Opinions on Cold Steel

When they used xhp steel, I purchased several. They did a great job with that steel. The Code 4 clip and Recon 1 clip are my favorites. The Code 4 is classy and seems smaller than it really with its thin aluminum handles. I am curious to see the atlas lock they are coming out with. I guess you would say that it is their spin on Demko's shark lock.
 
The Grendels said:
I've had an uneven relationship with Cold Steel over the years. I was put off by the over the top crazy marketing, resulting in me avoiding them for decades. Once I finally reconciled them as a company that made good knives, with great locks, I started to buy them. Now that GSM have gotten their mitts on them, after a ton of layoffs and knife designers cut adrift, I'm uncertain about what kind of a future they'll have. I've recently focused on buying some older models before they're degraded or vanish, especially ones designed by Andrew Demko, but even with a few still to get I'm taking a break from Cold Steel to pay more attention to companies that look like they're headed in the right direction. If those knives I still want aren't available when I circle back for them, then so be it. There are always plenty of knives out there to choose from and I already feel like I've been rewarding them for poor management decisions by buying as many as I have lately.

51883930362_1b21477b65_b.jpg
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GSM isn’t necessarily to blame for this one, but I’m sad to see Andrew Demko go. Most of my CS favorites are Demko designs. The 2022 knives don’t appeal to me as much as previous designs like the Recon 1 and Voyager.

Awesome book and blades there.
 
opinions on coldsteel??!
the brand has a reputation
slightly larger than life.
means different things
to different people.
but generally holding a coldsteel folder
feels something like this....

hard to let go once accustomed...

oh and btw ....
the gun holds six bullets, each weighing 136 g (4.7 oz), with a calibre of 28 mm (1.1 in).
 
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I still get all the love for the Triad Lock short of it being ridiculously strong. Granted, I only have two examples of it, but the amount of fiddle/wiggle has caused me to almost nick myself a couple times.

I'm used to a lock where you disengage it and the blade starts to move/fall. I guess because it sorta behaves like a lockback and sorta behaves like a compression lock. But I have spent years either depressing the lock on something like a 110 and fanning it closed on my leg, or relaxing the tension on something like an Endura where the blade is free and I just sort of do a reverse Spydie drop/balisong close where the weight of the blade snaps the knife shut as I flick it toward the handle.

Both my Voyager and Counter Point 1 require a press on the lock (obviously) and then sort of a little wiggle to get it to release the rest of the way. The CP has almost no real-estate between the edge and the swell on the handle, so doing the Spydie drop where the kick/choil stops on your finger is a no-go and almost resulted in a very mild bite.

Then again, I feel pretty well served/stuck on the old school trifecta of the back, frame, and liner locks.

I have also noticed that what I thought was drag on the liners of the CP, is actually a good bit of grit (maybe due to lack of polish?) Where the tang of the blade grinds along as the first part of the lock engages. It's the first 1/4 of travel as you open the knife. It feels gravelly. I'm not sure if it is a bit of roughness on the tang or the lock. I may take it apart at some point out of curiosity and see if i can clean it up. It doesn't affect the performance or lock up. It's just weird.
 
DocJD said:
Most Cold Steel (pre-sale) hate is for the founder's brash personality and his aggressive , non-apoligetic testing and proof videos .

He was hard selling , mostly weapons that were designed for hard use and usually a great value for what you paid .

He was a great salesman and sold primarily to his market base . Very successfully and for a long time .

If you hate weaponized blades and all kinds of other such martially oriented stuff , you aren't gonna love OLD CS .

Lots of competing companies and their supporters , also did not appreciate LCT directly comparing their favorite and usually much more expensive brand's models .

I you don't understand or like were LTC was coming from as a martial artist , I can understand the haters .

But the GSM buyers have no apparent understanding or interest except to bleed the brand name dry for maximum profits .

