The Buck Knife story:

The Buck Knife story began in 1902, in Kansas, with the curiosity and imagination in the fertile mind of a 13-year-old apprentice blacksmith named Hoyt Heath Buck.
He learned to shoe horses, fix wagon wheels and repair farm equipment. He was also the one who had to sharpen the farmers' grub-hoes. They came back so often that Hoyt decided there must be a way to make the metal hold an edge.
After much experimentation, Hoyt developed a tempering process which helped the farmers' hoes hold their edge. Then, with an ample supply of worn-out rasps on hand, he used the same technique to make knife blades that held an edge.
From those first efforts came the basic concepts still embodied in Buck Knives' sophisticated heat-treat and tempering processes.
It sounds simple and direct, but the Buck story is one that followed a circuitous path that led to Buck becoming arguably America's foremost name in knives.
Born in 1889, near Kansas City, Mo., Hoyt Buck was the third of six children. By formal education standards, he was not "well educated." He quit school after the fourth grade, but he was a voracious reader who taught himself English, history and mathematics--and even some Latin and Greek.
And there was wanderlust in this lad. In 1907, he headed northwest to Washington. In Tacoma, Buck sold insurance, worked as a streetcar conductor, and on weekends he helped crew a boat that cruised Puget Sound.
It was on this third job that he met Daisy Louise Green, whose church group had chartered Buck's boat for a day-long retreat in 1908. The two were married and on October 20, 1910, Hoyt and Daisy Buck welcomed the arrival of their first child, Alfred Charles Buck, and over the next 12 years had six more children.
As a teenager, Al Buck was anxious to strike out on his own. In 1927, only 16 and too young to enlist, Al convinced his mother to sign papers that lied about his age.
"It may have been the most dishonest thing she'd ever done in her life," Al recalled years later. "We both had tears in our eyes, but she signed."
In April 1927, Buck reported to the Naval Training Center in San Diego, California, the then-small Navy town that would play a major role later in his life.
When Al Buck's four-year enlistment expired in 1931, he decided to leave the Navy. It didn't take long for him to realize he'd made a mistake. It was tough to find work in the early days of the Great Depression.
By the fall of 1932, Al Buck returned to what he knew best--he joined the Coast Guard. Almost immediately, he was sent to New York and was stationed on a Coast Guard cutter.
While stationed in New York he met and married Ida June Shapter. Interestingly, the Coast Guard quickly sent Buck back to San Diego. The newlyweds loved it and decided to stay after he got out.
When Al Buck left the Coast Guard in 1935, he decided to make his way as a civilian. He began by operating a small laundry business out of his garage.




Packing Meat. Two years later he got a job at the Cudahy meat packing plant, abandoned the laundry and purchased a home near Cudahy, at 1272 Morena Boulevard. That address is important, because it became the site of the original Buck knife "manufacturing plant."
While working at Cudahy in 1941, Al's left hand was nearly severed by a large meat grinder he was cleaning. Despite the doctors' concern that the hand could not be saved, Al believed otherwise. His faith told him that if the doctors would do the best they could do, God would do the rest.
Within six weeks, he had returned to Cudahy as a night watchman. Within six months, he was back at his regular job. And years later he could still flex and unflex the hand the doctors thought beyond repair.
If Al Buck had not convinced the doctors to "do their best," would there be the famous Buck knives we know and use today?
Shortly after the start of World War II, Buck learned that the San Diego Transit Company had a desperate need for city bus drivers, and with that he embarked on a new career. In 1945, Al was driving a bus the day his father arrived in San Diego from Mountain Home, Idaho and he was still driving a bus the day his father asked him to help form a knife business in 1946.
Although Hoyt Buck had made those first knives of his in 1902, he had never really been in the knife business. In Mountain Home, he was pastor of the Assembly of God Church. After Pearl Harbor, in 1941, the government asked Americans to help arm our fighting men by donating their fixed-blade knives.
"I didn't have any knives, but I sure knew how to make them," Hoyt Buck later explained. And he returned to his roots by setting up a small blacksmith shop in the basement of his church. There, he began handcrafting knives for servicemen--knives that bore the unmistakable Buck touch.
Soon, word of Buck's knives began spreading through the military community. Not only were his knives new, rather than used, his special tempering process produced blades that were both sharp and long-lasting.
By the end of World War II, Buck had a waiting list of GIs who wanted a Buck knife and so, on a small scale, Buck knives began to make a name for themselves.

