Buck Stockman Knives
Buck Knives
Buck stockman knives have been around for about a hundred years. I have owned one and been a fan for about 50 of those years. It
has been a good relationship! My first was a simple buck stockman 301 which I recall being a very nice knife, but can not recall where it might have ended up. A couple of years later I bought one of those new-fangled Buck 110 folding hunters and carried it in my pocket for many years. I never made my way back to a 301 stockman during that time. There were always a lot of Schrade Walden knives for cheap, and Case knives, and I bought several of all of them over the years. Case yellow handle knives in either the Trapper or the Stockman became my standby and I used them till they were used up!Case yellow handle knives in either the Trapper or the Stockman became my standby and I used them till they were used up! However recent Case purchases and subsequent events sent me back to look at the Buck Stockman 301. First, I bought a standard 301 Stockman with the black poly handles and the shield depicting a knife blade being driven through a bolt with a hammer, the standard Buck symbol for its folding knives. Not long after, I purchased a 301 Buck Stockman with brass bolsters, a blue anvil shield, and pressure treated rosewood handles. It is an elegantly beautiful piece of craftsmanship! Soon after, I purchased a Buck Stockman 371 which is the Chinese made version of the standard Buck 301 Stockman.
Soon after, I purchased a Buck Stockman 371 which is the Chinese made version of the standard Buck 301 Stockman. I carried all of them for several months each and the results may surprise you!
From the outset let me say that the 301 with the Rosewood scales and the brass bolsters, pins, and liners is my favorite. It is highly functional, attractive and elegant as I said. It is a knife that the company should be proud of, and that you would be proud to carry!
Now, to the nitty-gritty. I would expect a somewhat special edition knife to be slightly ahead of the standard issue knife. It just stands to reason, so when it came time to compare the standard issue American made knife and its Chinese made counterpart, well, things started to wander away from the norm!
The standard American made Buck Stockman 301 and the Chinese made 371 were similar in many ways. I found the dimensions to be almost exactly the same and the quality of the steel amazingly similar. Both functioned well as for travel and slack, and both snapped open and closed with a satisfying click, although the advantage there was with the Chinese model!
That is not where the Chinese Buck Stockman ended its superiority. The buck standard 301 scales were a lot softer than I recalled and were marred and scratched soon after I started carrying. I also found that the shield had taken a worse beating than I had imagined.