review: Cold Steel Voyager 3"

A

alnico357

Joined
Nov 29, 2005
Messages
46
I started carrying my clip point plain edged Voyger in March 1999. I got it mainly for self defense but have used it to slit shrink wrap on drug packages
(I'm a pharmacist), cut up my steak, chicken, oranges, apples etc. Its point can neatly cut out newspaper clippings. I cut twine on hay bales and carry it while running and sweating. It hasn't rusted. It is very light in the pocket and easily resharpened. The lock is very positive and strong. I've had no failures. I have the older model with the clip that is part of the body. I do not trust the clip and keep the knife down in my pocket where I want it to be anyway.

I have not subjected it to any bizarre torture tests, just used it day to day for whatever. I've got no gripes with this knife and would buy another one.
Andy
 
The small (official Starbucks style name Medium) Cold Steel Voyager was the knife that got me addicted to pocket clips and one hand openers. When I was in my teens I carried a Buck 110 everywhere and could snap it open with flair. That nearly destroyed the lock. Then I got a real job and couldn't carry a knife on my belt anymore, so I traded it in on a Puma 971 Game Warden lock back that seemed a nicer knife than the Buck but after a while I discovered that it was still too big for comfortable pocket carry.

That's when I adopted a SAK as my primary EDC. I carried a couple different SAKs for several years and still carry one to this day as part of my EDC kit (Cybertool 29), although these days it's nearly never called on to cut anything.

I'd sort of always wanted a classic Cold Steel Tanto or Master Tanto and when I saw they were making pocket clip folders, I had to have one. I bought a small plain edge Voyager with the original molded in clip. It was a great knife! I used it all the time. It became my primary cutting tool. After a while my pocket clip broke and when I sent it in to be repaired, CS sent me a newer model with a replacable steel clip. It was an even better knife! These were Japanese models and I believe had AUS8 steel. At one point, I had most of the variants of the Medium Voyager.

After 9/11 and reading the story about the window washer that scratched his way out of an elevator with his brass squegee and made it to safety before the towers fell, I decided that I needed a sturdier knife, just in case. That search led me to purchase a small Sebenza and retire my Cold Steel Voyager. It also led me to Blade Forums and a host of knife aquisitions and knifemaking adventures since.

While these days you're more likely to catch me carrying a Microtech, or a CRK, or perhaps a limited Edition Benchmade, it was the Voyager that got me really hooked on modern folders. I still have two of them, a plain edged clip point model that I got for $5.00 at a Cold Steel parking lot sale a few years ago (perhaps my best knife deal ever) and a combo edge tanto that rides in my laptop case with my WAVE just in cas eI airhead out and leave teh house without my EDC Du Jour and my Cybertool which happens about twice a year.

The little Voyagers aren't what they used to be since moving production to China and moving to 420 steel, but the designs have never let me down.
 
For a complete knife review, we're going to have to ask you to tie the knife to a rope and drag it along behind you in the car. Then you'll need to reach 68 mph for at least half an hour. Once at your workplace, please grab it by the handle and whack the blade repeatedly against the counter or other hard object and count the number of times before the blade is as dull as a bar of soap. Then put the blade between your chair and your desk and see how far you can bend it before the whole thing snaps in two. Finally, log back in and let us know how it went.

We require very extensive reviews here. :cool:


2100.jpg

No need to go this far!


== Confed
 
The little Voyagers aren't what they used to be since moving production to China and moving to 420 steel, but the designs have never let me down.
Click to expand...

Wait a minute...what?? The Voyagers are made of AUS 8 steel. Only one or two of their knives use 420 and I'm not aware of any of their folders being made of it.

== Confed
 
OK, that's good info. I was unaware of that. I thought they had cheaped out on the steel on the Voyagers.
 
I was prepared to totally destroy my 7 year old AUS8 Voyager in the name of a good knife review but just in case they are now made in China of 420 I must decline :)

When I get in my CRKT Edgie maybe I'll destroy it- I plan on cutting a lot of cardboard with it.
Andy
 
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