Tops/Buck CSAR-T initial impressions

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fox1970

Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Messages
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Just received this Tops/ Buck CSAR-T 3 days ago. Initial impression is good, knife is extremely overbuilt and decent materials are used, ATS-34 steel, g-10 scales.....Blade is a uniquely designed modified Tanto and is pretty thick at 3/16. Lock is a liner but its pretty thick and seems like it will hold, I'm not a big liner lock fan) however, this knife appears to be quite substantially built. Contrasting it to previous Buck collaborations, like the strider SBMF Buck, this liner is quite an improvement. Additional observations include a decent hollow grind, beginning about mid blade, ambidextrous thumb-stud and reversible tip up pocket clip. The American made CSAR-T comes with a very usable nylon sheath with multiple carry options. Buck and Tops websites talk about the optional 1/4 tool kit available for the knife. On one side of the lanyard hole the liner has a hex socket that accepts most 1/4 bits, as of yet I have not tested this feature. I have, however, thrashed the CSAR-T pretty hard and so far have been quite impressed for an knife at the under $100.00 price point. Blade shape is very well suited for all utility tasks and still maintains some tactical ability ,at least in my opinion. Jimping is good and the ats 34 blade treated with the Paul Bos proprietary heat treat appears to hold an edge very well. I have been collecting for over twenty years and own many knives including 50 or 60 Bucks. However, the CSAR-T is my first experience with Tops , so far so good. Despite it's heavy weight (almost 9 ounces ) and its chubby width, I plan to edc this for a while I'm sure I'll have fun testing this knife for the next couple of weeks at work & at home. If any body else has any thoughts on this knife I'd like to hear it................Fox
 
I held this one a few different times - and just couldn't warm up to it.

Very heavy, and reminiscent of a sharpened pry bar. I also struggled with the few I held in that the blades were severly off center - that bothers me.

I was glad to see that Buck thickened the liner lock on this - several other Buck folders I had were sporting very thin steel liner locks - a little concerning.

It does look like it would excel in the hands of search and rescue personnel, LEO or EMT.

I like hard use knives, but after buying many sharpened prybars I admitted to myself I need slicers more than car trunk openers.

I like Buck knives - have several - just starting to stray away from the "chunk of metal" style of knives.

I'm glad to see you are enjoying yours - and would be interested to know how it holds up long term to some serious use.
 
yeah, poor alignment has been really bothering me, called Buck, they assured me that they would take care of it, so I'm sending it back ASAP. I'm confident that Buck will make good on it. Definitely agree about the resemblance to a "prybar' but that's whats cool about the CSAR-T, and a divergence from many of the other pieces in my collection like SOG and Benchmades, which are more 'surgical.' Anyway thanks for the input , glad to see I'm not the only one sensitive to blade alignment , :).... Fox
 
That weight seems to be way too much to carry on a daily basis.... I think if I was willing to carry a kniife that weighs over a half a pound, I would probably just carry a fixed blade. Does have a cool collectibility factor tho...
 
I just bought this knife a couple of months ago. To everyone's point it is a heavy knife which I happen to like. This knife is made out of great materials (G10, ats-34) and the locking is as solid as it gets. The edge retention is excellent and I love the geometry of the blade. I carry as my edc and you will feel it no doubt. It is also less than $85 at the following link: http://yourcornerstore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=5220 . Highly recommend this knife. Here is the picture people were asking for.
bu95bkstpb.jpg
 
I really like it. Bought a, they don't understand him at any time the prize? What is the award? Why the prize? Thank you for teaching
 
Do not keep bumping up old threads adding nothing.
 
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