Cold Steel G.I. Tanto

I bought this knife after seeing the "Destruction test" video for it on Youtube (you gotta check it out). I got it off Amazon for $22. Amazing knife for the money. It's built like a tank yet feels light in the hand. It can obviously take an incredible amount of abuse. There's nothing pretty about it, its a working knife. The tanto blade's piercing ability is amazing. As a self defense blade I have no doubt it could handle anything. Great knife for hunters that might encounter feral dogs or any other nasty critters in the woods. I was ready to dislike the plastic handle but, much to my surprise, it actually feels good in my hand. I also love Cold Steel's secure-ex sheath, which holds the knife very securely, and the velcro/snap belt loop allows you to put on & remove the sheath without taking your belt off. A nice touch I wish other knife makers would follow. The knife came reasonably sharp (the 1055 steel is easy to sharpen), and fit and finish was fine even though the blade has "China" on it. If it was a $100 knife I wouldn't give it 5 stars, but for $22 it's a no-brainer. It'll be a great addition to your kit, bug-out bag, toolbox or hunting pack. Go to YouTube and search "GI Tanto Destruction Test". Watch what this knife is capable of and you'll be amazed at what you're getting for less than $25. You'll buy one. (at least one!!). UPDATE: My buddy and I were working all weekend on our hunting property, both of us with GI Tantos. This is one bada** working knife. My buddy used his to cut a feeder timer off a 55 gallon drum because the screws were unusable. The GI Tanto opened the drum like a can opener. It cut through the metal drum like it was cardboard. We were stunned. After cutting and chopping all day they were razor sharp again after a minute with a Smith's sharpener. This is no cheap Chinese junk, its a great hard-use knife. I still can't believe it costs less than $25. I'm going to buy another one in case I lose this one.

