Truthfully, has anyone on here ever had a cold steel knife fail???

Currently I am using a Leatherneck, trying to break it with reasonable use and some minor abuse, no luck so far. Leather spacers are on order :D

I think the machete's are about as indestructible as any other on the market, but they need alot of edge work out of the box.

The Tomahawks are awesome, that entire line is alot of functional steel for a price that isn't matched anywhere in the industry.
 
I've never hurt one or seen one break but it's definitely possible and even probable nowadays.

They do a good job of designing the knives and other goodies to be rugged and dependable.
 
I bent a CS hawk numerous years ago, the blade/head were pretty tweeked. I was chopping some hard wood when it happened.
 
Like Ankerson,I've been using CS products on and off since the mid eighties,no problems.
 
It's no secret that I am a big CS fan. However I do have to put it out there that all knives made by reputable manufacturers really will not fail under any sort of rational use, and many of them will not fail under a lot of irrational use.

CS products sure are fun and inexpensive though :thumbup:
 
I've beat the living day lights out of more than a handful of Cold Steel folders over the years since they first started the company. Still have some of those old folders from the 80's and others from the 90's to current day and I think the current folders are the best for durability that they've ever contracted to have built. You can find lemons in any mass produced products and you may hear tell of some cases where a Cold Steel Triad folder had something go wrong or even broke or failed in some way but one or two isolated cases mean what exactly? I don't count some of them as much more than the result of someone doing things with their folders that pushed the system to the point that something had to give. Anyone can do that if they try hard enough as this can happen with any of them as we all know. If you get one that is done right I think you'll see that the Triad walks the walk though and is sure up there in the top three for me for what it brings to the table. While other locks can claim much the same attributes for strength and perhaps reliability, convenience of use and so on I doubt that those other types of locks would take the same sudden striking force shocks from high impact abuse and end up in as good a shape as the Cold Steel would in the end. My guess is that several other lock types could stand up to the same tests as those shown by Cold Steel but I doubt if they'd match up to the Triad lock part for part of that test and particularly the strikings to the spine and over striking which would likely be the game changer part of the testing. Some folders exhibit a great deal of strength but even that can be judged two ways I would say. Strength in what way? Free hanging weights from static load tests? Or are we talking about the strength of a good set up that can take some shocks and abuses that way? Both do different types of damage to the lock system and both have merit but other than this neither can duplicate what forces are seen in the human hand during many uses that often time will exhibit lateral and twisting stresses among other things.

Lockback designs typically do better than liner or frame locks in testing from these twisting type lateral torques on the handle so I doubt the Triad would behave any differently here than other lockback designs.
I've beat on my Rajah 1 folder for a year now using it routinely to trim back overgrowth of shrubs and branches that can scratch our vehicles coming through our long drive to the garage. The largest sapling I've chopped down using that folding knife is one that measured about 3 and 1/4" across or about 9" if you ran a string around the tree and marked where the ends meet. The Rajah 1 is unphased by this just like it has been unimpressed with all the other work I've made it do. I don't have many other folders that could be used this way and not be affected.

STR
 
I own these Cold Steel products:


COLD STEEL AMERICAN LAWMAN
COLD STEEL MINI LAWMAN
COLD STEEL RECON 1 CLIP POINT
COLD STEEL LARGE VOYAGER
COLD STEEL MEDIUM VOYAGER
COLD STEEL SRK (AUS-8A)
COLD STEEL SRK ( CARBON-5)
COLD STEEL BUSHMAN
COLD STEEL KUKRI
COLD STEEL PENDLETON HUNTER
COLD STEEL PENDLETON LITE HUNTER (2)
COLD STEEL READY-EDGE
COLD STEEL MASTER HUNTER

Never had a problem with any of them. Even my old Voyagers with the fixed pivot pin still lock up solid with very little blade play. All have been a good investment with no regrets.
 
DrivebyTrucker said:
I'm going to break my SF Shovel. I'm determined to do so. I've only used it once so far. I can't imagine it can take much pounding.
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i think you're going to be surprised at how durable it actually is -- I had to replace the handle on mine becuase it was being used in a 2 day hawk throwing demo and I was using it to teach folks how to throw. other than that, no issues in close to 20 years.

BJE said:
Not a knife, but I puchased one of their hawks for throwing and I had broken it the same day I bought it, was throwing it and some other knives at this big crosscut log section I hung from a tree, did great for about 20 throws, then the handle broke off just past the head at the thicker part of the handle no less. I still have the head with broken piece of handle sticking out of it, never had the urge to buy a new one and try again.
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don't care where you get your hawk - handles break if you're throwing it. That's a design feature, not a flaw in the tool. The only flaw in their design is the set screw -- if you're going to throw their hawks, take the set screw out and the handles will last longer.
 
The original Recon 1 folder used a cheap stop pin that I had crack and shatter on me a few times. And through the abuse of batoning I broke a Recon tanto 1/4in inside the handle.

Two failures, one a defect the other abuse.
 
I had 2 Cheap Kukri's , One broke at the handle leaving blade in the tree, the one that is in my truck right now, has warped so it makes a right turn when you look down the blade. My buddy had an early recon series where the "axis lock want to be" just fell apart and the knife wouldn't stay closed or open. For the most part though, they have some stuff that will take a lickin and keep on tickin.
 
Oddly my very first CS folders lock would fail pretty often. It was called the Ultra lock or something like that. It was a type of liner lock, and not the Benchmade style lock. That knife had one of the best blade grinds I have ever seen. I also have had 2 Voyagers, the old ones with the plastic pocket clips. One of them after a time the lock bar became loose but it never did fail. Lost both in the woods I think it was due to the pocket clips. They didn't hold very tight. Not sure I could call the old Voyager clips a flaw as I did like them but they didn't really work very well.
 
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I've owned a lot of Cold Steel knives. Never has any of them failed me.
 
I had a Light Gurka Kukri(discontinued was 3/16" thick) snap off at the handle chopping a piece of wood. It was a Manufacturer Error sent it to Cold Steel and since that model was discontinued they gave me a brand new Full Size Ghurka Kukri.
 
I did break a Voyager, snapped the blade in half but I did that using it as a prybar. I have several twistmasters and a coule of SRKs, never had any problems.
 
I had a wobbly blade after batoning, that being said I was young and it was one of their cheaper folders
 
*jumping up and down waving hands in the air* I have I have! It was the Leatherneck SF, and thelateboyscout on youtube chipped his batonning on its first day.

Me personally, not really. The closest I ever came was bending the tip on my GI tanto pretty badly, being stoopid with it.
 
the only problem i ever had was a crack in the aluminum handles of their ak 47 folder,when it had the axis type lock. a crack developed in the front area of the aluminum handle foward of the axis type lock.
 
OH MY, YES! 2 of my 3 CS's have broken. First off, my SRK didn't really break, but the handle split, and is now severely separated from the tang, and is no longer useful. My Recon Scout has a very large crack toward the hilt, but has no handle problems. And the best part is when I tried to contact their customer service, all I got was a complete load of Bull from the whole works. Their ego is obviously about as big a Rosie Odonnald's ass (almost...). And my Dad's Voyager has a failing lock (50/50 lock up... hit-n-miss). I'm VERY displeased with Cold Steel, and will never buy another product of thirs again. BTW, my third is a new Trailmaster that I keep to look at on occasion (not gonna lie, it looks purty damn sweet!).
 
Oh, I almost forgot, I also have a GI Tanto, and I do LOVE that knife, and a CS Pipe Hawk. But I'm still sore at them for all of the BS their company is surrounded by. Cold Steel? No thank you. WAY too gimicky for my taste.
 
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