Hi all,
A few bits I can add in here...
Bought 2 of the Cold Steel Black Bear Classics here in Australia a while back - one of the best designed fighting knives I've seen (originally a Bob Loveless design from memory) - and I love the subhilt style fighter anyway...
HOWEVER - both of them had LOUSY edge grinds and whats worse I found out later on that the heat treatment was *SH*T*... Out of the shop neither of them could hardly hold an edge:-( (I just assumed they had been there a 'long time'...)
Managed to track down some email addresses at Cold Steel and emailed them (about a year ago) - and still no reply to this day...
WORST case of ZERO customer service I've seen...
OBVIOUSLY don't fancy calling all the way to the US (from Australia) to try and get something done about this - I found out later on that Cold Steel themselves had been unhappy themselves with the first few runs of these knives because they were made in Taiwan and the consistency of quality just wasn't there - I believe they now make the Black Bear Classic in the US instead (which is fine for everyone else except ME - with $1200 Australian invested in two DUD Cold Steel knives...:-(
To be fair, I spent ages on one of them and completely reground/finished the edges by hand - it is now MUCH better than the one that is untouched - but because the tempering is rubbish it still has to be touched up far too frequently...
All in all a VERY disappointing experience because the actual DESIGN of the knife is brilliant... (I'd still LOVE to get a really GOOD QUALITY KNIFE with the exact same design)...
I still reckon that Cold Steel has got some GREAT designs and some really WELL made knives (I think the Vacquero Grande is the BEST large factory lockback for the money out there right now) - but obviously they aren't consistent - some of their stuff is brilliant and other stuff is... Well, about the same as the Pakistani rubbish you guys have been talking about...
From personal experience I would NEVER buy ANY bladeware made in ANY Asian country - apart from Japan that is - the Jap stuff is good...
Moral of the story - I assumed I was okay because I was buying something with a NAME on it - this *doesn't* always work though
My 2 cents...