Pros: Blade Material, Blade Sharpness, Finish, Handle Material, Materials, Overall Quality, Weight
Cons: Sheath/Scabbard
Excellent dagger but the defective sheath makes it useless
Everything about this knife is good except that the sheath is defective; it does not hold the knife in securely enough. If I shake it a little bit holding it upside down it falls out. I have several knives that use this kind of sheath, including a few made by the same manufacturer, so I know how they should work. This sheath has four little lugs on the sheath that should fit over the handguard but do not, and that defect is why it doesn't hold the knife securely. This defect makes the knife worthless, because if it is ever used in self defense, or in any survival situation, that's a time that there can be sudden and forceful movement, so it's the time the knife is most likely to fall out, and if it falls out in a situation like that it could be fatal for the one carrying it. There is no time that would be good for it to fall out, but it is most likely to fall out at the worst possible time. I sent Cold Steel's fake Customer Service department two emails explaining this problem to them and asking them to send me a sheath that is not defective, and both of them were totally ignored; no response at all. My guess is they made a lot of them defective and just don't want to spend the money to replace any defective ones. But whatever their reason is for ignoring this problem, it makes this knife useless, because I will not carry a knife that might fall out of the sheath. Other than that it's a good design and excellent knife. The following review is what I would say if it was not defective: Daggers are typically made to be sold, not used. But this one is made to be what a dagger was designed to be, and used the way a dagger is meant to be used. This makes it a good backup weapon for those who can legally carry lethal force. Given current technology it is not possible to have a knife that holds a good edge, is not brittle, and is stain resistant. The best material for a knife blade is steel; anything mixed with the steel to make it stain resistant makes it either brittle, and therefore prone to breaking under hard use, or soft enough that it doesn't hold a good edge. This knife, as with many Cold Steel knives, is made out of pure steel. There are good stainless steel blades, if you want to spend the money on them, but even the best stainless is inferior to pure steel when it comes to a good combination of toughness and edge-holding ability, and this applies especially to a dagger. The downside is that pure steel can rust. But remember that men carried and used knives long before stainless was even available. Vikings carried knives, swords, and axes made out of pure steel in open boats over salt water, which is very corrosive, and their weapons served them just fine. Just learn how to take care of it. Pure steel also seems to be relatively inexpensive, so this really good knife (and others like it) doesn't cost much, relative to the inferior stainless blades. The sheath is also a very good feature. I put a couple of grommets in heavy duty suspenders and lashed mine to one of them upside down. It's out of the way, secure, concealable, and very accessible. But there are many possibilities, depending on how you dress.
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