Cold steel at Walmart?

[Benjamin Liu]

I bought a pack today.

They triggered the "restricted item" alert in the self-checkout and it took a while to sort it out. It would have been faster if the software was working properly.

I haven't had that much hassle in buying a knife since I was 12.

Anyway they are about what you'd expect for the price, a cheap knife and sheath. The sheath makes Gerber machete sheaths look good.

The handle is a bit weird. IMO it is too thin for the width, giving it a strange grip. Maybe if the handle was thicker or more narrow it would be better.

The blades are very thin, so they could be considered machetes, though they do have edges unlike the current GSM machetes.

I'll try to do some cutting and chopping later this week, though that will be just using these for my normal yard work.

 

[Benjamin Liu]

I tested mine today.

I don't have any need to chop through metal pipes, rebar, cinder blocks, etc. so I just used it for some of the yard work I did today, using it in a way I'd normally use a knife for chopping.

There was a large sycamore limb knocked off a tree by a recent storm so I dragged it to my fire pit and cut off the branches.

I used the Walmart knife and for comparison also used the SK5 Recon Tanto.

It would probably have been funny to include a GSM edgeless machete in the test but I'm not about to buy one. People who own them should probably "test" them doing normal yard work with the factory "edge" and post the results.

Both cut about the same, easily taking off .5" branches with one cut and taking several cuts to remove 1-2" branches.

The handle on the Walmart knife was worse than I expected, being very uncomfortable with and without gloves, especially when cutting the larger branches.

This should be OK for cutting smaller saplings if one were to want a very low budget survival knife.

It is not really good for anything I'd actually use it for so I probably won't buy another pack even though they are cheap.

I can't really complain about knives readily available at Walmart at 2 for $25.00 (counting tax) so this is basically a case of getting what you pay for.

If CS still sold smaller machetes at $15.00, especially with edges, I'd strongly recommend them instead. The Gerber Versafix costs a little more and that is for only one knife, but for someone on a limited budget that is a better purchase when sold at just under $30.00.

Other people might find the handles comfortable, so if they do these might be good inexpensive knives.