Pros: Weight, Handle Material, Overall Quality, Finish, Blade Sharpness
Cons: Sheath/Scabbard
Ah… Another Beater Knife
I have knives costing many times more, but few things in life are as satisfying as a good beater knife. What’s a “beater knife,” you ask? When I was a kid growing up in the 1960’s almost every family had, at least, one. It was Grandpa’s old, used-up hunting knife, scratched-up, chipped, sharpened beyond a useful skinning edge. Or, maybe an old butcher knife that had snapped-off, and had been re-profiled by your dad with a file, the handle scales hanging on by electrical tape (duct tape wasn’t “a thing,” yet). Often, it was perpetually rusting, or had a fine blackened patina. Your father used it to pry out old calk around the windows, dig up a dandelion roots in the yard, or cut a tire off its rim (before steel belted radials in the U.S.A.). You, and your friends requisitioned it to play mumblety-peg; throw at a tree; play pirates, cowboys, and army; cut up an inner tube for a slingshot sling; dig around for fishing worms in your mother’s compost pile; camping; and all manner of bushcraft (it was called woodcraft, back then). Beater knives often rode in taped-up cardboard scabbards; their sheaths long ago dry rotted and disintegrated. Listen… You hear that? I think I hear Alan Jackson singing, Remember When. : ) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Cold Steel, Peacemaker III is an excellent Do-all utility fixed blade. Love the grippy, comfortable, secure, and easy to control polypro handle. Arrived sharp, the swedge at tip allows for detail work; hefty grind further aft for power cuts, etc. Good feel and control in the hand, even when wet. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The sheath has some problems (See: Peacemaker II review for details), but I won’t deduct a star at this price. Peacemaker III doesn’t rattle in sheath like, Peacemaker II. Not a bad sheath. My best advice: Buy a nice leather basketweave sheath from KnifeCenter.com (Part #: SH207), form a sheath liner from old aluminum printing plate, slather with contact cement, slide with knife into sheath, remove knife, let dry, treat sheath with bee’s wax leather treatment regularly: you will now have a sheath to last a lifetime and hand down to the grandkids. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Fortunately for us, today we no longer have to wait to inherit grandpa’s old hunting knife, or, for mom to break a butcher knife. We don’t have to put up with the ooze of a sticky duct tape handle, or the dubious safety of a cardboard sheath. Today we can inexpensively purchase a good beater knife of modern, durable materials that can be used and abused for many years. Put one on the work bench in the shop, under the seat of the truck, in the “junk drawer,” hang one on the peg board in the garage, throw one in a bucket in the back of the jeep. Beater knives are handy and carefree, and compound value through service over the years, beyond their monetary worth (sometimes, just pennies per/year if you live long enough). Peacemaker III seems to be just such a knife. Peacemaker III would make a fine first fixed blade for a teenager, kinda like a Mora of Sweden (39 Safe) Scout Knife # FT12287, but without the “training wheels” look to it (See, also: Cold Steel Survival Edge # CS80PH). Why make the grandkids wait to get their hands on your old hunting knife? Buy them their very own beater knife when they come of age, and they will love and revere it, because it came from you.
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