You can still buy a lot of the OLD CS , but don't wait , if you want any .
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Well said IMO. [beer]
 
Wild Willie said:
Thanks to you bunch of enablers I finally decided to pull the trigger on my first cold steel. I had a few bucks worth of credit at DLT, so there's a mini tuff lite on the way. Worst case scenario I can give it to my dad or brother.
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You did good. I've got a brother who's a roofer. Hard working feela. Uses his tools alot. Last time I saw him he saw my mini Tuff Lite and just loved the utilitarian design. I too think it's a great working knife, but it's my brother, and his bday had just passed, so I just gave it to him as a late gift. It was in my pocket, but almost like new. He has givin me updates since then, and he's been very happy with it.
 
cold steel and spyderco are my favorite knives because they are well made and reliable, make lockbacks which i prefer most, and use frn handles which i prefer most. they are affordable and will last you a lifetime if not abused and can be easily replaced if lost. the extra large bowie voyager has become one of my recent favorite edcs. ive tried almost every other brand, and even when i had way more expensive knives i would always leave them at home and grab the voyager or endura for actual carry so i sold most of my other stuff.

also i think i remember reading somewhere on these forums that sal glesser did help out lynn thompson/cold steel in their early days, i dont remember how though but there is a connection there

charlie mike was a big fan of the cold steel bush ranger, he did a great review on it that i always like to post for people who are interested in knowing about cold steels quality
 
This was posted Feb. 2020, a knife maker ratings list from YTer Cedric and Ada Outdoors; showed up on my recommended list this morning.

Anyone wanna know which two knife makers ended up at the top tier?

 
I like Cold Steel and have several of their offerings. You cannot deny their legitimate
place in the knife world, not to mention the
weapons and self defense world.
Boasting strong and robust blades, along with one of the strongest blade locking mechanisms.
As mentioned, sharp 'out of the box', tough & reliable knives suited for numerous uses and applications.
At this point, as also said, since Lynn Thompson
and Andrew Demko 'have left the building'
the future of Cold Steel remains questionable.
BTB. 😶
Joshua J. said:
The biggest difference between the two companies is where Sal has concentrated on serving a utility focused community through direct input and interaction, Lynn focused on serving the Martial Arts community as an extension of his own interests, again, both have been wildly successful in filling their individual niche.
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Spyderco has a fair amount of Martial Art & Self Defense knives available.
Steely_Gunz said:
CS wiggle
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Steely's doin' the 'Cold Steel Wiggle'
Lol, 😄
Wolverine666 said:
I wonder which knife company would be the opposite of Cold Steel (?
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The opposite would clearly be 'Sold Steel'
or GSM
BTB 😎
 
POCEH KOCEB said:
IMO, all those new locks by Demko and Cold Steel are nice and interesting,
but inferior to the Triad lock and in essence - solution to non-existing problem.
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Yeah, I was reading and it was like "Holds even MORE weight than the Tri-Ad lock!", oh, great! I was getting tired of only letting four men hang off of my Cold Steel, I wanna DRIVE on 'em! I wanna put two AD-10s at an angle on the curb and drive a Pinto up them like it was a ramp!!
 
Billy The Blade said:
I like Cold Steel and have several of their offerings. You cannot deny their legitimate
place in the knife world, not to mention the
weapons and self defense world.
Boasting strong and robust blades, along with one of the strongest blade locking mechanisms.
As mentioned, sharp 'out of the box', tough & reliable knives suited for numerous uses and applications.
At this point, as also said, since Lynn Thompson
and Andrew Demko 'have left the building'
the future of Cold Steel remains questionable.
BTB. 😶
Click to expand...
That is the thing, I don't care about the boots or car hoods, there is no pretense when you slip a CS XL into your pocket for a walk. I like that they aren't always pretending that it is a utility knife.
 
Albin said:
This was posted Feb. 2020, a knife maker ratings list from YTer Cedric and Ada Outdoors; showed up on my recommended list this morning.

Anyone wanna know which two knife makers ended up at the top tier?

Click to expand...
Two minutes in and I love it. I could pick the two-three Gerber knives I am interested in from their warehouse and be done with that brand forever. A MK II, a Prybrid X and a Strongarm, for a tough beater.
EDIT: I would also snag a Gerber Paraframe just to throw in the metal recycling scrap bin and do my part in making sure metal waste isn't floating around out there. Somebody is bound to throw that bih in the river or out polluting the groundwater something and I don't wanna risk people adding to the pollution of rivers. Please do not shoot any pellet or bullet into our beautiful rivers and do not throw your Paraframes in the river.
 
