Knife Deep Dive: Cold Steel Drop Forged Hunter Review

From a series in the Cold Steel Catalog (which in our opinion is not getting the attention it deserves), we present to you the Drop Forged Hunter. This no-frills one-piece hunting knife may not have the most unique look or exotic handle, but it certainly delivers!

How was the Cold Steel Drop Forged Hunter made?

This is a fixed blade outdoor/hunting knife made from a solid piece of 52100 High Carbon steel. It comes with a rock solid Secure-Ex sheath like many Cold Steel knives do. The combination of the powder-coated, forged blade and synthetic sheath make it a low-maintenance, high-quality tool.

52100 High Carbon Steel is a favorite of many knife makers because it has great knife properties such as excellent edge retention, toughness and ease of sharpening. But it's also great fun for certain approaches to knife making. One such approach is drop forging.

What is Drop Forging?

The drop forging process involves a formed die, where a red-hot billet is placed. Another shaped die is then dropped (sometimes with assisted pressure, other than gravity alone) on top of the billet shaping it into the object the counterfeiters are trying to make. In this case that is a fantastic knife.

A major advantage of die forging is that the pressure applied to the billet is not on one specific spot, but on the entire surface at once. As a result, the density of the molecules and thus the strength of (in this case) the knife is seamless and even. It is also a relatively inexpensive way to produce knives and therefore offers quality knives at affordable prices.

What is Cold Steel known for?

Founded in 1980 by Lynn Thompson, Cold Steel has continued to make some of the strongest knives in the industry. Their reputation is well deserved.

Cold Steel has been part of the GSM Outdoors company since 2020. At this point, no one is quite sure what this means for the future of Cold Steel, but we look forward to the new designs and models coming out. One of these innovations is the Atlas lock: a variant of the Tri-Ad lock. Will it be an improvement? Knowing Cold Steel, they're sure to put it to the test and make some comparisons.

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