Some weapons/armor are not governed by a perk. The perks for other weapons/armor make it so that you need a lower smithing skill to increase them from one level to the next, this allows them to get to Legendary by smithing level 100. Weapons that do not have a perk need a level higher than 100, so they get stuck at a lower rank, unless you use an enchantment or potion to increase you smithing enough to bump them up to the next level.