Cold Steel Hawks Pros and Cons

D

dogstar

Joined
Jan 23, 2011
Messages
4,399
Some folks on this forum like 'em, some don't. I can understand if they're not your preference, but I don't get the people who speak poorly of them. To me, a tool has to be functional above all things, and a CS hawk is, provided you are willing to sharpen it. Durability is second. I haven't read any reports of excessive chipping or cracking around the eye. 1055 is respected for its toughness, compromising edge holding. Given these two factors, a Cold steel hawk is a good tool to me.

Pros:
Price - These Hawks are great bang for the buck, good starting point for modders
Drop forged - better than cast
1055 - impact resistant
Differentially hardened - for hardness at the edge and durability at the eye
Variety - 8 designs to choose from
Functionality - these hawks can be used for chopping wood, light splitting, making feather sticks, dressing game, prepping dinner, and the list goes on...

Cons:
Factory edge - must be sharpened to reach full potential
1055 - edge holding is not the best, though many swords are made of 1055
Mass produced - probably some lemons out there
Finish - I like the utilitarian paint job, but the heads are rough and the eye needs de-burring.
Handles - grain orientation is hit or miss, handles are not pretty.
Set screw - take it out and sand the handle for a friction fit.
Not made in the USA

In conclusion, CS hawks need a little work to be at their best. Once you do, they are good tools. Add your thoughts on this, please.
 
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I agree as well. I've stated my opinion before but I'll add it to this thread as well. I'm just newly getting in to hawks myself. While I usually try to get the best value between money/quality, I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted. I decided to get a couple Cold Steel hawks to mod and use. I figure I wouldn't be out much $, and the modding I've done was fun and makes them much easier on the eye. Now I can get a much better idea of what characteristics I want in a better quality hawk. I would have hated to spend a good amount of money just to find out that it was too big/small/heavy/light and so on. I know they probably aren't that hard to sell if you're not happy with it. But I figured if I got the CS hawks, when I do get a nicer hawk/s, I'll have these to play around with and practice throwing.
 
Pro to me:

Light, good control.

Cons:
The spike should have been curved.
the finishing about the neck area is bad;Sharp edges around it.
 
dogstar said:
Price - These Hawks are great bang for the buck, good starting point for modders
.
Click to expand...

Great breakdown of procs-cons, man. Re: the above I might take that a step further and suggest that with any other hawks available out there, would you really want to mess with the original product at all? Are there truly any other hawks to mod is what I'm saying.
 
Right on observations, I re-sharpened mine and I like the tool, used it today for some yard work.
 
I've ordered 4 different CS hawks, all of them had uneven blades, uneven meaning there were slants from the tip to the bottom if you looked at the blade from the front view it would look like this \ , and the only way to try and fix it would be having to use a hydraulic press to even it and make it parallel or bang it on an anvle with a heavy smith hammer. All of which i do not have, so i returned 3 of them. I bought them all from Knifecenter.com, and i returned them 1 after the other expecting a different outcome but nope they were the same, maybe it was just knifecenter selling lemons, i do not know. I ended up keeping the last one, which is the Pipehawk, because it was the least slanted of them all and i also got tired of returning, i love the design and everything just wish it didn't come like that.
 
Cronx, do you mean crooked in this view?
5345AAA5402F4B3182094B38FC400E53.JPG
 
I agree with your pros and cons. I may be wrong but I think many people putting the CS hawks down are comparing them to custom and/or much more expensive hawks. I have found the CS hawks give a lot of bang for the buck. Occasionally, as with almost all production items, you will get a poor one that has to be returned.
 
Cronx210 said:
I've ordered 4 different CS hawks, all of them had uneven blades, uneven meaning there were slants from the tip to the bottom if you looked at the blade from the front view it would look like this \ , and the only way to try and fix it would be having to use a hydraulic press to even it and make it parallel or bang it on an anvle with a heavy smith hammer. All of which i do not have, so i returned 3 of them. I bought them all from Knifecenter.com, and i returned them 1 after the other expecting a different outcome but nope they were the same, maybe it was just knifecenter selling lemons, i do not know. I ended up keeping the last one, which is the Pipehawk, because it was the least slanted of them all and i also got tired of returning, i love the design and everything just wish it didn't come like that.
Click to expand...
I'm wondering if for some reason the trail hawks are just made more hastily or something. My first was a Pipe hawk and it seems to be really finished nicely. Even the eye was fairly smooth. But then I got the two trail hawks. On one the blade actually has a very slight curve if viewed from above eye to edge. The other, for some reason, one side if viewed from the rear sits a bit lower on the haft than the other. And I tried to fit it as well as possible. The trail's also needed quite a bit more cleaning up, and the eyes were very rough. Not bad for the money, but I do wonder if the trail hawks are just made faster/larger quantities or what. Maybe the simplicity of the design means they just don't give as much care to them. Other designs like the pipe/spike/rifleman's are a bit more involved and they may take more time in the process.
 
I think you're seeing CS step up their quality a bit as they have reacted to the market with this year's changes. People wants longer hafts, and they now come with 22" instead of 19", the old style Frontier (which was discontinued) was revamped and brought back. The quality of the new ones seems better than the old ones. I don't know if they upped the quality on their old models as well. If they did, you probably got some THs that were already in the pipeline. They sell a hell of a lot of that model and I have no doubt they're made in huge batches.
 
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