...so I believe I can speak with a bit of authority on knives, and you can be sure this review is an in-depth review of my informed take on this knife. This review is admittedly verbose, but accurate. I don't really know where to start, so I'm just going to jump right in with this. This knife is 100% worth buying, that's the gist of what you need to know, however... If you don't like reading and you don't mind missing a few pointers, go ahead and skip to the end for the "TL;DR" version. As I stated, I'm an avid knife collector with an extensive collection of various brands, types, shapes, sizes, and qualities of knives. I've done extensive research over the past five or so years into what makes a knife a high-quality knife in an empirical sense, with all opinions aside. I'm extremely picky about what knives I'll buy or keep, and I would say that this knife is most definitely a high-quality knife, according to facts and not just my opinion. It isn't the highest quality you'll ever find, that's gonna run you hundreds of dollars, but it's probably one of the greatest, highest quality knives you'll ever find for this price, that's for damn sure, and not only that, but this price is honestly almost too low for the quality here. After holding, inspecting, testing, and getting to know this knife personally, I've decided I'd gladly pay in the $50-$60 range for this knife. Some proverbial "bells and whistles" are sometimes nice to have on a knife, at least for a "tacti-cool" kind of knife, but in my opinion, the utter minimalist simplicity of this knife is a big part of what makes it so great, and it's a strikingly good looking knife as well. The GI Tanto is most definitely a no-nonsense tool/weapon that isn't here to impress or play games, it's here to serve a few purposes, and it serves them 'very' well. The knife came razor sharp out of the box (literally- I was able to shave a patch of my arm smooth with around five swipes, and slice through a sheet of 8.5" x 11" sized, 24-pound paper with one.) This knife's one-piece construction, full-length tang, and 1055 carbon steel mean I wouldn't be afraid to use this knife to chop, dig, pry, et cetera. The polypropylene hand scales are pretty smooth, that might be one "downfall," depending on who you are and how picky you are...if you can even call it a downfall... I suppose if the handle got "wet" then your hand may slip, but I have two responses to that issuance of complaint which I have seen a few times in these reviews... The first is that the notch you see between the blade and the integral quillon guard is useful for removal of a blade with a "wet" handle... Just wrap your hand around the handle as usual, only just a bit higher, enabling you to place your index finger in that notch, and you'll have no problem with slippage. Second, if you want a more textured, "grippy" handle, you can go pick up 100' of nylon 550-lb test paracord (the real stuff, no Chinese knockoff stuff, folks..it's out there...) and spend a few minutes wrapping the handle with that if you don't like the way it feels. Alternatives include removing the hand scales, placing them flat-side down on newspaper, plugging the holes for the screws with wads of newspaper, and coating the surfaces of the scales that your hand touches with something like the spray-on Rhino truck bed liner or something textured of that nature that can take a beating, although I personally WOULD NOT suggest that route, but it's up to you. Paracord is not only a reversible fix, but you can remove it in a survival situation and use it for myriad other emergency applications. The knife is 'perfectly' balanced as well, which means it could function great as a thrower if that's what you'd like to do with it. I tested the balance using the sheath; I set the knife on the thin edge (spine) of the sheath, with the the quillon guard lined up exactly with the "spine" edge of the sheath, and the knife balanced there as perfectly as it possibly could have. The sheath has the same personality as the knife; simple, good looking, functional, and not at all convoluted. I would recommend using paracord to tie the "tip" or bottom portion of the sheath around your thigh for faster, easier removal, and to keep the blade/sheath from bouncing around when you run. Also, as with any solid sheath, try your best to keep the spine of the knife pressed against the inside of the sheath as you insert of remove the knife, so as to reduce the blade contact with the sheath upon insertion or removal. This knife will retain an edge for a VERY long time, even through rigorous use, but any blade rubbed repeatedly against the inside of its solid sheath (plastics, etc.) will begin to dull slightly with time, however, I imagine it would take a very long time for that to really be much of an issue with this knife. This method of removing the knife from the sheath is more of a formality with a knife of this quality. The $19.19 price it was going for when I bought it was an absolute STEAL!!! The bottom line for all of you "too long; didn't read" folks out there: if you're looking for a survival knife, or just a heavy-duty knife that looks good, functions well, and lives for a long time, but you don't want to spend around $200 on a "tool-steel extreme" knife that you could "kill a bear" with, (catch my drift?) this is one of the few knives I'd be fully confident in staking my pride as a collector on by telling you to go ahead and buy without worrying about any of that "latent buyer's remorse" I think we've all probably experienced at one time or another... If you know knives the way I do, you won't regret buying this guy. The knife is strong, heavy, durable, razor-sharp, perfectly balanced (worthy of throwing,) intimidating, simple, functional, and it looks awesome to boot. Don't let the minimalist simplicity and low price of this knife and sheath fool you into thinking it's a "cheap" knife. The GI Tanto is by no means "cheap," unless, of course, you're speaking strictly of price. I definitely consider this knife one of the best knives I own, and I myself own some of those $200 "tool-steel extreme" kill-a-bear knives.

How to start, this knife is big, as big as described, but also thick and heavy. About 1/8th inch thick steel kind of thick and heavy. It is also completely coated with a black finish to prevent rusting except for the very edge bevel of the blade, which came with a vigorous coating of grease on it when shipped to protect it. The knife is a simple tanto design with a nice plastic handle and secure x sheath that snaps in place and holds well. If you don't like the handle, you can upgrade/dress up the handle rather easily with your own as it is a simple allen screw on attachment in 2 places to a thick full tang making it nice for customization, but if you go too far the sheath's strap will not snap in place around it, which to me would be acceptable as it snaps in well as is and doesn't come dislodged by vigorous shaking without it. That leads me to the other part, the belt loop with hilt snap is removable attached by 2 screws through the sheath into a plastic hanger with pim nuts in it, it is also a nice split loop with velcro and a snap holding it, so that you can remove the sheath without unbuckling the belt, which is nice when leaving the woods and going into a place that may not like a 7 inch blade on your side. It also can be adjusted to hang the knife higher or lower compared to the belt loop with 4 possible mounting points the same width in the sheath. Over all there are 14 holes (7 per side) in the sheath that could be used for cord type tying off of the blade or hanging of it, sized for small sized cord or paracord, also 4 strap slots (2 per side) making your imagination and other gear the only limits on how to attach/carry this tool. OK, but enough of how it looks and the basic description of the knife as shipped, what about how it is used? Well, it ships literally at a near razor sharpness, at least my 2 did, I have a bare spot on my forearm from testing them with the really silly "will it shave my arm" test. It did. It also cuts unsupported paper with ease. So I was itching to try it out on other things. IN mundane tasks around the house, I cut up some 1/4 inch nylon cord I had to the lengths I needed for a project, easy simple cutting through it like butter. Then I decided I needed something more to test it, so I went out back to try battoning some wood. It excels at this task as well. Had some small branches in the 4-6inch diameter range I decided to split, and the only limit seemed to be keeping the branch diameter smaller than the blade length so I had something to hit with the batton. Haven't taken it out camping yet, and probably won't until the spring as I don't have any hunting planned this year sadly, but I will definitely be adding this to my camping gear as well as my GTFO pack. Only downside really is the coating means it can't be used with a fire steel to make sparks unless I remove a section of it, but I also usually carry at least 3 knives when camping/hiking anyway "just in case" so I can carry this as my main knife, and just make sure one of my smaller backups is not coated to use for fire if the matches get wet/fail.

