I've been waiting for the prices to come down on these since their release. As much as I like the Scout pattern no way am I going to spend a $100 for one.....well, I might if GEC made one.....maybe! Well I found this one for $69.99 NIB and decided to bite.
Anyway, this is the Remington Official BSA 2009 Boy Scout Knife. Model is RS3333 and is a Reproduction of the pattern made between 1923-1940. This knife was made by Bear & Son Cutlery, and from my understanding they are using the old tooling the originals were made on.
It's 3 3/4" in the closed position, has nickle/silver bolsters and shield, brass liners, 440A stainless blade and tools, and Brown Jigged Bone scales. On initial inspection it's a solid good looking piece........
The fit and finish is quite good overall. Good solid backspring fit with nary a gap, backsprings have a good stoutness to them and they all remain flush with blades opened or closed. The blade and tools have good grinds and a nice clean brush finish on them, as do the backsprings. The bolsters and bail are mirror polished. The bail is evenly formed and has a good stiffness to it, and the fit of the bolsters to scales is seamless.
Now, I don't own a older version of this knife to compare it to, so I can't say. But the old style can opener on this thing is a two piece design made of really thin stamped out stainless. It kind of surprised me how thin it was......
........it feels real flimsy. Not sure I would trust it for long term use. Of pics I have seen of originals the blade stock on those appears thicker than on this reproduction. But I don't know for sure.
All and all though the knife is put together pretty well. But it does have a few shortcomings. First is the can opener, it's crink is not immediate at the tang but more of a slight swooping bend. But it was done a touch to far and it rubs the inside liner on that side. Second is the Leather Punch/Awl, it too rubs the inside of the liner on it's side. And third is the mainblade kick. It was formed a little short as I found out while I was taking these pics. If you look close at the mainblade in my third pic in this thread you will see about midway along it's edge a small flat spot.....I had let the mainblade snap closed while I was cleaning the oil off of the blades to take these pics and when I opened it I noticed the ding in the blade. It hit the raised center pin section of the backspring inside the frame when it slammed closed. Not enough kick there to prevent it. Easy fix but it ticked me off a bit. And fourth, the scales don't match up well in color. Not a biggy really, but for a knife with a MSRP of over $100 these things should be bookended to perfection.
But I digress, all and all it's a pretty good Scout Knife. And it comes in a nice illustrated collector box along with it's associated paperwork and a foldout poster containing reprints of original advertising articles from back in the day.
2xTap