cold steel vaquero grand is a huge ass knife, but cold steel.
Oh, come on! Cold Steel makes exceptional knives. They're well designed, the heat treat is exceptional and they make large folders.
A number of years ago they issued a number of knives with 440A steel, which isn't very well regarded here, but the knives got good reviews, came out of box so sharp they cut people and, frankly, CS's 440A was better than most other companies' AUS8.
The knives had exceptional locks, came with 5- and 6-inch polished blades (while other companies had ugly bead blast finishes) and they couldn't be easily destroyed. Other companies continued to use liner lock designs, which were becoming increasingly unpopular with knife users.
This isn't to say liner locks are bad, but they were what most of the "cheapies" used and they're not the strongest on the market, which is why CS doesn't use them.
One knife I like is the Ti-Lite, which cuts, digs weeds and is good for self defense. But any of the 6-inchers could do it. And today, there's not a folding knife that's as strong or as big as some of the CS knives, especially the Rajah II. The Rajah can chop wood or ice, while the $450 pocket knives have a hard time trimming one's nails.
But there's a place for all knives. Maxam makes a knife that has a 6-inch blade. I bought a BOX of them, hoping my wife would use them for cutting and weeding around the yard (instead of my good CS knives). Well, she's still on her first Maxam and my CS knives are as purty as ever. (In fact, the Maxam knife she uses still locks up fine and can be sharpened to a vicious sharp...and while it doesn't hold the edge as well as better knives, it does get sharp -- which is more than I can say for
all of the Böker Magnum knives with 440A blades I've ever bought. You can just sharpen them all day long and you still don't know which part of the blade to work on they're so dull. So at least the Maxams, with their 420 blades, sharpened up much better than the blades on the Magnums.
Bottom line: The Cold Steel knives are tough, strong, purty, reliable, relatively inexpensive, and they have excellent heat treatment, making their edge retention as good as it can be.
They've made some bad choices this year, but I bought plenty of the ones I liked before they were discontinued or went up in price.
I don't apologize for liking them just as those fellers who spend a bunch of C-bills for their knives don't apologize none.