Cold Steel American Lawman

[STR]

Be advised any of you that are looking into this folder. It has just come to my attention that as has happened with other models by them in the past Cold Steel starts out doing something right only to change it mid production and the changes are not always good ones.

With the American Lawman the reviews you can find on youtube and maybe here as well will show and tell you that it comes with steel liners. Well, they did come with steel liners but only at first. The new ones are G10 only and although this is a minor issue since G10 is plenty strong the issue is not that its been done but that the production model has been made less expensive on the production end while leaving the price to you the end line user the same. You will probably notice that some you see on reviews have finger grooves for traction that are on the spine of the blade. The new ones do not have these finger traction grooves. The contact on the lock looks to be changed also with more of a half moon shape to fit around the stop pin than previous models. This particular change is probably a good one. The knife still locks up great, and its still going to be quite stout. My point is that unbeknownst to the user that these changes can sneak up on you. For some they may be disappointing.

I've seen Cold Steel do this in the past changing blade steels also but in this case the American Lawman sold now is not the same folder as the first few hundred or so that went out. To those of you that managed to buy one with steel liners congrats. You probably got the better value.

You may also be interested to know that both the Mini Lawman and the American Lawman will come with different pocket clips than those pictured in the flyers or on youtube as well as other reviews once again showing a change where the consumer may not get exactly what he sees for sale as it is advertised.

Personally this kind of crap really bugs me because I like knowing what I am getting and while I'm the first to admit that G10 works fine as a stand alone scale with no liners the fact is I still consider one with liners to be a step up. If you feel the same just consider this your tip to be advised. You might also keep this in mind regarding Cold Steel in the future because this is not the first time and probably not the last that they pull these kind of changes after people start to turn on to the items from reading about them in magazines and the forums.

STR

 

[serratededge]

Thank you for the heads up STR. I received one of their mailings for the holidays and I noticed it said the American Lawman was "Now Lighter", but it did not mention what the change was. It would have been nice if they would have explained how they lightened it.

I had one of the original versions when they came out. IIRC, weight was not even an issue. The G10, was for me, to aggressive. I liked everything else about it (well, not the painted blade, lol).

Without trying to bash CS (they have plenty on that boat already), I`m thinking they found a way to cut costs, then advertise it like they did us a favor. In reality, were there really that many users that complained that the American Lawman was too heavy?

I do know they would sell more of those if they offered it without black paint on the blade.

 

[STR]

Yeah it comes off as somewhat underhanded when unannounced like this example. I bought one of each of the American Lawman and Mini Lawman folders and when ordering one each more for each model the ones that came the second time were not the same as the first. With the mini its minor changes but otherwise the same with no changes to the blade. With it's bigger brother this is not the case though.

When I inquired with Cold Steel about it they said, in response to why my first ones were different than my second ones even though they were bought close to the same time, that, "its because I got one of the 'first run' with my first purchases and then followed that with, 'yes, we made it lighter'. I asked if they had had complaints about the weight and he said he did not really know the answer to that because research and development did the changes. All like that makes it all better but in my mind it doesn't really help to make it better at all in cases like this. What would really make it better is if they had the common sense, dare I say, integrity to stamp the blades or the folders as 'first run', or 'limited edition' just like Buck and other companies do.

STR