Let me preface this by saying I bought the knife as a gift for someone else... even though I almost kept it when it arrived because I was so taken by it. This knife is an absolute steal! It was very sharp out of the box, the steel is REALLY good quality for the cost, and the sheath is probably worth the price of the knife by itself. I played around with it for a bit, but the real test has been seeing it after the person I gifted it to put it through some pretty thorough abuse. Some of the coating has come off, which is honestly to be expected from almost any coated knife, but the blade is still in great shape, and the person I gave this knife to is not known for taking good care of the edges of their knives. Now, let me tell you why it's a four star and not a perfect five. Three minor little things that I'm really nit-picking at by mentioning. For one, it's made in China. That doesn't effect the quality at all, but that should be taken into consideration when when purchasing ANYthing these days. For two, I don't much care for polypropylene handle scales. These are designed well enough, but I find it gets a little slippery when wet. For the third, the rear quillon is unnecessary as far as I'm concerned. If one were to want to use this knife for bushcraft (and it's quite sturdy enough to do so) that little back handle guard will get in the way of everything. Otherwise, this knife is pretty amazing, and for under thirty bucks you can just buy it and grind that little rear quillon right off, and maybe make yourself some custom handle slabs to replace the polypropylene ones, or ditch them all together and wrap it in paracord. Seriously, for the cost, you cannot go wrong with this knife. If Amazon gave me the option to give it four and a half stars I would. So if you're looking for a cheap, dirty, sharp hunk-o-steel that cannot be destroyed, buy this. I'm going to get a few more for friends, and a couple to play around with and customize myself.

The description was funny to say the least! No, my knife didn't come with a bobber and I doubt that it will float!!! But it came razor band hair popping sharp, like every other Cold Steel knife I have owned. Simple construction, and I found the grip scales a lot more comfortable than I thought they would be. I have some black Paracord, and just may wrap them for fun. Or even better, practice my stippling skills, maybe. Do I recommend this knife? Heck yeah, especially at about thirty bucks delivered! Also, this thing was a lot more compact and light than I thought it would be. I guess I have gotten too used to big Bowie knives lately, lol. Just buy one. I very much doubt that you will be disappointed...unless something is wrong with you! Sheath is great at this price range. Just remember to press forward when removing or re-sheathing it, since the plastic will dull the edge easily. Update...Still five stars for me. There is one change and it may be a positive. Blade is now marked with a rolled on paint. Kind of tacky compared to being stamped in on my previous one. But very easily covered by simply using some Super Black. The grips scales are textured better than my first one as well. Overall still a great knife. And at under $22 delivered, a fantastic value. Arrived shaving sharp of course. I stropped it for two minutes and it's a big old razor now. Going right in my truck's glove box for when I need it

My fist knife memories start about 1956 when grandpa O. gave me a miniature fake ivory handle keychain knife with the working edge ground flat and a chain that some years later would actually hold keys. By the middle of first grade, I already had a modest collection of three or four, being lovingly stored in a new cigar box still radiating the aroma of fresh cigars along with magnetic dogs, agates and several other long forgotten treasures. Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to have experienced the joys of owning hundreds upon hundreds if not thousands of sharpened metal pieces in almost every conceivable size and shape. Three plus decades ago I bought dozens of knives when 1st introduced by Lynn Thompson. I remember watching the ads of them being stabbed into 55-gallon drums and then being used to shave arm hair. Absolutely true, every bit of it. As a general acknowledgement of what I consider a continued tradition of designing and manufacturing fine edged weapons and implements It’s my pleasure to wholeheartedly recommend your purchase of Cold Steel products.

