I am considering a purchase of the cold steel "outdoorsman".<br>Does anyone have any insights on this knife or Cold Steel in general?<br><br>Specifically, any idea if the "chopping edge" on the back is a gimick, danger to the user or is it actually useful?<br><br>http://www.1sks.com/store/cold-steel-outdoorsman.html<br><br>

The outdoorsman is a decent knife. the chopping surface is another variation on a sawbacked knife. Aside from eliminating any possible "anvil' to hit with a billet ( for wood splitting,) it weakens the overal strength of the blade itself. This may not be a real problem with a Cold Steel product. They are well made. Cold Steel products fall into two groups; very,very good, or very,very bad. The opinions on the various knife forums seem to assess Cold Steel as having a chopping, rather than slicing emphasis on most models. If you purchase any large knife, be sure to mate it with a smaller utilitarian blade. Finally, be sure to actually handle the knife if possible. A knife's ergonomics may please one user and be utterly horrid to someone else.

I own the Outdoorsman, and I love it. I liked it so much, I bought 2 of these instead of getting a Busse or a Randall. One to keep in the B.O.B., and one for hunting, camping, and carry. Not to say that Busse and Randall knives aren't great, I just think that I would stare at them in awe, as opposed to acctually using them. Ha. Anyway,<br><br>The "chopping blade" has only been used a couple of times by me, and I don't think it weakens this knife at all. It worked great. I've seen a lot of knives with the sawback and chopping blades on them...and they are usually crap...not in this case.<br><br>These knives come from the factory razor sharp, and when it eventually dulls, it's easy to re-sharpen.<br><br>Also, I recommend getting a different sheath. Leather doesn't do any good in wet terrain, and it could harm any knife blade if it's constantly left in the sheath.<br><br>I do, however, agree with Chris in saying that their knives fall into 2 categories. In MY opinion...this is the very, very good category.<br><br>I hope this helps!<br><br>-John McIntire