What's up with the Cold Steel hate around here?

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I purchased a cold steel trainmaster, recon scout, canadian skinner, master hunter san mai and the spike.

I also own the warrior katana and waki.

The trailmaster is to me way to thick and unweildy. I love the design but I took it out once and it wasn't good at chopping (a cold steel bowie machete put it to shame) and not very good for small tasks. Too much weigh in my opinion and too thick.

The recon is great and would be awesome in a combat situation. It also is a bit on the big side for bush tasks. You can use it fine. But it doesn't do anything an aurora can't do and it weighs a lot more than an aurora.

I really loved the canadian skinner. That was until I tried to do wood feathers with it. I didn't really like the handle.

The swords don't have a nice balance and feel over engineered as well. I didn't mind this as I had tameshigiri in mind and wasn't ready to spend on a decent $1000 blade.

I also have the master hunter san mai but I purchased the Falkniven F1 at the same time and I prefer the F1. It has a better feel to it and is smaller with no loss in blade size.

I am sure there are plenty of people out there that would get a lot of use out of a cold steel blade. They are pretty tough and well tested.

I believe there are better blades that do a better job.

I won't be purchasing and more cold steel products. They seem to want to be the one knife maker that makes every knife. I would prefer they make less knives but design them better.

They generally feel like bricks to me and while I trust they are strong I generally don't want to take them out. Other tools always trump them in my collection.

I was drawn to them initially because I could trust their blades would last.

I have since learn't that bark river, falkniven, scrap yard and swamp rat gear is tough gear but I enjoy using them much, much more...

Eventually I'll reprofile the trailmaster blade and I will rehandle the trailmaster and the master hunter.
 
I own several cold steel and i love them, Ive also had very very good experiences with customer service. Ill admit im not a fan of how they advertise there knives as weapons built to hurt people. But i find there videos entertaining none the less. Maybe im a minority in this but i personally love cold steel in both the company and the products
 
I am new to the site and new to knives in general so my opinion may change but here it is for now..

I've seen a lot of people complain about the value of cold steel knives but when I look on Amazon most of their knives can be had for less than $60. The only one I have is a recently purchased AK47 and for around $50 I don't know what more I could ask of it. Its incredibly sharp, seems extremely sturdy, locks up tight and fits great in my hand. The Wave feature took some getting used to but once I learned how, it works well also.

Again, that's the only Cold Steel product I have owned and my other knives are all Kershaw but I just dont see other knives on the market for $50 that blow this thing out of the water.

I can definitely see where some would dislike their marketing tactics, but I enjoy seeing what a knife I own is capable of even if I would probably never use it for such things. Should they instead make their videos of guys cutting open boxes? I also liked seeing how much weight the Tri-ad lock would hold on both the Recon 1 and AK47.

To each their own I suppose. Like I said before, as my knife collection grows I am sure I will learn some things along the way and maybe my opinion will sway more in favor of the majority here, but for now I am pretty happy with this AK47.
 
First, I will say I am neutral on Cold Steel. I have met Lynn Thompson at a few shows in the late 90's and he was very nice and engaging to talk too. When it comes to his hype, well, marketing is how things sell and his catalogs are second to none and his meat cutting vids are how they attract buyers. When you pic their knives, there is 3 price points that you can choose from.


Their Top Tier knives are their SanMai lines. These knives appear to be as good as production knives get and better than most knives in their class when it comes to the steel. Very tough knives. However, at their price points you are in the territory of high end production knives or custom knives, and every time I have considered a san mai blade of theirs I ended up going with a nicer custom or semi custom with better handles and steel. So for me, even though I like this line, I feel that there is much better to be had at this price range.

Their middle tier knives in the $80-$190 price range use either AUS steel or SK5/CarbonV carbon steels. These knives come in all sizes like Recon Tanto, SRK, Recon Scout, Trailmaster, etc. My beef with this line is that even though the price is right, the steel is not. I have literally broken every single CS from this tier I have ever owned. Including TM, Recon Scout, Recon Tanto, SRK. All of them broke doing woodcraft. If this line had the toughness to go along with the looks, it would be great. The kraton handles also leave a lot to be desired. Since they really don't have a good warranty, I have eaten the cost on every single one that failed. Not cool.

Bottom Tier line made up of mostly machetes and bushman one piece knives in the under $40 price range. Now this line has been spot on for me. This is truly where CS shines in my opinion. I have owned a dozen CS machetes and the same number of bushman one piece knives. These knives are tough as hell in my experience and are worth the price of admission. I still own these knives and the bushman is my glove compartment knife. It has come handy often and I have beaten it to death and it did not fail. Sad that this lower tier line is better than the middle tier line of theirs.

One other thing about all their lines is that CS knives are just about the sharpest knives out of the box I have ever seen. That is also a great selling point.

Here are some failures all from the middle tier:
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And here is an example of how tough the lower tier level is. I batoned this bushman with a hammer and then when I batoned into the 3/4 inch heavy duty plywood, I had to use a 10 lb sledge to hammer it through(sledge in background). Not damage at all and the edge was perfectly fine:

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What more could you ask for in a knife that costs $20
 
Wow, I'm buying the Bushman now. I can see it will be fun to play with and will make for a great back-up in the truck or a loaner. Thanks Cobalt!
 
