Is this common on the recon tantos?

Bigfitz

Bigfitz

Joined
May 29, 2013
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I just bought my first Cold Steel knife, the recon 1 with a tanto blade. I like the knife. Seems tough, g10 is very "grippy", and it's pretty damn sharp. The thing that is bothering me a bit is that the edge isn't ground to the choil. Is this a common issue ?
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Yep, and because of the thickening blade grind before the sharpening choil it makes it a total head scratcher. If your going to provide a sharpening notch (which I think is pointless) then why abruptly increase blade thickness? Personally, I would rather have the blade thicken and the edge grind stop short than have a notch at the back of the blade that catches on everything.
 
They changed the grind on the 2017 Recon 1s. But if yours is flat dark earth then I guess they didn't do the tantos. What color is yours? Flat dark earth is a new color for this year. But all the new ones should have a grind that goes all the way back. Flat instead of hollow ground I believe. Change was also made on the Ultimate Hunter and I'm curious to find out about the American Lawman. If they made the change on the Lawman, I'll probably get one.
 
Thanks Jason. It looks like crap but I'm ok with that as I'm going to use this as a work knife. It's going to get pretty abused so maybe with time and sharpening I can extend the grind a bit.


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It's flat dark earth and appears to be hollow ground so it must be an older one Blade HQ wanted to sell before sending out the new models.

Oops I just saw that you said FDE is a new color for this year. The blade does look hollow ground though
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If it was a Coyote Tan one this grind would be "normal". My FDE Clip Point one is ground all the way to the choil and it's flat
 
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Hmmm, that's weird. Either the tanto didn't get changed or they are just using up the old blades. I'm guessing they're just using up the old blades.
I have an old hollow ground Recon 1. I'd prefer if it were ground to the choil but I'm pretty happy with the hollow grind.
 
It might have something to do with CS not wanting to grind into the curve or arc up to the thicker, tang part, in order to preserve maximum strength. I've noticed the same with my American Lawman and Recon 1 drop-point. I figured it wouldn't affect the cutting performance in any way so left mine unsharpened.
 
This design is common with a lot of Cold Steel's folders. It does add lateral strength to the blade. The only thing that bothers me, is they left the sharpening choil. It has no use that I can see. In theory, you could sharpen all the way to the choil. The edge would grow taller as the blade thickened and the result would be quite ugly IMO.
 
The FDE spear point I recently got is sharpened all the way to the notch and is (or at least appears to me to be) flat ground. Like hermit says, the grind you have is common on previous models. I have several CS folders (Talwar, Lawman, etc.) that are like this, and it's not a big deal from a functional standpoint, but I do think it looks weird.

edit: The orange Ultimate Hunter I just got is sort of in between. It's ground to within 1mm of the ricasso (no sharpening notch), whereas the previous ones had a larger unsharpened area in front of the ricasso. The unsharpened area on mine is small enough that it looks like I'll be able to sharpen it out. We'll see when I do my first full resharpening on it.
 
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Just had one arrive today, sharpened all the way to the choil. Also as others have mentioned, these newer ones seem flat ground. Definitely not the same hollow grind from previous batches. I will say the fit and finish is dead perfect. Centering, action and sharpening job are without fault.

 
Nice pic. It's possible that the tantos are the exception and they are keeping the hollow grind with notch. Too bad Cold Steel doesn't actively monitor this board because they could provide valuable information without us having to speculate.
 
The American Lawman Flat Dark Earth was just released and it also is ground all the way back now. So it probably changed to a flat grind like the Recon 1 and the Ultimate Hunter.
 
Mick_1KRR said:
Just had one arrive today, sharpened all the way to the choil. Also as others have mentioned, these newer ones seem flat ground. Definitely not the same hollow grind from previous batches. I will say the fit and finish is dead perfect. Centering, action and sharpening job are without fault.

Click to expand...

Damn, so all the colors they are doing have the flat grind and sharpening choil as of 2017? I noticed on BladeHQ the brown G10 handled Recons had sharpening choils except for the tanto. Where did you order yours?
 
Hello all,
to be honest for me it is still not clear, if Cold Steel uses flat or hollow grind for these models.
There are different information in the internet: Some say hollow some are saying flat

Can someone check if those Cold Steel knives (Recon 1 spear point, American Lawman and Ultimate Hunter) have a real flat grind or "just" a shallow hollow grind, as it is descriped in the youtube video below for the AL?

AF said:
They changed the grind on the 2017 Recon 1s. ... Flat instead of hollow ground I believe. Change was also made on the Ultimate Hunter and I'm curious to find out about the American Lawman. ...
Click to expand...

insta9ves said:
Grind change also happened to American Lawman. Just got the new FDE and it's now flat grind. They also fixed the sharpened area so it now extends all the way back without leaving a small un-sharpened area.
Check out this video(not mine) to see what the new one looks like:

Click to expand...
 
Thank you for the feedback!
So a dealer which gave me "hollow grind" as answer, is wrong - don`t surprise me, it seems a lot of dealers are not big experts for special questions
 
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The tantos are still hollow ground. I got one today, and the sharpening does stop short of the mini Choil. This is going to sound stupid, but I am pretty sure the do it to prevent being cut when closing the blade.

I have the spear and clip (flat ground). You can close both of those with the blade edge well away from your index finger. Not so with the tanto. If it was sharpened to the choil, you would get cut. I would have thought they would have enlarged the choil, keeping it thick.
 
Looks like we’re on the same boat.

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This hasn’t really bothered me. I don’t think it drastically affects knife function. Although I do think I would have preferred a sharp even edge all the way to the sharpening choil.
 
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