Why do knife snobs hate Cold Steel??

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sharp lupo

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Hello Everybody! This is my first post here. Im more of a gun guy than a knife guy but I thought I would join up.

Here are some of my blades

-CS Natchez bowie (sold)
-CS Laredo bowie in SK-5
-CS Trailmaster in in SK-5
-CS Recon Scout in SK-5
-CS Recon 1 tanto (new model) (sold)

-RC3
-ESEE 6 (sold)

-CRKT Hissatsu folder with mods (outburst removed, black coating removed,
nice forced patina,metal inserts drilled for weight reduction) (sold bought new)

-Spyderco Military
-Spyderco Endura G10


Back to my topic question,

Why so much hate for Cold Steel?? So what if the advertising sucks, and Lynn
looks like an overgrown 12 year old kid playing with knives, they have some good tough products, not all, but a lot.

I LOVE my Natchez bowie, will never use it but Im postive it could hold its own and its well made. My collector knife.

I LOVE my Laredo bowie, again tough and also beautiful, has gotten great reviews too.

I USE my ESEE 6, Recon Scout and my Trailmaster A LOT, and the TM can do and has done everything my ESEE has and in my opinion looks better doing it
and I trust it just as much.

I do wish ESEE would come out with a bowie design, I would buy 2.

So why do people hate on them soo much? I think they are very good and Ive never had a problem with any of them.



Oh yeah the bowie knife design is the best in the world hands down, It can do everything well.
 
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because their warranty is crappy. A five year warranty for knives that claim to be the strongest is stupid especially for something thats gonna cost 100 plus
 
well some say its the way that lynn thompson badmouths the competition, i personnally have not seen any of this happen but thats what ive heard along with, overpriced for the materials, some have complained about fit and finish that isnt consistent etc, idk i personnally dont have any of their knives currently and while i do like some of them most are either to expensive or the few that are within my range dont seem to get good reviews IE the pocket bushman (checkout nutnfancy's review on youtube), though i do want one of the kudu's
 
I've been known to not like CS knives for some reason. I don't really know why. I think it has something to do with the Strider fan boys not liking CS products because of some bs or other, but I don't even like Strider knives that much to begin with so :confused:

:)
 
brets-ftw said:
well some say its the way that lynn thompson badmouths the competition, i personnally have not seen any of this happen but thats what ive heard along with, overpriced for the materials, some have complained about fit and finish that isnt consistent etc, idk i personnally dont have any of their knives currently and while i do like some of them most are either to expensive or the few that are within my range dont seem to get good reviews IE the pocket bushman (checkout nutnfancy's review on youtube), though i do want one of the kudu's
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Yes he messed that pocket bushman up fast I was like WTF CS.

I think the Laredo bowie, TM and RC are priced OK.

The Natchez, not so much. But it is a beautiful big focking bowie
and Im glad I got one.



The new Recon 1 has gotten great reviews, even from non-cold steel liking people. High quality for $60? Awesome
 
brets-ftw said:
well some say its the way that lynn thompson badmouths the competition, i personnally have not seen any of this happen but thats what ive heard along with, overpriced for the materials, some have complained about fit and finish that isnt consistent etc, idk i personnally dont have any of their knives currently and while i do like some of them most are either to expensive or the few that are within my range dont seem to get good reviews IE the pocket bushman (checkout nutnfancy's review on youtube), though i do want one of the kudu's
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Damn thing put me in the emergency room this spring.....



...you have to be smarter than the tool you're using....;)
 
I bought a CS Talwar.

It's ridiculously heavy to have in your pocket. The lock has a swiss cheese pattern and the spring is ridiculously strong, which makes it a pain(literally) to disengage the lock. The previously mentioned ridiculously strong spring makes it near impossible to open the blade one-handed. The thumb plate is a poor imitation of the Emerson wave opener and doesn't catch well on the pocket seam. When waving it open, the lock will fail to engage 75% of the time and has resulted in the blade closing on my fingers on more than one occasion.
 
I think some of the CS designs are just dumb. Some like the Recon 1 and American Lawman, though, are fantastic. I LOVE my American Lawman. I've also had good experiences with the voyager series and still carry a "Sharkie" with me at work every day.
 