MODEL 105 PATHFINDER (From the '40s)--One of the fixed-blades made by HoytBuck in the '40s, this Model 105 features the colorful Lucite handle thatwas the hallmark of most Buck knives in those years. This is an original,in the Buck archive collection, but a replica was made for Buck CollectorsClub members in 1998.

MODEL 11O FOLDING HUNTER (Current)-- Evolution, not revolution, has madethe Folding Hunter an even more handsome knife, but with the samedistinctive features that helped vault Buck Knives into prominence when itwas introduced in 1964. It has stood the test of time, becoming one of themost-copied knives, and, after 37 years, is still among the best-sellingknives made today.

MODEL 11O FOLDING HUNTER (Historic)--This is one of the earliest-known110s, from the collection at Buck Knives. Although this famous foldinglockblade has undergone a number of modifications through the years, itsbasic character is unmistakable in this photo, although the blade obviouslyhas had its share of sharpenings.

COLLECTIBLE BOWIE WITH THE 4 GENERATIONS--For years, Buck Knives hascreated Limited Edition collectibles, such as this big Bowie knife, withthe Buck family's four generations of knifemakers etched and gold-filled onthe blade (l to r): C.J. Buck, president; Chuck, chairman and CEO; Al(Chuck's father), who spearheaded creation of the 110; and Hoyt, who madethe first Buck knife in 1902--the same year POPULAR MECHANICS published itsfirst issue.
With the war over, Hoyt and Daisy Buck loaded theirpossessions--including Hoyt's forge, anvil and grinder--into the back of atrailer and headed south for San Diego to join their eldest son,Al.
Hoyt Buck had a plan. He was excited about rediscovering hisknifemaking skills. He had a legacy worth sharing, and, perhaps sensingthat time was beginning to run short, he was determined to bestow thelegacy on the eldest of his sons, Al.
Making Knives. Hoyt'sfirst "manufacturing plant" was a 10 x 12-ft. lean-to on the side of Al'sgarage in San Diego. It was there he began making knives. Each morning,he'd call on butcher shops, restaurants and sporting goods stores,persuading them to place orders for Buck knives.
Each afternoon, he'dthen make the knives to fill those orders. He could make only a few a day,but there is no denying that H. H. Buck was in business. The Buck knifecompany, in the real sense, was born in that small lean-to in1946.
Buck's knives were all created from discarded metal fileblades. With their heavy carbon content, they were perfect for thetoughness and edge-holding qualities required.
Determined to make thecompany grow, Hoyt Buck began urging his son, Al, to resign his job as abus driver and join him in the knife business.
"To tell the absolutetruth, I didn't want to do it," Al Buck recalled. "The knife business washot, dirty, noisy, time-consuming work. Besides, I liked being a busdriver, I really did."
Still, in 1947, Al quit the bus company andjoined his father, full-time. The resulting partnership was known as "H. H.Buck And Son."
It took Al a while to learn all that his father knewabout knifemaking, but he was determined to do it right. An important stepwas learning his father's tempering "secret."
"It sounded easy, butit wasn't easy at all," Al said. "Our tempering process was different fromthe others, and it was one of the keys to our success."
The last stepin the education of Al Buck, knifemaker, was to master the grinder, whereHoyt had crafted every blade the company had ever produced.
"In 1948,Dad discovered he had cancer, and I think he realized then that his dayswith us were numbered," Al said. "He also realized that I couldn't makeBuck knives until I learned how to grind the blades. I knew it wasimportant to him. So, for an hour or two every day, I worked at thegrinder, trying to get the hang of it.
"I can't tell you how manyblades I must have ruined in the process, but finally I wasready."
Al asked his father to watch, and did one knife, thenanother, and another. Finally, his father smiled and said, "Now I almostfeel my life is complete--my son can make knives!"
Shortlythereafter, Hoyt Buck moved to Yakima, Wash., and in 1949 he died of cancerat the age of 59.
The fledgling knife company that Hoyt Buckentrusted to his son was hardly a major player in the knife industry.Because every knife was handmade, Buck produced only about 25 a week. As aresult, Buck knives were expensive. Also the market was small.
"It'shard to believe we survived," Al Buck said. "It was literally a Ma and Paoperation. I made knives. Ida handled the books. When he got older, Chuck[the couple's oldest son and the company's current chairman and CEO]chipped in, too."
Raw materials used for Buck knives in those dayswere discarded metal files (purchased for a penny apiece), lignum vitae androsewood scraps for the handles, and leather scraps for the sheaths.
For a time in those lean early years, the Bucks made more money sharpening lawnmowers and saws than they did making knives.
"I came within a gnat's eyebrow of quitting," Al Buck conceded.
By 1960, the company was still small and struggling to survive. That fall, Rev. Robert Wilson, pastor at Al's church, told him bluntly, "You're killing yourself."
But Rev. Wilson didn't stop there. He urged Al to get help, and within a week he had contacted Howard Craig, a fellow church member and a quality control manager at Ryan Aeronautics.
Incorporating The Business. From the ensuing meeting, the decision was made to incorporate, and on April 7, 1961, articles of incorporation were filed--the true beginning of the modern era of a company that had grown from the imagination of a young boy in Kansas nearly 60 years before.
With the infusion of $30,000 in outside capital, Buck was able to take many giant steps forward.
For starters, the company moved into a 3200-sq.-ft. Quonset hut in the Old Town district of San Diego, near Buck's home. Its proximity to the Santa Fe rail line provided ready access to the regular shipments of blade forgings from Los Angeles, which had become the new source of steel for Buck. Salvaged file blades were now a thing of the past.
