Who here has any experience with the swords by Cold Steel? My roommate owns the small sword. What I can say is that its rather robust, to say the least. Can anyone share there thoughts on there construction, durability and historical accuracy?

Thanks,

~nic

Hello Nic,

I think the general consensus on Cold Steel is that they achieve do a level of robustness that is beyond the lower tier mass producers, but they do so by overbuilding rather than by craftsmanship. In other words a skilled swordmaker's 1.5 pound sword is about as durable as Cold Steel's 2.8 lb sword. There are some verified cases of thier swords breaking, likea notable gross messer break, but with the sheer volume of swords that they crank out, I'm not surprised. You simply cannot give a sword all of the love it needs at that pace. Much like the food in a cafeteria.

I don't think one of thier European swords would pass as a replica, though this may not be thier goal so I'm not too hard on them over that. Thier goal seems to be to make a modern version of an ancient weapon, which they do in interesting and often suprising ways; like the plastic ball club and the stamped one piece boar spear.

They do have some fun pieces and they are certainly better than a wallhanger.

I agree with Gavin, I think Cold Steel tends to go for "beef" for toughness and cutting ability, not realizing that various other considerations (harmonics, node placement, distal taper, etc) combine to allow other swords (lighter swords at that) to perform better.

I have experience with a couple CS swords. The Scottish Basket hilt is a fairly nice looking (despite those goofy-looking forward gaurds) piece, weight is okay, handling is rather neutral. Like all CS swords, it is sharp enough to cut atoms -- unecessarily sharp IMO. Despite this sharpness, it's not the best cutter I've ever used, as the harmonics aren't all that good. However, the blade is very well tempered.
The "Viking Sword" is nice and handles very well, it's probably a better cutter than the Basket hilt. Some say it's ahistoric, and to some degree it is (the hilt fittings seem to be of a much later period. The blade seems to be a type Xa, and therefore isn't out of the question for a later Viking-era sword).
The 1796 Saber handled fairly well and cut well. The blade seemed to be well-tempered.

Cold Steel is a knife company, and I suggest you treat them as such. I'm always impressed by their folding knives, but the swords are ridiculously sharp crow bars.

I have a cold steel messer. While I realize it is overly heavy and not very accurate it remains one of my favorite pieces that I have owned, though the pieces I have owned have been low entry level pieces, Windlass, Hanwei and the like. It seems like more recently I have heard better performance reviews of this sword then we were hearing for awhile. Personally I will probably purchase another cold steel piece in the future.

Unless I am incorrect, I believe Windlass makes Cold Steel's sword blades and they are finished up in the US. At least this is what I was told at some point a few years back by another wholesaler. I never looked into it though.

Anyone have further insight on this?

SwordBuyersGuide.com did a review of the Cold Steel scimitar, and he actually found the name "Windlass" etched on the blade. It appeared someone attempted to rub out or buff off the name prior to its initial purchase. That being said, I have two Cold Steel swords: A Viking pattern and an imperial katana. Both are well made and scary-sharp. The Vikings grip is flat and narrow, and uncomfortable to hold in a swing. The katana is heavier than one would expect. Neither is historically accurate, but I like them.

That Cold Steel shamshir has been calling my name for a long time now. A lot of thier swords are very cool almost in spite of themselves.

I have the CS "Hand and a Half" longsword. I'll agree with what most people have said here. It seems like a decent value for the price (if you can find a good price below what the CS website shows), which isn't hard to do. It's a little blade-heavy and shows less skill/knowledge with regards to distal taper and the like. So it's certainly no Albion or A&A piece. But it costs considerably less too.