Cold Steel Vaquero Grande Folder

Reviewed by corwin99 on December 4th, 2009

I’ve reviewed several Cold Steel knives, even though I am not a huge fan of their knives. The Vaquero Grande is one of their old school designs, one of the ones that have made them popular. It is an affordable lightweight folder, with a massive 6″ blade.

The construction of Cold Steel’s knives is very similar to Spyderco’s lightweight clipit knives like the Endura. The biggest difference is that Cold Steel uses an inferior steel and used to hide the type of steel they are using, and still do to some extent.

The Vaquero Grande has what they call a Nogales Clip point blade, and has a wavy handle that would fit the hand a lot better if it was smaller, but then again this isn’t an EDC, and not a knife that anyone would likey use regularly. To me this is one of many Cold Steel knives designed to shock and surprise – a show knife, albeit a cheap one.

The blade grind on the Vaquero Grande is like a convex grind, but with a final grind and Cold Steel’s Micro-style serrations that are great for cutting cheese. The serrations however are impossible to sharpen without changing the edge geometry because of the size of the smaller teeth – one of the most annoying things about Cold Steel serrations in my opinion. The surface of the blade as you may have noticed from the pics is also somewhat striped, indication that the level of finish on the blade is somewhat mediocre. The serrations are also only one one side.

Given the low cost of this knife most of the issues I mentioned above are not really a big deal, but they are distracting as Spyderco does not have them at the same price point and also provide a much better steel. The blade opens and closes with a stop partway through the action to prevent accidently closure on the fingers due to the difficulty in controlling such a large blade.

Overall, a knife that doesn’t really have the level of finish that I would have hoped for, and the size combined with the odd knife shape and overly large handle makes the knife impractical for EDC or even general use.

Specs:
Blade Steel: AUS-8
Blade Length: 6″
Overall Length: 13 1/4″
Handle Material: FRN

Video Review:

Other Related Knife Reviews:

1. Cold Steel Night Force Folder
2. Cold Steel Hatamoto Folding Knife
3. Cold Steel Konjo II Fixed Blade Knife
4. Klotzli Michael Walker ACC Knife
5. Jens Anso Gekko Folder

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