I'm no fanboy of any manufacturer, I own CS, Benchmade, Spyderco, CRKT, Al Mar, Becker, and others. In the CS lineup, I have SRK, Recon Tanto (factory second), Bushman, old medium, large, and XL Voyagers, a pair of Recon 1s, kukri machete, and a couple of Spikes. I've chopped with the Recon Tanto many times with no damage, deployed with the SRK. I love the machete, it performs as required, just needs an occasional touch-up. I'm not a fan of kraton handles and I rehandled the Recon Tanto with micarta. Perhaps the ones that have failed are, like from other manufacturers, things that slipped through QC? My only issue has been the lock on one Recon 1 that was sticky. I've handled the new Recon knives with the tri-ad lock and did not like the lock. In any case, I like the ones I have or I never would've bought them. Haven't bought a CS product in several years, though. Is Thompson's advertising too much? Perhaps, but as someone said earlier, it's his company. Are CS products overpriced for what you get? Maybe, but I've suggested elsewhere that TOPS products are also way overpriced for 1095 and micarta, as well as having some really silly ads, too. Whatever...Use your knives and have fun with them.
 
I have an order for para cord, a black Izula 2 and a C.S. Mackinac hunter confirmed as being shipped today. 50 bucks for the Mackinac with, a tri-ad lock, beefy hollow grind blade, and aparently the leather sheath is coming with it. How can I not see value in that fun little folder ? I have and still do get great fun from my C.S. products. I look forward to their 2013 line.
 
Cold Steel makes cost-effective low end beaters better than just about any production knife company on the market. The Voyager, Recon, and AK series can be found for bargain-bin prices and will either out perform or marginally under perform the vast majority of knives under $150.

...I also like Lynn Thompson's somewhat ridiculous advertising (minus the whole safari nonsense).

Call me heretical.
 
If you read Dorito's comment ( # 135 supra), you will see that Cold Steel doesn't necessarily respect copyright or make the best marketing decisions, and for some people that is a problem. I don't know if they paid for their designs or if it's fair to argue that by now a Randall 1 or anything by Loveless ( with Moran, a great departed dean of knife making) is a classic and that would be like paying royalties for a Bowie knife or a Masamuna katana. If they aren't paying someone like Brian Tighe for his very distinctive design, I would definitely hold it against them. I hope they did, but I'm not going assume they didn't.
I wouldn't personally hesitate to buy their knives if I wanted one. Who cares about their stupid marketing? unless they were telling outright lies that common sense didn't tell you was salesmanship. When dinosaurs walked, I was first attracted to Cold Steel by their stupid advertising and back then it was the Carbon V Trailmaster being touted as a super steel tactical camping Ginsu that can go through a car door and then shave a fly and cut falling toilet paper. So absurd and ballsy I had to buy one. I did. Great knife. Well worth the money.

That Trailmaster in Carbon V became my main knife for a trip in September down the Nahanni River in northwest Canada. You gotta love your main knife or there's something wrong with you. Love the knife. Carbon V is a great steel, but it will pit overnight if you are too busy to pamper it, like finding and pulling idiots out of the river.
One little quibble. That Kraton handle almost paralyzed my hand for two days trying to chop wood. That wasn't a handle, that was a sick joke, because Lynn likes jokes.

It used to be, and may still be, that you could call, talk to Lynn or someone else and they would hear complaints and sometimes take suggestions - because they genuinely wanted to make the best possible knife in the upper end and good knives throughout. Maybe they still do. I love that Trailmaster and still use it today, beaten as it is . But it was replaced as my main knife by a succession of Busses because for me, Busee ( and Fehrman) are better knives in every way, using the criteria that really attract me to using knives) except one: the Trailmaster and most of the Cold Steel fixed blades are very well balanced and fast in the hand and some of the designs are really good. I just hope they paid for them where they should have.
Cold Steel makes some good knives and some cool knives. But I personally find that there generally are better and better quality out there if you look. But I still love my Cold Steels, imperfect as they are.
 
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I've never owned a CS knife. I've looked at them, but never seen one that I was remotely interested in.
 
You can all debate CS all you want, looks like the OP has been gone for a few weeks now.
 
Yo Mama said:
You can all debate CS all you want, looks like the OP has been gone for a few weeks now.
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UHHHH!!!:jerk it:

PharaohX3 said:
Wow, I'm buying the Bushman now. I can see it will be fun to play with and will make for a great back-up in the truck or a loaner. Thanks Cobalt!
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He posted last night

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
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I happen to have met Mr. Pendleton at a recent trade show, of the Pendleton Hunter fame. He stated very clearly, wearing a big smile, that Lynn pays him some nice change for his design.
 
Yo Mama said:
....gone for a few weeks now.
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And the thread is only TWO weeks old....

Cold Steel sucks
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And this is based on your "hands on" experience? Perhaps with customer service? Fit and finish of the knife?

One would be inclined to inquire as to to the nature and background of a single word review...unless, as pointed out earlier....

…it's the cool thing to do on the forums
 
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