Buck Knives Inc., began by producing six models of hunting knives, each a black-handled fixed-blade. They all were distinguished by the sharpness and durability of the blade, crafted from a new, rust-resistant steel alloy--440C.
The second most striking feature of the new Buck knives was their price. In those days, the vast majority of sport knives were priced around $2. Buck's ranged from $12 to $20.
"We were the laughing stock of the industry," Al Buck recalled. "Competitors were taking bets on how long we'd last. We were convinced that people would pay additional money to get additional quality. Eventually, that proved to be true."
And then their competitors stopped laughing.
The key was to increase the number of retailers selling Buck products. So, in 1962, Al and Ida Buck spent the better part of two months driving across America, making personal sales calls to stores from Portland, Ore., to Portland, Maine. They visited 250 shops, and got orders from 100 of them.
That sales swing by Al really set the company apart from the competition. The president of the Buck Knives Co., walking into stores to chat, showed retailers that Buck was different from the other major knife companies.
One of Buck's early national ads, in Outdoor Life magazine, caused some concern in the industry. Knife companies rarely advertised in those days, and they blanched when they learned of Buck's upcoming ad campaign.
Though modest by today's standards, it enabled Buck to sell "quality craftsmanship," explaining why Buck products were more expensive.
Another dramatic innovation was Buck's Lifetime Guarantee. Confident in the quality of its products, and eager to prove its commitment to service, the company instituted a revolutionary new policy. Buck Knives agreed to repair or replace, free of charge, any Buck knife that failed for any reason traced to the manufacturer.
"We were telling people how good our knives were. The guarantee proved we were willing to put our money where our mouths were," Al Buck said.
Developing The Buck Folding Hunter. On April 18, 1963, just two years after their incorporation, the Buck board of directors voted to authorize development of a new folding lock-blade knife. This would become the world-famous Buck Folding Hunter.
There were some large folding knives that had locking systems, but none had been successful. Buck went out and bought three of the rival knives, handled them, used them, and then took them apart to see how they worked. All three had good and bad features, but they all "looked terrible" to the Buck team.
So Buck challenged one of its engineers to find a way to get all of the good things into one good-looking knife.
It wasn't easy. The concept involved a 4-in. blade, a high-tension lock and a low-pressure release--leaving little margin for error.
By mid-summer, however, they had a preliminary model, which was a vast improvement over those being sold. With refinements, a second-generation model was ready in a mere 90 days. Problems concerning the production of the necessary new tooling delayed completion of the first production model until June 1964. Additional refinements were made, and the Buck Folding Hunter went into full production in September of that year.
The rest is history. The Buck Folding Hunter was a tremendous success. It literally revolutionized hunting knives. It became the best known and most popular knife made, and is probably the most imitated. Also, it established Buck Knives as a world leader in the sports knife industry.
It's still Buck's No. 1 seller, and by the end of 1990, Buck had sold more than 11 million Folding Hunters.
Although overshadowed by the dramatic success of the Folding Hunter, Buck's entry into the basic pocket knife market was the second important factor in their growth during the '60s.
Actually, Buck outsourced those knives, and, at one point, when the supplier did not meet the rigid quality control standards, Chuck Buck, Al's oldest son, offered them $1 for each knife that hadn't qualified.
Chuck recalls thinking, "After all, how many could he have? I figured maybe a couple of thousand, tops. I couldn't believe it when a truck backed up to our plant one day with 60,000 reject knives."
Bad as it seemed at the time, Chuck now says it wasn't all bad. They contributed all 60,000 to Christian missionaries.
The company continued to grow, and by 1968 had headquarters in a 15,000-sq.-ft. plant on Federal Boulevard in East San Diego. But even that quickly became too small, with employees working two shifts a day to reduce the backlog of unfilled orders.
So, in early 1969, Buck built its own plant on two acres of land at 1717 North Magnolia Avenue, in El Cajon. The company was in its new 30,000-sq.-ft. plant by fall of that year.
In the late '60s and early '70s, the biggest problem was producing knives fast enough to keep pace with orders.
"We had to rein in our sales force so they wouldn't get too far out in front of our ability to fill orders," Al Buck said.
Then, as the new production facility geared up to full speed, the reins came off. By 1971, Buck Knives was processing as many orders in a single day as it had averaged in a month just five years earlier.
Buck spent most of the '70s streamlining their production process. New machinery, methodology and systems of delivery were tested, reviewed and refined until they were adopted or abandoned. To grow, they had to produce more units, and produce them more efficiently.
A key figure in this process was Charles T. Buck. Born May 13, 1936, in San Diego, Chuck was a familiar face throughout the development of the company. As a boy, Chuck had done odd jobs for his grandfather, Hoyt. As a teenager, he operated the family lawnmower shop that helped keep the knife company in business.