Because I don't like obnoxious and childish behaviour. If you look at his "warrior's lifestyle" (or whatever it was called) video, you'll see that he's just the insecure boy from school. He just wants some attention and a hug.
 
A.L. said:
Because I don't like obnoxious and childish behaviour. If you look at his "warrior's lifestyle" (or whatever it was called) video, you'll see that he's just the insecure boy from school. He just wants some attention and a hug.
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yeah, Lynn got shoved into a locker or two when he was a kid, no doubt.
 
Marketing aside, I haven't had great experience with the products I've bought from them.

My two tomahawks needed fairly extensive work to be functional as anything but expensive paperweights (extensive meaning way the hell more work than I feel I should have to put into something that passed a company's QC standards). The Ti-lite I bought had multiple uneven grinds, to the point where the edge grinds did not even meet in a couple places and wiggled all over the place. Mediocre materials didn't help, either.

The tomahawks were not really a big deal for me because I proceeded to mod them anyway, fixing all of the gripes I had with them, but that doesn't really excuse the poor quality. I sold off the ti-lite after messing around with it for a little while - more because it was not a design that I particularly liked than because of the QC issues.

I dunno if that qualifies me as "a knife snob" who "hates on cold steel", but I definitely wouldn't say I'm a fan of their gear. Still, I haven't yet tried some of their more recent designs, like the American Lawman I've heard so many good things about.

TL;DR: I've found their quality control to be pretty lax when compared to other brands (for example, Spyderco, Kershaw, Victorinox). Given my limited experience, I've also found that better build quality and materials can be obtained from other companies without a cost increase.
 
Because

advertising sucks, and Lynn
looks like an overgrown 12 year old kid playing with knives
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Plenty of companies out there that are mature and more customer friendly.

I also owned the ti-lite and it was not a quality product. I like the Voyager but the pocket clip sucks. There's just too many other high quality knives with less compromises.
 
i've had great experience with their products and poor experience with their customer service. throw in the pretty low pricing and i consider it to be a wash.

i'm not nuts about Cold Steel, nor am i against them. i've bought some of their products and i'm sure i'll buy more before it's all over with.
 
Everybody has to have someone to feel superior to. LT and CS fit that bill quite nicely but they can make a pretty decent blade when they put their minds to it. I particularly like their XL fixed blades. ESEE and all that are wonderful I'm sure, but a little dull in execution. CS at least make big, bold blades that are a lot of fun to use.

The Natchez is a prime example. Its ridiculously huge but its extremely well executed and a thing of joy to behold for a knife nut. And I have no doubt it would be highly effective if you ever needed to separate a limb or two with it. The SK-5 Trailmaster is a great bargain of the knife world. Well, it was when I bought it, not sure what they cost now.
 
Lynn Thompson - a fat wannabe ninja with stupid videos
Mike Stewart - a former bankrupt and convicted fraudster
Mick Strider - a wannabe operator who told everyone he was sf

Doesn't change the fact they make some pretty damn nice knives!
 
I read once that the reason Cold Steel is so disliked among other knife companies, was because of their aggressive marketing of potentially deadly weapons. Other companies seem to think he's hurting the knife business by all that over the top slash and stick marketing.
This was a good while back and LT was complaining he'd never got a cover shot on Blade magazine. (in spite of his many great new ideas) Then Blade did feature the Scimitar folder on the cover shortly after. With a line that said "Cold Steel Breaks Through!" Showing the point going through something I believe.
 
i do believe l.t.'s personal apperance has been a negative imprint especially in his videos. most of the products i've used have been better than average. his vg1 steel is excellent in cutting ability & i use one of the carbon 5 to open my mail daily. i tested the carbon 5 on cardboard when introed in the stockman pattern. it cut in the top 15% of knives i've tested. [hundreds] as with any large pattern selection you will encounter some dogs but my experience with the upper end knives has been very positive. l.t. certainly deserves major credit for spear heading the tanto craze & his trailmaster bowie will go down in history as a classic i.m.o.
dennis
 
I am not sure what the real reasons are getting away from the politics in the knife industry. That's something I don't get into or care about.

For user blades CS makes some of the best beater and user knives around price wise so if one really uses their knives CS has some excellent values.

Between them and Spyderco I am not sure one could do better for the money value wise that these 2 Companies.
 
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