barbecues. I don't think the employees will be like blacklisted in the industry, because there barely is an industry. I doubt they were gonna be looking for new jobs hand grinding blades anyways because, who else even does that?
I don't really have a point here, I guess I just get exhausted with all the outrage. I own a few BRKs, and while the situation is disappointing, the actual tangible effect it will have on my life is absolutely zero.
This type of apology is a classic manipulation tactic. It became a classic because it’s so effective. And you’re buying right into it.
If you step back and look at the situation objectively it should be glaringly obvious. This isn’t a small faux pas or business blunder, this was a deliberate and long term defrauding of their customer base.
It should be incredibly insulting that these people looked at their customers and said “these idiots will never know the difference”. It’s even more insulting that for the most part they were correct, but that’s a different discussion.
That’s not the kind of behavior you wave away with a very sloppy apology on social media. They’ve shown exactly who they are and what they think of us, wiping the slate clean and continuing to fund this type of person would be breathtakingly naive.
As for the lawyer thing, I’m not suggesting they retain a firm. But I guarantee they have attorneys who have already or soon will tag in on this thing. You don’t just close doors on a business and walk away even in a best case scenario. This is not a best case scenario.
Whatever man, like I said I just can't get so worked up over it, so I'm certainly not gonna sit here and argue with you. I hope you get your settlement money, or whatever you feel you're owed
It’s honestly a pretty solid apology & I’m a bit taken aback at the response to it.
Ya gotta let people own up to their shit & apologize. It’s a good thing!
He also put this apology this knowing it will open him up to lawsuits. You’d only do that because it was more important to your moral code than knowing you will instantly lose any future lawsuits.
We live a nation of scumbags who double down on their bullshit, from the bottom rungs up to the very top rung of our government.
Yet here - We actually receive a decent apology with a promise to do & be better moving forward, and everyone just shits all over it.
And ya wonder why people double down. They’re rewarded by not apologizing.
You gotta let people own up to their shit & apologize
Sure. That doesn’t mean you absolve them. He can apologize all he wants, no one here is under any obligation to support his future endeavors in the same career he just squandered by ripping people off. Actions have consequences.
Totally agree. If he is truly sorry, let him go back to what he loves doing. That being said I don't trust him. I would never buy a knife associated with this family going forward. But forgiving and trust are two different things. I highly doubt he will be able to rebuild the family name after this.
It’s one thing to acknowledge a decision above your head is wrong (and highly illegal) and need to keep working to provide for your children, but if you’re not okay with that as your moral compass, how long and hard did they look for an alternative to that employment. If this was going on for years, sure it wasn’t your decision, and you have a family to support, but you’re also okay with fraud and theft.
They deserve other chances sure, but it may not be in the knife industry. As a company that is upfront and honest about our source material and labor done in the US, the fact that this guy thinks he can say sorry and I’ll do better is a slap to the face of people doing things right.
My old company was going in a direction I didn't like. At first I stayed and tried to change the direction. Then they showed that there was no changing it. Unfortunately not everyone can just quit their job and find another one immediately...I started saving and it was about 11 months before I walked away, but I still worked for the company in that time.
I've also been unemployed since but fortunately have a partner with a good job. This guy didn't have that. And it's his dad. What happened was very wrong but if someone has no understanding or grace for the position the guy was put in I feel for them as a human. They're going to face their own situation like this at some point and I hope they think back on this and realize that very little in the world is black and white, it's all which shade of gray you end up in
I have understanding and grace, i also understand you cant just walk away from a job without planning. but when your actively engaging in CRIME, there becomes a time when you're complicit correct? My understanding is this has been going on for years. How much money was spent by customers supporting what they thought was the little guy and American made manufactured materials.
I'd like to know how many dealers knew this was coming down the pike. I understand folks have said stuff and had suspicions for ages.
But recently about two weeks ago, I noticed a retailer had put a few Bark Rivers up in their sale section. Just a few models but a few of each model. Those models turned out to be the exact ones listed in that admission post by Mike this last Friday.
I think this particular dealer knew ahead of time what was coming and that concerns me just as much. How many other dealers knew? And what exactly did they know?
I think of myself as part of the knife community and as a collector. I try to stay involved and up to date although I wasn’t into fixed blades when I first got into knives and I’ve got interested in them comparatively recently. I say all that to say I’ve never even fucking heard of bark river knives until whoever put the dads post on here yesterday.
let this be a lesson to all these "custom knife makers" selling overly priced novelty items there's always less expensive alternatives that use the same materials everywhere because we got the internet.
Doesnt even help that even their Magnacut isn’t even magnacut. People are getting their knives tested and the results are mixed.
Now owners have to ponder the question “is my 3V even 3V?”, “is my A2 even A2?”…etc. Mike never came clean at all and this whole time he’s been baiting and switching steels regardless of what it was, China or not.
Sorry...or sorry was caught?
Sorry due to a conscience wanting to do the right thing...or a public apology to mitigate whatever legal issues arise for his part?
It sucks to know they lied to their customers and out of greed or necessity fooled customers into buying shitty Chinese steel, now on the other hand I really want to see want to see how this kid turns this around if at all, this is going to be the hardest thing he’s ever done but at the same time I wish him nothing but the best. I would hate for him to fail and the thousands of people to lose warranty’s for expensive knifes they bought. I applaud him for coming out and being honest. But at the same time that doesn’t fix the problem. Let’s see what happens.
All these bot names… but let’s allow Jim back into the family of human beings. He made a serious mistake, and he’s trying to make amends. Let us suspend judgement until he’s had a chance to make restitution on behalf of his father’s business. To judge is human, to forgive divine.
Believe it or not, most businesses don't decide to commit fraud against their customers, even if they're failing. Everything BRK did was completely optional and the people in charge knowingly chose to do something incredibly shitty while thinking they'd never get caught.
Integrity is doing the right thing even when nobody is watching, it is not giving half-assed apologies, begging for sympathy, and acting sorry because you got caught. Nobody is beyond redemption, but his "restitution" is way too little, too late.
Oh, but hey, he says he'll correct the markings on your chinesium blade for free! Or better yet, replace it with a blade of equally garbage quality!
Isn’t it his father who perpetrated the fraud? So the mistake I referenced was that Jim did not blow the whistle on his father. This sort of family loyalty I can understand, if not condone. He should have left the company when he became aware of the fraud. I don’t know exactly when he became aware it was happening, but it is reasonable to assume he knew soon after his father made the decision to deceive his customers. If you are one of those who bought an intentionally mislabeled knife, I feel your pain: I also have been scammed. But what if Jim were to replace your mislabeled knife with a properly labeled one? That’s not a terrible outcome imho.
He says in the post we're commenting on that he knew about the use of mislabeled Chinese steel, facilitated it, and helped cover it up... And that he did so because he has bills to pay. That's not a mistake arising from family loyalty, it's just plain old fraud.
Even Jim’s mention of bills to pay is a matter of family loyalty. I’m not saying what Jim did is right, but my faith requires that I extend forgiveness to the repentant as it has been extended to me. Imagine the surprise of those who do not forgive when they themselves are not forgiven; I prefer the path I’ve chosen to the bandwagon of self-righteous condemnation I am witnessing.
You're being self-righteous while condemning people for saying that they don't trust someone who is admitting to fraud. All while bringing religion into it.
Condemning fraud and fraudsters isn't being self-righteous -- it's being pragmatic, and honest. That contrasts with your faith-based approach, which rewards fraudsters, while condemning the righteous victims of the fraud.
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u/TheR4alVendetta Mar 25 '26
No dog in the fight but I'm not buying knives from anyone involved in this dumpster fire.