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It was and I called you out on it....
You really have no clue what you are talking about...
A lot of Companies have their knives made overseas etc.
CS Had Benchmades permission and was under contract to use their lock.
Andrew Demko has a Patent on his vers of the wave.
Bob Loveless wasn't the 1st one to make Sub Hilts.
The Civilian wasn't the 1st knife of that type or blade shape.
You need to do more reading and research before posting so much complete BS on the forum.
After all, they say it's the ULTIMATE compromise between all of the ideal qualities of stainless steel on the market! Oh, wait, it's actually a fairly mediocre steel at best. It might be a half decent compromise between cost and performance, but let's face it, it's totally outclassed by many other steel options. How honest of them. :thumbdn:
Well, if you'd really like to know how my experiences with cold steel compared to other companies, I'll tell you, but be warned, LOTS OF REALLY BORING CONTENT AHEAD... others may want to skip to the tl;dr.
I compare the cold steel products I bought to other knives in my collection, at costs equal to or lesser than the cost of the Cold Steel products.
For example, the Ti-Lite that I bought had extremely uneven grinds - to the point where the edge grinds didn't even meet in multiple places, leaving a totally dull edge - irreparable side-to-side blade wiggle, plastic handles, and a fairly soft AUS8 blade. I paid around 70$ CAD for it about a year and a half ago, which was pretty standard pricing at the time (they seem to have gone down in price, more like 50$ CAD now). Some other products I've owned since purchasing the ti-lite include a Kershaw Shallot (around 50$), Kershaw Cyclone (Just over 30$), Kershaw Leek (around 40$), G10/S30V Leek (70$, although that was used - not exactly a fair comparison), Kershaw Blur (around 25$), Spyderco Tenacious (around 45$), Spyderco Endura 3 (50$ or so), and more recently, a Spyderco Manix 2 (around 80$) and a Victorinox Pioneer (just under 20$).
Compared to these knives, the Ti-lite had inferior build quality and inferior materials in virtually every case. The Blur's 440A, theTenacious' 8Cr13Mov and the Victoriox's steels are the only steels in the bunch that I found to be inferior to the Ti-lite's, while some (the G10 Leek's S30V and the Manix 2's 154CM) blew it out of the water, and most performed markedly better for my uses (the 13c26/14c28 found on most of the Kershaws, the Endura's ATS-55). Most of the knives I bought in the Ti-lite's price range had superior handle materials, such as G10 and aluminum. None of the other knives exhibited such abysmal quality control as the Ti-lite, with the Shallot being the only other one which had slightly uneven secondary edge grinds (which were so subtle, it took me nearly a week to notice the flaw) and the Endura being the only one with unfixable blade wiggle (unfixable because of its pinned construction).
This particular Cold Steel certainly wasn't a useless chunk of scrap, and don't get that impression. It was a MUCH better knife than some of the other knives I've used and owned (ex: Ontario rat-1, Gerber Guardian, Gerber Remix). It performed well, given the not-so-practical blade shape, and TBQH, I still think they look cool as hell - a switchblade for people who can't legally own switchblades. I was tempted to get one of the Aluminum ones, but I was pretty hesitant, given my experience with the last one. Plus they combine thumb studs with a wave-type opener AND a little bitty flipper to boot. Still, there are far better knives to be had for the money from several brands.
TL;DR: Compared to most of the knives in my collection, this particular Cold Steel knife exhibited relatively poor construction and mediocre materials. Numerous superior options are available for an equal or lower cost.
Seeing as how that was long winded and boring as hell, I'm not even going to get into the issues I had with the tomahawks I bought from them. Suffice it to say I had similar experiences with the quality of these items and they needed quite a bit of work to be serviceable.
As for my objections to their marketing, I find that they constantly over-hype their products, exaggerating the quality of their materials and build.
For example, here's their blurb on AUS8: "at Cold Steel® we use AUS 8A Stainless, a high carbon, low chromium steel that has proven itself to be the ultimate compromise between toughness and strength, edge holding, and resistance to corrosion. ".
Pretty much the best steel ever, right?
Similarly, here's their blurb on VG1: "we tested seven different grades of steel including Shiro 2, V-SP-2, 10A, 440C, VG-10, ATS 34, and VG-1. Physical testing for sharpness, edge retention, point strength, shock, and ultimate blade strength showed that while many of the steels had increased performance in one or two testing categories, only one, VG-1, showed the greatest performance increases in the most critical categories. With an outstanding ability to retain an edge and proven strength in point and blade tests, VG-1 will provide Cold Steel® customers with superior performance previously unavailable in a stainless steel blade."
Wow! VG-1 offers a superior performance which was totally unattainable until Cold Steel started using this stuff! When was that? 2006 or so? Plus, it's way better than VG10 and ATS-34, they even tested it, therefore it must be true.
Ad that borderline dishonesty to their past attacks on other companies' knives (ex: their attack on Gerber when they released the applegate Covert folder, seen here), their hilarious 'testing' videos, and their past knock-offs of other folks' designs, and I start to find their marketing practices objectionable.
TL;DR: I object to their marketing because I have found it to be chock full of bull shugar in the past. This may not be an issue for some people, and it has not prevented me from buying their stuff, but I do find it to be a distasteful thing for a company to do. Having said that, I have not seen distasteful stuff like that from them in recent years, since they've discontinued almost all of the questionable designs and such.
There, you asked so I divulged. I'm getting kind of tired of talking about these guys. :yawn:
Does CS use the best steels? No, they don't - I'm glad you agree. Do they claim to use the best steels? Yes, it would appear that they do, and that's called dishonesty where I come from. This is why I took issue with their marketing.