I compared the cold steel recon tanto, cold steel GI tanto, & the Walther P99 knife. I tried to split an oak 4x5 about 1-1/2 feet long. The Walther P99 did the worst. It sank in the depth of the blade but did not split the wood. The GI tanto was next. It took 9 hits from a wooden baton to split the wood. The recon tanto took 3 strikes and the wood split apart. All 3 feathered wood decently. Some better than others but none of them did too bad. They all held edge well. All wound cut paper after the test. The Walther P99 is tough. I beat the fire out of it trying to split the wood and it didn’t show any signs of wear. All 3 are tough for that matter. All 3 would make an excellent combat knife. As for overall versatility I would recommend the Cold Steel Recon tanto. If you have a tight budget, the G I Tanto works as a good 2nd. I found the grip on the recon Tanto the most comfortable, the grip on the Walther P99 2nd, and the GI Tanto last but not uncomfortable, just not as comfortable as the other two. I would take any of these 3 into combat with only reservation on the Walther P99 being not recommended for bushcraft. Otherwise. All 3 are TOUGH, excellent knives.

I am a knife and firearms enthusiast and I can say with conviction that this is a great knife. It is larger than I expected and came with a great hard plastic, friction lock sheath. The blade is nice and sharp and comes with a protective rustproof coating sprayed over the whole of the blade except for the sharpened edges. I have not bothered at trying to throw it since I personally think that throwing knives is a waste of a good edged weapon. That being said, this knife is very well balanced and I think that anyone with some throwing skill could get this blade to land with “good effect on target.” This knife is great for anyone who wants a sturdy, thick blade with minimalist features that they can modify, or leave completely as-is. And the whole package is under $30! I have seen some complaints about the grips, but I think that with a little work, anyone can make this knife into exactly what they want. You could carve your own grips to replace the factory ones, texturize the grips, place a rubberized sleeve over the whole handle, remove the grips and replace them with 550 cord, or do like I did and wrap 550 cord around the handles as they are to make the overall grip larger. There are countless ways that you can modify this knife to be the tool that you want. It is a great value! I think my only ‘complaint’ is that the sheath has absolutely no MOLLE attach points. It is definitely designed to hang from your belt and nowhere else. Of course, I will not dock a star for this since it’s obvious from the pictures and I would just be a knuckle-head for expecting something that wasn’t mentioned. I just feel that with a knife that is this high quality, a good MOLLE sheath is almost an automatic inclusion. I kind of wish there was a way to get a sheath for this knife like one included with my LMF II Infantry Knife (http://www.amazon.com/Gerber-22-01400-LMF-Survival-Knife/dp/B000G0HP5C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1362071541&sr=8-2&keywords=gerber+lmf+2). However, if you’re concerned about attaching this knife to a backpack, Load Bearing Vest (LBV), or Outer Tactical Vest (OTV), the sheath has plenty of holes and slots for weaving 550 cord or whatever other attachment setup you can think of. It won’t be the prettiest thing ever, but it will be where you want it. You could even just duct tape it to your backpack shoulder strap. I am just happy that knives like this exist and are so affordable! Both this knife and the Shanghai Shadow (http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Steel-Shanghai-Shadow-Secure-Ex/dp/B004Z4CU78/ref=pd_sim_sg_1) are a great value for a minimalist knife that has a great edge, great steel, and a simple design that you can customize as needed.

