Cold Steel Canadian Belt Knife 4"

This is a good, inexpensive copy of the Grohman Canadian Belt Knife shape. I have an original Grohman knife, and there are some differences. Both knives have the same shape, length, blade profile, and a very close handle shape. The Cold steel blade is stainless and of a good quality to hold an edge. The black handle is of polypropylene, the kind of plastic yellow rope is made of, as opposed to the original's rosewood handle. The design of both is ideal for cleaning fish or game, and general use. The lanyard hole is handy to secure the knife when it is essential to keep it, and the notching on the blade back makes it easy to work with when the handle is wet or covered with blood or fish slime. In home testing, both make a good kitchen knife, and the shape works well on the cutting board. The shape is designed for use, and not to look "hot" in a catalog or display case. But the more you use it, the more you like it. If you are a collector, skip this knife and spend the 65 bucks for the original. The Grohman has about 1 1/2 times the thickness of blade, a full tang, and a finer finish. The Cold Steel is not the pride of ownership model, and the original's rosewood handle looks and feels better. The original just feels better in your hand. If you are a working trapper or woodsman, get the original, it will fit your hand better, last longer, and work better. Why buy the Cold Steel version? Function It works well for the job it is designed to do. Price. If there is likelihood of loss, you haven't lost as much, and you get into the game for less. The original costs about $65. Weight. As an ultralight backpacker, I like the lighter weight of the Cold Steel. It has the same sized cutting edge for less weight. Ounces make pounds, and pounds make me tired. Stainless. My original is high carbon steel. For the rain drenched trail, like the Appalachian Trail, or for use around salt water, the stainless is a better choice. To sit in a tackle box with gear used in salt water, definitely use stainless. So while I "like" the original better, I use both knives as the situation requires. I am glad I bought the Cold steel, and consider it a good value.

Okay, five stars on a small cheap belt knife seems like a lot, but here it is definitely deserved. Is this the single greatest knife of all time? Not in the least, but it is quite good. The blade keeps a very sharp edge, and the factory edge was practically perfect and well polished. The handle is a composite, and has an interesting shape to it. At first it feels slightly awkward, but after a few minutes it feels perfectly nature and when put to use is fantastic. At first I though the sheath was an afterthought. It is a bit too large for the knife and just seems like they grabbed something that was made for another and just threw it in, but after wearing it for a bit I found that it coming up a bit on the handle helped keep me from losing the knife during times I was not completely upright, and it had no ill effects on my ability to draw the knife. I am not going to say this knife will win awards and change your world view, but I paid less than ten bucks for it, and at twice that price it is well worth buying.

I gave this a 4-star because of the sheath; but at $10+ dollars you can't ask for more worthy of 5-stars easily. This knife alone is worth more than what I paid for it, so I can replace that sheath with something better. This knife is for my 11yo daughter as her first fixed blade starter knife for when we go fishing, camping etc. So out of the box, this thing is sharp!!! It's not knife sharpener fanatic sharp, but sharp enough to get to work right out of the box. I love the knife design as it fits well in both her hands & mine as well; and I use Large gloves. This knife looks big due to the generous handle, but in reality it's a sweet spot size in my opinion. I think this makes a great first knife for kids to learn how to use knives, the design & size allows them/anyone to learn different knife applications easily. I strongly recommend this knife Pros; Great all around usage knife, pricing, design and quality Cons; Sheath, but given it's price it's an easy resolution.

It’s always nice to have an inexpensive knife that does what knife is supposed to do. This has a well thought out design (even though it doesn’t look like it). It handles most tasks that you would need a knife for well, aside from anything on the extreme ends of the spectrum. This is an excellent domestic knife or light duty outdoors knife.

In making this review, I have to keep in mind the price of the knife. The size of the blade and the small plastic handle give it a small kitchen knife look and level of quality. Also, the knife is not made from a high end exotic steel and did not come super sharp However, for about $15 you have a very practical knife with a decent quality steel (I do not have enough experience with 4116 Krupp to say, but Cold Steel claims it is better than 420 and 440 stainlesses) and great feel in the hand. The curve of the blade will make it great for skinning. It is large enough and the blade is thick enough to meet the needs most of us have for knives and easy to carry because of its small size and low weight. Also, the steel was easy to sharpen to a razor edge. The sheath is simple, but appears to be quite durable. I am not sure how you can go wrong with this knife. It is a nice little tool and if you lose it (as often happens with knives), it is no great sacrifice to buy a new one. My only recommendation to Cold Steel would be to offer this knife in somewhat higher carbon steels such as AUS-8 of SK-5. These steels will likely increase the price a little , but given the great design, I would be interested in steels with a little better (but not super high end steels which would substantially raise the price) edge holding capabilities.

Wanted to give this knife a try mainly because of the off-beat blade and handle design--I thought to myself, no one would make a knife that weird looking (even Cold Steel) without a good reason! I was right: the reason is, it's great in the hand, offers lots of utility (even as a kitchen knife!), is as sharp as any knife I've handled out of the box, and the price is very reasonable. If you buy it and use it for nothing more demanding than slicing up limes for a cocktail, you won't regret it. On the other hand, if you chance to meet a Bear than needs skinning (as sadly, so many do these days), I bet this knife will do the job!

I purchased this knife along with the Cold Steel Pendleton Lite Hunter and the Roach Belly. I bought these knives because I've become a fan of the quality, value and durability of Cold Steel blades. I needed to find a knife I could put in the tackle box (that fulfills other basic utility roles in a pinch) and my wife wanted to see if any of these blades could live a double life with her in the kitchen. First, I will tell you that form, fit and function quality of these knives are excellent. I still can't find my socks because they blew off....these knives for ~$10 a pop just offer incredible value. I like the High Impact Polypropylene handles as they'll be impervious to moisture issues and will last. These sheaths seem odd at first but are durable. I'm happy to carry any of these three knives, put them in the tackle box, hunting bag or the glove box. In the kitchen....they did OK. I think the blade thickness was just too much for fine slicing but they made great choppers. This belt knife excelled at chopping and actually made it the furthest thru an apple prior to the blade thickness splitting the fruit (best of the 3 there). The offset handle of this knife really provides the additional clearance needed to excel in the chopping arena. In addition, the thicker spine allows my wife to place her hand there while chopping veggies more comfortably than your typical thin kitchen knife and the curvature of the blade just "rocks" right thru the food. My wife has taken this knife away from me and I'm not allowed to remove it from her kitchen knife block. Good work Cold Steel.......

The ergonomics of the handle and the unique blade shape makes for a wonderful food preparation knife, does a great job slicing and cutting different vegetables and cutting meat, I’ve purchased 3 of these knives so far and will probably purchase more to give as gifts, if you like to go camping this knife should be in your utensils for food prep. You should also have one in your kitchen for food preparation and if you’re backpacking it would be perfect to carry along, it’s lightweight and so far has demonstrated good edge retention, so purchase yourself one , two , even three as a general purpose blade.