Surefire Closing Down Edged Weapons Division

[UWone77]

News from Surefire http://www.surefire.com

I’ve been a fan of Steve Ryan’s knives ever since I got my Surefire EW-04 Delta Folder (above) back in 2004. Ryan’s Surefire knife designs are an elegant mixture of form and function, mixing built-in tools with excellent ergonomics and smooth lines that attracted a following in the blade community.

Despite its popularity, the business never became a financial success. “Edged weapons has never been a profitable business for us,” said Surefire Director of Marketing Sean Clemence. “We will continue making pens,” he said, “but we are winding down the edged-weapons business and putting those resources into other projects.”

By winding down, Clemence means that all production on edged weapons will cease in the coming months as raw materials and parts are exhausted. Right now, Surefire has EW-04 Deltas, EW-12 Jekylls and even some of the semi-released Surefire Push Daggers in stock along with smaller numbers of other knives. But, all inventory will be gone by the end of March 2013. Knives that are out of stock and not coming back are the EW-05 Echo, EW-09 Edge, EW-10 Crank.

Steve Ryan is moving into Surefire’s engineering department. He will likely continue his own custom knife business on his own time, but don’t look for any remakes of your favorite Surefire blades coming out of Ryan’s garage. Surefire owns all of those designs and any re-release under a non-Surefire brand will have to be negotiated.

Surefire will continue to honor the original “No-Hassle” warranty on the knives. “We will have enough replacement parts in stock to service knives through the next four- to five years,” says Clemence. Looking further, Surefire has no policy in place to deal with warranty issues on the discontinued knives. “But,” says Clemence, “we will find a way to take care of our customers.”

Ultimately, the closing came down to profits. Surefire knives were made with expensive materials in small quantities. Despite their popularity, “when you take a look at the profit margins,” says Clemence, “the demand was never there to make it a profitable business.”

No doubt, Surefire will realign freed up resources to support their main manufacturing effort, the delivery of SOCOM suppressors to the government.

[M. Gale]

Need resources for their wrist light division...