I also agree that cold steel has very good reasons for using the steels they do. Cheap 4116 stainless, 1055 carbon, and AUS8 steels all let them produce knives for a lower cost, then sell them for a high price. Bam, profit, thanks to the magic of markup. Seems like a very good reason to use cheap materials to me.
That doesn't make any sense.See, I've already done that. But given how long winded my last post was explaining why I found the the Ti-lite to be an example of the poor quality: price ratio I've experienced with cold steel knives, I don't really want to repeat that by doing the same with each product of theirs I've tried or bought. I don't really want to do that, and I'm sure nobody would really want to read it, either.
Besides, having already tried several CS products and found them to be extremely lacking in quality for the price, why in hell would I suddenly decide to run out and buy more?
but their styling is the pits, IMHO. As for function, I suppose they hold their own, even if one of their "hard use" knives, per their billing, doesn't come close to the CS offerings that are put out as hard use knives, and there sure are plenty of those.Well, if you'd really like to know how my experiences with cold steel compared to other companies, I'll tell you, but be warned, LOTS OF REALLY BORING CONTENT AHEAD... others may want to skip to the tl;dr.
I compare the cold steel products I bought to other knives in my collection, at costs equal to or lesser than the cost of the Cold Steel products.
For example, the Ti-Lite that I bought had extremely uneven grinds - to the point where the edge grinds didn't even meet in multiple places, leaving a totally dull edge - irreparable side-to-side blade wiggle, plastic handles, and a fairly soft AUS8 blade. I paid around 70$ CAD for it about a year and a half ago, which was pretty standard pricing at the time (they seem to have gone down in price, more like 50$ CAD now). Some other products I've owned since purchasing the ti-lite include a Kershaw Shallot (around 50$), Kershaw Cyclone (Just over 30$), Kershaw Leek (around 40$), G10/S30V Leek (70$, although that was used - not exactly a fair comparison), Kershaw Blur (around 25$), Spyderco Tenacious (around 45$), Spyderco Endura 3 (50$ or so), and more recently, a Spyderco Manix 2 (around 80$) and a Victorinox Pioneer (just under 20$).
Compared to these knives, the Ti-lite had inferior build quality and inferior materials in virtually every case. The Blur's 440A, theTenacious' 8Cr13Mov and the Victoriox's steels are the only steels in the bunch that I found to be inferior to the Ti-lite's, while some (the G10 Leek's S30V and the Manix 2's 154CM) blew it out of the water, and most performed markedly better for my uses (the 13c26/14c28 found on most of the Kershaws, the Endura's ATS-55). Most of the knives I bought in the Ti-lite's price range had superior handle materials, such as G10 and aluminum. None of the other knives exhibited such abysmal quality control as the Ti-lite, with the Shallot being the only other one which had slightly uneven secondary edge grinds (which were so subtle, it took me nearly a week to notice the flaw) and the Endura being the only one with unfixable blade wiggle (unfixable because of its pinned construction).
This particular Cold Steel certainly wasn't a useless chunk of scrap, and don't get that impression. It was a MUCH better knife than some of the other knives I've used and owned (ex: Ontario rat-1, Gerber Guardian, Gerber Remix). It performed well, given the not-so-practical blade shape, and TBQH, I still think they look cool as hell - a switchblade for people who can't legally own switchblades. I was tempted to get one of the Aluminum ones, but I was pretty hesitant, given my experience with the last one. Plus they combine thumb studs with a wave-type opener AND a little bitty flipper to boot. Still, there are far better knives to be had for the money from several brands.
TL;DR: Compared to most of the knives in my collection, this particular Cold Steel knife exhibited relatively poor construction and mediocre materials. Numerous superior options are available for an equal or lower cost.
Seeing as how that was long winded and boring as hell, I'm not even going to get into the issues I had with the tomahawks I bought from them. Suffice it to say I had similar experiences with the quality of these items and they needed quite a bit of work to be serviceable.
As for my objections to their marketing, I find that they constantly over-hype their products, exaggerating the quality of their materials and build.
For example, here's their blurb on AUS8: "at Cold Steel® we use AUS 8A Stainless, a high carbon, low chromium steel that has proven itself to be the ultimate compromise between toughness and strength, edge holding, and resistance to corrosion. ".
Pretty much the best steel ever, right?
Similarly, here's their blurb on VG1: "we tested seven different grades of steel including Shiro 2, V-SP-2, 10A, 440C, VG-10, ATS 34, and VG-1. Physical testing for sharpness, edge retention, point strength, shock, and ultimate blade strength showed that while many of the steels had increased performance in one or two testing categories, only one, VG-1, showed the greatest performance increases in the most critical categories. With an outstanding ability to retain an edge and proven strength in point and blade tests, VG-1 will provide Cold Steel® customers with superior performance previously unavailable in a stainless steel blade."
Wow! VG-1 offers a superior performance which was totally unattainable until Cold Steel started using this stuff! When was that? 2006 or so? Plus, it's way better than VG10 and ATS-34, they even tested it, therefore it must be true.
Ad that borderline dishonesty to their past attacks on other companies' knives (ex: their attack on Gerber when they released the applegate Covert folder, seen here), their hilarious 'testing' videos, and their past knock-offs of other folks' designs, and I start to find their marketing practices objectionable.
TL;DR: I object to their marketing because I have found it to be chock full of bull shugar in the past. This may not be an issue for some people, and it has not prevented me from buying their stuff, but I do find it to be a distasteful thing for a company to do. Having said that, I have not seen distasteful stuff like that from them in recent years, since they've discontinued almost all of the questionable designs and such.
There, you asked so I divulged. I'm getting kind of tired of talking about these guys. :yawn:
