Cold Steel Ultimate Hunter for 2015 in CTS XHP steel and G10

And I know what you’re gonna say. I realize the steel for all 4 blades came from the same place (if the cold steel really is S35VN) but who knows what the quality control for speed of grinding and heat treating is over there.
 
bedrock said:
who knows what the quality control for speed of grinding and heat treating is over there.
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Cold Steel should. It is ultimately their responsibility to set the standard and make sure things come out right.
 
One more thing about that blade. It was hard to clean from the start and now it has brown discoloring as opposed to the other S35VN blade that was exposed to a lot more moisture, blood, being carried in an often wet leather sheath, etc and is still as shiny as when it was new.
 
kreole said:
Cold Steel should. It is ultimately their responsibility to set the standard and make sure things come out right.
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Let's say you sell a VW Bug. The person you sold it to then advertises it for sale, but says it has a Porsche engine. Are you still responsible?
 
bedrock said:
Thought I’d write a little review after putting it to its intended use (gutting, dismembering and skinning game). Bottom line: the S35VN blade is pretty much crap. I have my doubts that it even IS S35VN. It is supposedly heat treated to about 61. The knife I had for comparison is a white river, also S35VN, treated to 58-60. No exaggeration here, it held an edge at least 5 times, maybe 8 or 10 times as long as the Cold Steel. The 2 blades were sharpened to the same angle, etc. I have a half dozen 440C blades that will put it to shame and I’m thinking that a couple of my bargain basement AUS8 blades will outdo it. I was wondering about this knife because it felt a lot "grippier" when touching up on a ceramic, but I REALLY wanted to like it. One other small aggravation about it is the gap between the blade and the lock bar when open. It tends to collect gunk in it then it gets transferred to the locking surface of the blade when you close it. I could live with that if it could skin more than 1 square foot of hide without getting duller than a hoe.
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I wonder if you got one with a bad heat treat, it can happen. I have 2 with the XHP steel, and like on_the_edge, am very happy with the edge holding and performance. I understand your frustration, when S30V first came out, I paid a LOT for knives in that steel, and their edge holding was below that of aluminum flashing. No joke. Total crap. I've since gotten a couple that have shown really good edge holding, but can easily understand how a bad experience can turn you off to a particular steel or knife.
 
Huh! That’s interesting. I’m sure I’m not as read up on steels as a lot of guys here so I never heard anything really bad about S30V or S35VN, only that adding the niobium and what not supposedly made S35VN slightly less chippy while holding an edge just as long. I’m happy with my other S35VN blades but in my experience they’re only marginally better than good old 440C. And while there’re plenty of claims out there about other super steels skinning whole elephants and still shave hair, I’ve never seen one. Back to the cold steel tho, I’m thinking bad HT or even that I got a knockoff
 
bedrock said:
Huh! That’s interesting. I’m sure I’m not as read up on steels as a lot of guys here so I never heard anything really bad about S30V or S35VN, only that adding the niobium and what not supposedly made S35VN slightly less chippy while holding an edge just as long. I’m happy with my other S35VN blades but in my experience they’re only marginally better than good old 440C. And while there’re plenty of claims out there about other super steels skinning whole elephants and still shave hair, I’ve never seen one. Back to the cold steel tho, I’m thinking bad HT or even that I got a knockoff
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I ve been wondering about those possibilities as I ve read these last few posts. Cold Steel s heat treat of xhp was better than most. Looking at Cedric and Ada s youtube reviews of the CS s35vn edge holding, it seems by those reviews to be pretty good. I ve got an s35vn American Lawman, but I haven t used it much yet. My AL in xhp has very good edge holding.
My UH in xhp has been great.
 
Well, live and learn I guess. Looks like there’s one in XHP in my future if I can find one
 
bedrock said:
Well, live and learn I guess. Looks like there’s one in XHP in my future if I can find one
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Keep your eyes open. They occasionally come up on that auction site. Also, post in the "Wanted to Buy: Knives" here in this forum.
 
