Trailmaster San Mai III

J

jstokes1

Joined
Jan 11, 2014
Messages
219
I have one but I am scared to use it. How many of you have extensively used your San Mai trailmaster? I would love to see some responses from you more experienced users of this knife. Thanks!
 
I also have a TM San Mai but am afraid to use it. I'm not afraid of performance or damage as there are
a number of use/test review videos on youtube. But after CS suddenly discontinued their San Mai Recon Scout without warning, I became concerned that they might do the same with the SM TM as well. So I bought an O-1 TM to be my "user".
 
I'm thinking about doing the same. But all I do is look at this knife and shave my leg hair with it.
 
Scared of what ?? Either you own it or it owns you, think about that. I own the second rarest Colt SAA NF in existence and shoot the crap out of it every chance I get.
 
Nothing wrong with keeping a knife mint as a "collectable". Especially if you can afford to keep
another as a "user". Nothing wrong with being able to afford to "use" any owned knife regardless
of rarity or if it's discontinued either.
 
Well this is interesting, just watch some of grinder mcgees videos on YouTube of him putting the San Mai trail master to work, I have no video or pics but I've chopped some very hard seasoned wood with the tm and the reco. Scout San Mai , and don't for get the lamination of the blade should give it greater lateral strength and better edge holding than regular vg1 and vg10 unlaminated, from what I remember knarfeng did side by side comparison of vg1 and vg10, he found they had the same edge retention at the same hardness, plus your San Mai tm does not have that annoying micro bevel like fallknivens do, people argue over vg10 is gold and vg1 is junk is all solute poppycock! Both steels vg1 and vg10 come from the same manufacture, hope this helps, and use that trail master!
 
I had one that I used for about 10 years.

Chopped just great.

The steel is just dandy for chopping.

I really loved the convex grind.
 
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Welp, used the knife today finally after almost a year and I'm impressed. Chopped on some hard oak and made some shavings to start a fire. As you know, Oak is very hard so if this knife would chip with NORMAL use as some claim, it would happen here. But, it did not and was still shaving hair off of my leg (although not as smoothly as before); was also still able to push cut phone-book paper very well with no snags of any kind. Very pleased so far.
 
I don't think you have to worry about the SM Trail Master being discontinued, but all the San Mai III blades are made in smaller quantities, so availability is limited, The San Mai III Trail Master, Recon Scout, and Gurkha Kukri all have a convex edge, which makes them excellent choppers. grindermcgee's use vids are great, and we have discussed the SM TM's performance at length. It is his go to, hard use Bowie through extensive personal experience.
 
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