Cold Steel warrior series qustion

[wuyeah]

Hi, just looking at Cold Steel's sword section. Cold Steel the company gave me a bit awkward feeling about them. From hearing black sable is over priced, and some not so nice comment on their bali-song.

The online attractive price brought me some interest. How are their swords?? any one experience with them? How are they compare with cheap china town repro? Bugei? last legend?

 

[senoBDEC]

Refer you to this thread: not too old I think.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=371108
Specifically the Warrior series of katana:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=336422
1917 Cutlass (no indication of which size blade, but I believe the longer version is discontinued): http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=377725

Since you seemed to ask about a couple other swords. Basically, it's a toss-up. Some are decent, some suck. I believe one of Fred Chen's factories makes the Cold Steel katana line.....

Price is the key. Bugei is much pricier (ignore the retail value of the CS stuff as it's too overpriced) and it shows. However, it's still made by Hanwei. For Last Legend see here: http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60518&highlight=Last+Legend there are other threads worth looking through on Sword Forum on CS, LL, and Bugei (Paul Chen or rather, Hanwei stuff are also discussed often).
Outdated though still worth reading: http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41155&highlight=Last+Legend

 

[Ghost Soldier]

I recently had some hands-on time with 2 CS Warrior models. Both blades were finished well and very sharp. They came with some rust spots\tarnish that was easliy removed with metal-glo polish. The handles left ALOT to be desired. Cheap cord, poorly wrapped, loose from the box. The handles were secured to the tang very tightly. The tsuba and other metal furniture was crudely made and not very attractive. Both pieces were used for light tameshigiri. After about 30 cuts, one developed some play in the handle, when dismounted we found that the wood was split between the peg holes. The handle was discarded for safety reasons. These 2 were purchased via Ebay and were supposedly NIB. Not sure if CS has seconds on the Warrior series, but these weren't what I would consider top-end either. For comparison I own a few Last Legend pieces (Tsunami, etc.) and would much prefer the LL to the CS. Paul Chen does nice work as well, and the piece via Bugei and really nice.