I have purchased many Cold Steel products in the past; Latin Machete, Trail Hawk, Rifleman's Hawk, Nightshade series Tanto and Karambit, Pendelton Hunter Lite, Roach Belly, Finn Bear, and Cold Steel NEVER disappoints, their 'budget' products are of a quality that far surpasses their price point. I am very active in the outdoors, and where I live much of the wood is hardwoods, and it gets very cold (northern Canada), so stout, quality blades are needed. I really like this GI Tanto, it is robust, came hair shaving sharp and is a work horse. At first I thought the grip scales would be uncomfortable, but to my surprise they were not, and afforded a good grip when carving (fuzz sticks, try-sticks, tent pegs, traps, ect..). The only thing that I changed was I took the top quillion (cross-guard) off to allow my thumb to rest along the spine. It wasn't overly obtrustive, but I wanted maximum comfort. The beauty of this blade also is that it is carbon steel, meaning you can strip the coating and add your own patina to it. This is a very cheap knife that offers a lot of customizing potential. Though, even if you just leave it as it is, it will not disappoint you...and will keep taking almost any kind of abuse you put to it (I've seen videos of people batoning concrete)

Valeu a pena comprar

Este cuchillo GI Tanto lo compre hoy y al dia siguiente me lo lleve al combate. Mi trabajo es en el campo y me relaciono mucho con hiervas, ramas, plantas, leña madera y mas acciones muy rudas y es superexcelente, una autentica obra de arte, resiste dureza en todo, filo, cortes y palancas. Estoy muy agradecido con Amazon de haber llegado a mi vida y a para todos. Soy una persona que toda su vida a estado en combate en supervivencia por descendencia, y he aprendido muy bien esto: La arrogancia no estrecha su mano con la supervivencia, y la persona deve tener buenos conocimientos sobre el temple de sus herramientas, no forzarlas al extremo al menos que sea muy nesesario... Voy hablar un poco sobre la funda. es muy buena y de buen material y su diseño es perfecto para asegurar el cuchillo. Pero para mi en lo personal cuando andas en combate trabajando es mejor tener una funda que puedas meter y sacar con mucha facilidad el cuchillo hasta con los ojos cerrados. En este caso le estorba mucho el boton del broche, solo digo este comentario para que los ingenieros de las empresas traten de crear una funda mas rapida que una vivora de cascabel. Muchas grasias a Cold steel y Amazon. estoy muy contento con este producto.

Da ich schon einige Produkte von Cold Steel besitze, war der Kauf von diesem Messer keine große Überlegung, da ich mit der Qualität immer zufrieden war; vorallem was die preisliche Gestaltung dazu betrifft. Das GI Tanto kommt mit einem 1055er Stahl, welchen man häufig in Macheten findet, aber auch hier in Messerform macht er eine gute Figur. Klar ist er nicht ewig schnitthaltig, dafür aber leicht nachzuschärfen. Für mich definitiv ein gutes Gebrauchsmuster, welchen man sicher auch härter anfassen kann. Der zweite Grund warum ich mir das Messer geholt habe ist der des Bastelns daran. Ich habe den oberen Guard abgenommen, die schwarze Beschichtung entfernt und durch eine Patina mit Tigerstripe-Muster ersetzt. Im vorderen Teil auf der Klingenoberseite habe ich noch eine Art "Sägezahnung" hinzugefügt. Das ganze kostete zwar einiges an Zeit, vorallem weil ich nur mit Feile und Schleifpapier ausgestattet war, aber es hat mir definitiv Spaß gemacht es ein wenig zu optimieren bzw. es optisch ansprechender zu machen. Durch das Fehlen des oberen Guard kann man auch gut weiter vorne das Messer greifen um feinere Schnitzarbeiten durchzuführen. Das Messer sitzt trotz meiner Veränderungen noch immer gut in der recht hochwertigen, aber vorallem gut brauchbaren Scheide.

La versión que me llegó, es la que trae el logo impreso con letras blancas, está es una versión vieja que tiene menos calidad en sus acabados que la versión más actual del Gi-tanto, pero a mí parecer tiene a su favor el recubrimiento epoxico que es de mejor calidad que la versión mas actual, además el acero es el mismo 1055. En general es un buen cuchillo con un balance calidad-precio muy respetable, es sólido y más versátil de lo que aparenta, lo he abusado bastante y ha respondido muy bien. Además por el precio se presta para que se le hagan modificaciónes al gusto y adaptarlo a tus necesidades. Muy recomendado.