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I think any discussion about Cold Steel here on BF is weird. Personally, when they were were making their bones I thought the knives as well as Spyderco's offerings were ugly. I grew up with stag/bone/rare wood handles on knives, even work knives. An exception was Delrin (I know there were many other scale materials, but too many to list here) and some kind of cousin of Bakelite/phenolic used by Buck on their folders. Hand fitted blades on folders, even in big production knives like Buck and Schrade were the norm. Put the knife together, fit it for operation, sand it to remove as many defects as the price of the knife could stand, polish it and ship it.

So along comes CS and Spyderco. To me and mine, we thought that a pile of riveted parts (before the Spyderco fanboys start, take a look here: https://forum.spyderco.com/viewtopic.php?t=21508 ) was a pile of crap. FRN handles, rivets like the rest of the gas station/bargain bin sporting goods knives, soft stainless blades... what wasn't to like about CS and Spyderco? Everyone I knew hated them. As construction guys that hunted, fished, and camped, etc., we still didn't get the idea of a carrying type "utility" knife that put use and utility over beauty. Our knives worked fine, they were carbon, they were pretty, had stag/bone/stacked leather handles, and we liked them that way.

Reading here, I never would have thought to buy a Cold Steel knife for work (or any) use. Who was that idiot pretending to make semi-marshal arts moves while chopping flesh, punching holes in metal, standing on his open folders, and on an on. I was on with the BF ethos... what a jerk! What a moron! I didn't understand at the time how effective his efforts were; people were posting LINKS to his videos on BF just so they could share their outrage together! Someone would try to top it and find a more outrageous video, and post a hot link to that one! Free advertising to show how sturdy and sharp his knives were, posted on a knife forum! Brilliant! I later talked to a friend of mine that met Lyn at a gun show, and he said Lyn got a kick out of doing those videos and sometimes it hard to keep a straight face while making them. His videos laying on a machine behind them in the CS booth while talking, he said Lyn would glance back at the video of him doing some nonesense and chuckle.

But I never would have owned a CS product except I was contacted off board by a maker/modifier. He bought an American Lawman, took it apart, cleaned off that miserable black paint on the blade, polished the TriAd lock pieces, modified the pocket clip a bit, and lightly sanded the scales. He sent me a bunch of pictures of his redo, and a testimonial from its good use on the ranch he was working on as a hand. Bought one, only did the pocket clip mods (figured the paint would wear off in its own) and took it to work. I was hooked. I have several now, all are the sturdiest work knives I own. They all have years of job site work in them now, the exception being the AD10 which is just too damn pretty to take out to cut gritty, dirty materials and get adhesives stuck to it.

I do think it weird though, with all the fiery disgust for Lyn, his products, his marketing and videos that there is kind of a melancholy wish for the "old" Cold Steel, pre GSM. Just posting "Cold Steel" here would get a lot of folks declaring they could NEVER buy a knife from a man that acted like Lyn to promote something as solemn as a knife. I am surprised that there are those that wish the for the old leadership, now take the old videos with a grain of salt, some even find them amusing now. VERY strange.

Change of ownership almost always means a change in direction of a company and a change in the way they do business. I hope CS can survive GSM and continue making great utility style knives without Lyn and Andrew, but that remains to be seen. Lyn was an innovator and had more bizarre stuff in his catalogue (blow guns... really?) than any other knife maker/seller/manufacturer I can think of. Seems like he always had something cooking, something new in the catalogue. No doubt that will go away as he seemed to still have a lot of genuine enthusiasm for anything with an edge on it. Selling to a conglomerate will probably at the least, shrink the CS catalogue.

Guys talking now about not buying CS now, at this time blaming GSM and the fact they didn't answer their phones after CS was sold probably were never going to buy them anyway, so no loss. Just another reason to complain about something. For now, I would think if you buy your CS from a responsible dealer, you will be fine. If you get as CS knife that works as advertised, I can't imagine one breaking under even "hard use". I bought some of my CS knives when they had a "limited" warranty, and have never had to think once about using any warranty. Hopefully it stays that way.
 