IONFUSION VANGUARD--One of Buck's most popular fixed-blades now isavailable with the added advantage of an IonFusion blade. This patentedprocess produces a supersurface that is three times harder than the steelitself, and holds an edge five times longer. IonFusion blades are edged onone side only, allowing the ion-fused surface to extend all the way to theedge on the other side, serving as a "backbone" and adding to the blade'sability to stay sharp.

MODEL 281 NXT--One of several choices in the NXT series. The solidglass-reinforced nylon base (red on this model) provides the neededstability and strength for a rugged outdoor knife, while the over-mold ofDynaflex rubber gives you a softer, more comfortable, surer grip. Thelocking blade (a 2-3/4-in. modified drop-point) opens and closes with onehand for convenience.

MODEL 880 STRIDER TACTICAL FOLDER--This is one tough knife. The Strider isthe result of a collaboration between Buck Knives and Strider customknives. The 4-in. tanto blade is made of ATS-34 steel and locks open to9-1/4-in.. Handles are made of G10, a virtually indestructibleresin-laminate, resistant to heat, cold, chemicals, impact and other abuse.For good measure, Buck adds titanium liners and lock to make Strider theultimate folding tactical knife.

In 1961, nine months after his discharge from the Navy, Chuck was named to the corporation's board of directors. But the 25-year-old Buck was content to keep a low profile. As time went on, his stature began to grow. In 1970, he was named corporate vice president for manufacturing, fully involved in all aspects of the process, from purchasing to personnel to packaging.
Al Buck described his son as "a tenacious problem-solver with good business instincts. I knew the day we started the company that someday Chuck would take my place. And never, not even for a moment, was I tempted to change my mind."
Continued growth forced Buck to expand into as many as six separate facilities in the El Cajon valley, and it became obvious that they needed to build another new and larger plant.
Expanding The Operation. As a first step Buck Knives purchased 10.87 undeveloped acres, located less than two miles from the Magnolia Avenue facility. After battling through unexpected miles of red tape, the building was well underway by the end of 1979.
In August 1980, the move into the new corporate headquarters and manufacturing plant--comprising 200,000 sq. ft. (about 4-1/2 acres) under one roof--was complete, and the facility was warmly praised as an aesthetic masterpiece.
Appropriately, as the new plant was becoming a new chapter in the Buck story, "C.J." Buck began to play his part in the family-company tradition.
Charles Brian Buck was born Nov. 5, 1960 and, like many sons given their father's names, he acquired a nickname that stuck: "C.J."
A college student at the time the new Buck plant was becoming a reality, C.J. worked part-time at a variety of tasks, making him the fourth generation to be an active part of the Buck knifemaking family.
From that beginning, he has moved systematically through a variety of positions within the company, acquiring solid background and knowledge of all aspects of the firm.
Among his roles, C.J. has made knives, headed the Buck Custom Knives operation and organized management's vitally important strategic planning seminars. (Today C.J. is the company's president)
June 1979 marked yet another historic milestones at Buck Knives when Al Buck proudly turned over the presidency to his son Chuck, then 43.
"I had some big shoes to fill," Chuck remembers. "Dad had done an incredible job. It occurred to me that it would be hard to come up with an encore."
As was true for most businesses in America, the 1982 Recession hit Buck Knives hard, but with Chuck's new team in place, they were able to battle back. The key to Buck's long-term success was its unflagging commitment to researching and developing of innovative new products. In 1982, there were fewer than 40 knives in the Buck catalog. Today, there are 200.
In fairly rapid succession through the '80s, Buck introduced such new knives as Buck's innovative series of three fixed-blades fish fillet knives. Their Kraton handles become tacky when wet, rather than slippery--perfect for a fisherman.