Well I had to do a test to make sure it wasn’t my imagination. I sharpened the cold steel and the white river at the same angle to 2300 grit on my edge pro. At that point they felt equally sharp. Then I played around w a fine ceramic to get rid of the tiny burr and put a bit of a micro bevel on them. 4 or 5 very light stokes per side and the burr was gone on the White River. It took a long time with the cold steel. The burr flopped from side to side forever. I then took light strokes across green moose hide then started slicing news paper till they wouldn’t cut it cleanly, switched to stiffer notebook paper, then finally printer paper that was stiffer yet.
The results:

Cold Steel: 10 stokes it wouldn’t cleanly slice newspaper. 35 and it wouldn’t cleanly slice the notebook paper, and after 65 wouldn’t slice the printer paper.

White River: 55 stokes till it wouldn’t slice the newspaper, 130 before it failed on the notebook paper and 210 before it wouldn’t slice the printer paper.

I didn’t expect THAT much difference.
 
bedrock said:
Well I had to do a test to make sure it wasn’t my imagination. I sharpened the cold steel and the white river at the same angle to 2300 grit on my edge pro. At that point they felt equally sharp. Then I played around w a fine ceramic to get rid of the tiny burr and put a bit of a micro bevel on them. 4 or 5 very light stokes per side and the burr was gone on the White River. It took a long time with the cold steel. The burr flopped from side to side forever. I then took light strokes across green moose hide then started slicing news paper till they wouldn’t cut it cleanly, switched to stiffer notebook paper, then finally printer paper that was stiffer yet.
The results:

Cold Steel: 10 stokes it wouldn’t cleanly slice newspaper. 35 and it wouldn’t cleanly slice the notebook paper, and after 65 wouldn’t slice the printer paper.

White River: 55 stokes till it wouldn’t slice the newspaper, 130 before it failed on the notebook paper and 210 before it wouldn’t slice the printer paper.

I didn’t expect THAT much difference.
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So are you thinking bad heat treat or are you thinking clone at this point? Or maybe this is the way the CS S35VN is supposed to be???
 
bedrock said:
Well I had to do a test to make sure it wasn’t my imagination. I sharpened the cold steel and the white river at the same angle to 2300 grit on my edge pro. At that point they felt equally sharp. Then I played around w a fine ceramic to get rid of the tiny burr and put a bit of a micro bevel on them. 4 or 5 very light stokes per side and the burr was gone on the White River. It took a long time with the cold steel. The burr flopped from side to side forever. I then took light strokes across green moose hide then started slicing news paper till they wouldn’t cut it cleanly, switched to stiffer notebook paper, then finally printer paper that was stiffer yet.
The results:

Cold Steel: 10 stokes it wouldn’t cleanly slice newspaper. 35 and it wouldn’t cleanly slice the notebook paper, and after 65 wouldn’t slice the printer paper.

White River: 55 stokes till it wouldn’t slice the newspaper, 130 before it failed on the notebook paper and 210 before it wouldn’t slice the printer paper.

I didn’t expect THAT much difference.
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What is this White River you speak of? Link? Thanks. :)
 
The "Hunter" by White River Knives. Sold at all the online knife stores. Got mine w canvas micarta scales. Love it. Stays grippy when bloody. Did some customizing. Added liners to make the handle thicker, jimping, sharpening notch. Have another one, the "Ursus" getting a major regrind/reshape but I haven’t used it to see if the steel is as good as the Hunter.
 
Have no idea what’s wrong w the CS or if they’re all like that. I’d contact Cold Steel but I did some grinding on the spine, making it less of a hump and pointier. And even thought i went so slow it never got above body temp, I’m sure I voided the warranty.
 
Hopefully this is the final chapter in my long winded rant about that knife. I picked one up in XHP and what a difference. The factory edge stood up well and my reprofiled edge was all that I could ask for. It seems easier to to get the final shaving edge on than the S35VN. The fit and finish, though, is pretty sloppy compared to the newer model. The ricasso stuck out past the handle way farther and the sharpening ended 1/4” before that so it had a half inch of unusable blade. Also the scales are uneven thickness in places and the lock bar is way out of flush with the scales. All in all though, it’s a keeper.
I also accidentally improved the S35VN one a lot. I resharpened to 18 degrees instead of 17 and the edge is holding well. I can hardly believe that 17 degrees w an approximate 30:degree micro is too thin or that 1 degree would make THAT much difference so I’m thinking they got carried away sharpening it at the factory and I finally got through the damaged steel.
And on a final note, as good as the XHP is, the S35VN White River I mentioned is SLIGHTLY better (at least in my slicing across a soft 2x4 test-threw the moose hide away). You might say I’m sold on White Rivers.
 
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