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midnight flyer said:
I think any discussion about Cold Steel here on BF is weird. Personally, when they were were making their bones I thought the knives as well as Spyderco's offerings were ugly. I grew up with stag/bone/rare wood handles on knives, even work knives. An exception was Delrin (I know there were many other scale materials, but too many to list here) and some kind of cousin of Bakelite/phenolic used by Buck on their folders. Hand fitted blades on folders, even in big production knives like Buck and Schrade were the norm. Put the knife together, fit it for operation, sand it to remove as many defects as the price of the knife could stand, polish it and ship it.

So along comes CS and Spyderco. To me and mine, we thought that a pile of riveted parts (before the Spyderco fanboys start, take a look here: https://forum.spyderco.com/viewtopic.php?t=21508 ) was a pile of crap. FRN handles, rivets, soft stainless... what wasn't to like about CS and Spyderco. Everyone I knew hated them. As construction guys that hunted, fished, and camped, etc., we still didn't get the idea of a carrying type "utility" knife that put use and utility over beauty. Our knives worked fine, they were carbon, they were pretty, had stag, and we liked them that way.

Reading here, I never would have thought to buy a Cold Steel knife for work (or any) use. Who was that idiot pretending to make semi-marshal arts moves while chopping flesh, punching holes in metal, standing on his open folders, and on an on. I was on with the BF ethos, what a jerk! What a moron! I didn't understand at the time how effective his efforts were... people post LINKS to his videos on BF just so they could share their outrage together! Someone would try to top it and find a more outrageous video, and post a hot link to that one! Free advertising to show how sturdy and sharp his knives were, posted on a knife forum! Brilliant! I later talked to a friend of mine that met Lyn at a gun show, and he said he got a kick out of doing those videos and sometimes it hard to keep a straight face while making them. Playing on a video behind them while talking, he said Lyn would glance back at the video of him doing some nonesense and chuckle.

But I never would have owned a CS product except I was contacted off board by a maker/modifier. He bought an American Lawman, took it apart, cleaned off that miserable black paint on the blade, polished the TriAd lock pieces, modified the pocket clip a bit, and lightly sanded the scales. He sent me a bunch of pictures of his redo, and a testimonial from its good use on the ranch he was working on as a hand. Bought one, only did the pocket clip mods (figured the paint would wear off in its own) and took it to work. I was hooked. I have several now, all are the sturdiest work knives I own. They all have years of job site work in them now, the exception being the AD10 which is just too damn pretty to take out to cut gritty, dirty materials and get adhesives stuck to it.

I do think it weird though, with all the fiery disgust for Lyn, his products, his marketing and videos that there is kind of a melancholy wish for the "old" Cold Steel, pre GSM. Just posting "Cold Steel" here would get a lot of folks declaring they could NEVER buy a knife from a man that acted like Lyn to promote something as solemn as a knife. I am surprised that there are those that wish the for the old leadership, now take the old videos with a grain of salt, some even find them amusing now. VERY strange.

Change of ownership almost always means a change in direction of a company and a change in the way they do business. I hope CS can survive GSM and continue making great utility style knives without Lyn and Andrew, but that remains to be seen. Lyn was an innovator and had more bizarre stuff in his catalogue (blow guns... really?) than any other knife maker/seller/manufacturer I can think of. Seems like he always had something cooking, something new in the catalogue. No doubt that will go away as he seemed to still have a lot of genuine enthusiasm for anything with an edge on it. Selling to a conglomerate will probably at the least, shrink the CS catalogue.

Guys talking now about not buying CS now, at this time blaming GSM and the fact they didn't answer their phones after CS was sold probably were never going to buy them anyway, so no loss. Just another reason to complain about something. For now, I would think if you buy your CS from a responsible dealer, you will be fine. If you get as CS knife that works as advertised, I can't imagine one breaking under even "hard use". I bought some of my CS knives when they had a "limited" warranty, and have never had to think once about using any warranty.
Click to expand...

By the way, it's Lynn. :)
 
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