Using Modern Materials. To answer a combined demand for lighter weight and lower cost, Buck perfected the BuckLite series, with bodies made of a space-age thermoplastic that is extremely light, yet remarkably tough.
Two other larger knives also played key roles for the company during the surge of the '80s.
First came the survival knife called the BuckMaster in 1984. It featured hollow-handle storage and a rugged 7-1/2-in. blade with a saw on the back edge.
Buck's second big knife of the '80s sprang to life when they manufactured the Army's M9 bayonet, with an order for 300,000. In addition to the Army's use, the M9 has become a popular field knife.
As Buck moved into the '90s, the same pattern continued. In rapid succession, Buck brought to the market such new knife concepts as the Nighthawk, a masterfully engineered fixed-blade knife with a 6-1/2-in. blade and a black, ergonomically shaped handle of Zytel for a comfortable grip. Two new lockblades with thermoplastic rubber handles, called Protege, and a companion fixed-blade called Mentor, brought Buck quality to a broader market with a lower price range.
In 1994, Buck again made knife history with the radically different CrossLock series. Named "Knife of the Year," the CrossLocks come with a variety of specialty blades, with the major feature being their one-hand operation, with the convenience of going from one blade to the other in a simple roll-over motion.
And in 1996, Buck again captured Knife of the Year honors with the BuckTool, a giant step forward in compact multifunctional tool design. Each blade and tool locks open securely, and easily unlocks with a push-button release.
For greater comfort in use, the BuckTool offers contoured, no-pinch handles. Symbols on the handle make the tools easy to identify and locate.
In the past few years, Buck has hit the market with a veritable tidal wave of new products, headed by a new patent-pending process called "IonFusion." By treating Buck's quality steel with Titanium Nitride coatings, the surface of the blade becomes extremely hard--so hard it's off the Rockwell C scale, which stops at 80. Laboratory tests proved that IonFusion blades hold an edge five times longer than any other blade tested.
BuckLites and Proteges have been redesigned with a new blade shape with a ribbed thumbrest and the added convenience of one-hand opening.
The CrossLock family has grown to include a new 3-Function Hunter, the Double Blade, and the River Rafter which has a single, fully serrated sheepsfoot blade.
Next, they added several new knives offering one-hand open/close convenience, including the Odyssey series, Lightning HTA and the newest, Juno. Another innovative Buck knife is the new Ecco, which has two locking blades, one at each end of the handle.
Their newest fixed-blade is the DiamondBack, with a handle that replicates the pattern of a diamondback snake's skin.
And, of course, each year Buck creates new Limited Editions, with special appeal to collectors. The current group includes their first dagger, featuring a Damascus steel blade. There is also the Vanguard Deer Profile, with a running deer laser-cut into the blade and a beautiful box elder wood handle, and another knife in the Chuck Buck Signature knives series.
It has been almost a century since a young apprentice blacksmith made his first knife in Leavenworth, Kan. He had no way of knowing that he was setting a new standard of quality for knife blades. And he had no way of knowing what the eventual result of his efforts would be.
Still, you have to believe that he would be proud of what the Buck family and Buck Knives have accomplished, and what the name Buck has come to mean to hunters, fishermen and anyone else in need of a good knife.

NEW LIMITED EDITION COLLECTIBLES--From among the 16 Limited Editioncollectible knives that Buck created for 2001, here are four that haveestablished themselves quickly. From top to bottom: the elegant KojiFolder, a Damascus dagger (Buck's first-ever dagger), a Folding Huntertribute to Wyatt Earp (there's also a companion model honoring Wild BillHickock) and a Vanguard with a 24-karat gold figure of a running deer thatis laser-cut into the blade.