No, I'm not disagreeing that these seem to be decent looking, They do look very good. From my experience I've seen substandard metal used in lower end knives before, and its not pretty when something breaks. Only of the reviews seems to be written by someone who knows what to look for in a knife and he even says the build quality leaves a bit to be desired.
"The knife is sharp, with a little oiling it flicks open well. The blade is perfectly centred. It locks firmly but the lock-up is quite "late". The handle scales are neat and well machined, however it drops a star because in tip-up, right hand configuration, only two of the clip screwholes have usable threads, so the clip is loose and wobbly. I will probably just take the clip off and use a lanyard instead."
I know any knife can be susceptible to "Lock-Rock" and it can usually be fixed with adjusting, but for it to come this way out of the box isn't a good indicator of care or reliability. How does the knife maintain an edge, how easy is it to sharpen, are there hard spots in the steel, are the scales really G10, was it quenched properly while being forged, where on the Rockwell Hardness scale does the steel fall, there are a million questions that can be asked when looking at a fake knife. When looking at something that could possible injure you if shoddy, appearances and reliability are two separate things to worry about. I don't care if a Porsche looks great, but if it has a lawn mower engine you aren't going to get much out of it.
This is probably the one area where I wouldn't really count on getting a rep. I do have a replica Chris Reeve Umnumzaan I received as a gift, however I also have a Gen that I rarely use. I generally carry my Emerson Mini Commander when I carry my rep Umnumzaan so I have an actual tool knife that can back me up if my rep goes out. I probably have spent 2-3k in knives over the last few years, and my brother actually works with a knife maker here in San Diego. I've seen the good and bad, and i'd like to think I'm speaking from experience.
Please do not take this as a slight towards your research in the rep knife area, I do appreciate it and will look further into it.
