Cold Steel 36CC 3V Master Hunter Fixed Blade Knife

So over the last few months I've been trying to look for the perfect everyday knife. I've bought and returned the ESEE 3, Rat 3, and even the Fallkniven F1. The Rat 3 came super dull and wasn't usable without sharpening right out of the box. The ESEE 3 can't stop rusting with just a 5 minutes wash in the sink. The Fallkniven F1 started falling apart and developing micro chips on the blade edge from very light use. I was not happy with any of them. I've already have the old school Cold Steel SRK and I like that knife. But it was a little big for everyday use. I've heard about the Cold Steel Master Hunter 3V from a few youtube videos and heard that the CPM 3V is a super steel. I heard it is a form of carbon steel but it does have some corrosion resistance properties. But it's just not full blown stainless steel. For this price I want to give it a try to see if it will fit what I was looking for. So far so good. The knife pass the paper test with flying colors. It came super sharp and it's pretty thin at the tip. I don't know if it will withstand prying but I am not going to try. The blade was covered with thick grease, I guess to prevent it from rusting. I will use this for a while first and will update this review if I see anything bad with it.

The 3V Steel is amazing! A few swipes on the bench stone and it is razor sharp!! Used it on a short weekend camping trip, stayed sharp, comfortable in the hand. What more can I say.. Great Knife.

I ordered this Cold Steel Master Hunter in CPM-3V because I've heard the stories from various online knife reviewers about the stellar quality and performance. I was really excited to see how the knife would pair with my SRK in VG-1 as a camp knife. I have no complaints about my SRK and Cold Steel is supposed to have a great reputation for quality and long term performance. However, I believe that in their rush to push out these knives they dropped the ball on this one in terms of quality control. The one I originally received definitely did not live up to those standards. As you can see from the pictures, the handle is misshaped and deformed. Amazon Customer Service immediately sent me a replacement, as you can see, but I'm disappointed in the initial quality. That being said, the replacement knife seems to be properly built, though there are still some problems I see. For starters, the brass lanyard hole was not properly sized or installed on either of these knives. The over-molded Krayton handle material is also showing some wear, simply from drawing the knife from the sheath. Speaking of which, the blades are covered in some sort of packing grease which was caked on so thick that it's all over the inside of the sheath. This wouldn't be a problem except the two halves of the sheath are permanently connected so you can't clean it out properly. I really like this knife. It looks great. It should be a perfect camping knife; however, I'm not going to keep it. I have too many issues with the initial quality of two knives in a row that I'm planning to look elsewhere. I think once the hype and demand for this knife go down, the quality coming from the factory will go up. If you chose to purchase this one, I don't think you're making a bad choice; I'm just not convinced you'll get a good example.

After my example arrived I immediately noticed that the handle was not flush with the top bridge of the knife. The spine was higher than the handle which not only annoyed me but led me to believe as the handle wears over time (which it will, it is very soft and abraded easily) this would become more pronounced. I returned it and am waiting to see if the replacement is better. The blade retains in the sheath with two tabs that wear on the handle with noticeable wear marks. I question how long this will last before wearing down completely. The blade itself has a very nice shape and lends to a very long and sweeping belly. It is a longer blade than the F1. I also really like the taper. It makes sense and lends to its purpose of processing game. The handle that is attached to the rat tang does allow for moisture to penetrate between the tang and handle. This makes me also suspicious of the long term life of this knife. The blade come exceedingly sharp...one of the best edges I've handled. I own many many knives ranging from esse, spyderco, falkniven, Enzo, and so on. This edge on the Master Hunter is no joke. If Amazon honors the return of my first example and the second arrives with the handle issue solved, I will continue use and review of the knife and share my experience. That said...for this price the fit and finish should be better dialed. All my other cold steel knives are excellent. American Lawman and Recons are outstanding albeit lesser quality steel. FYI: sheath is ok. Design is good but Kydex is better. Update: Different example arrived. Well folks...where to begin. First, the blade spine lines up better, but still has a small amount of spine raised above the handle. It's much less so than my first example, and I will live with it. A fairly minor annoyance. Second, the blade has small pockets, nicks, and scratches that show discoloration. WTF. I know this metallurgy lends to corrosion but this is a brand new 100 dollarish knife. Third, the lanyard rivet is offset and seated in a way that it is canted biased to the right. WTF. In summary, I'm keeping this one. I am disappointed in the overall fit and finish and also the inconsistency but the blade shape and cpm3v is alluring and wicked sharp. Cold steel makes very good products. I have several and will buy more. Maybe I'm too picky but when it comes to spending a dollar these days it's important to see its return in investment. I believe if the QC was stepped up a notch that this blade falls nicely in its price point. *Update*. Been using it and would like to confirm blade geometry is very very good. Full sweeping belly does work well for slicing. DLC has been holding up very well and a huge improvement from the painted coatings. Good grip, very sticky but kinda hard to clean out fat and grease. One other note... Not sure if the packing grease they use was the best choice for a blade marketed towards hunters. It's not food grade and very smelly. Since the knife is coated with it and shipped in the sheath it remains in the sheath after cleaning. You would not want this all over your meat. Still I will kick this up from three to four stars due to user operation and blade shape and steel choice of CPM3v.

The Cold Steel Master Hunter is an efficiently modern woods/hunting knife with 4.5 inches of premium steel. The quality of this knife in regards to blade material, handle, sheath, balance, weight, finish, out-of-the-box sharpness, and cost cannot be overstated enough. No detail has gone overlooked. This is one of the best production blades I've ever held and I cant make any suggestions to make it better for it's class. In my opinion there is no reason not to get this knife assuming you are in the market for a small to mid-sized woods blade. Cold-Steel knocked it out of the park.

Klar -- das Master Hunter ist in erster Linie ein Jagdmesser. Trotzdem hat es im Bushcraft-Bereich gute Reviews bekommen, und ich dachte, dass CS genau vor diesem Hintergrund nun auf den wesentlich zäheren 3V-Stahl setzt. Irrtum, denn gleichzeitig wurde die Klingengeometrie deutlich umgestaltet -- die Klinge ist nun wesentlich fragiler, sie verjüngt sich ab dem Griff von einer ziemlichen massiven Stärke (5 mm) sofort sehr stark und sollte in der oberen Hälfte sicher keinerlei härteren Belastungen ausgesetzt werden. CS hat mir das in eine E-Mail so bestätigt und z. B. von allen batoning-artigen Einsatzformen entschieden abgeraten. Fazit: Jetzt ist das Messer trotz des zäheren Stahls noch stärker als vorher ein Jagdmesser. Bei meiner Version stand der Klingenrücken bei der Daumenauflage auch noch etwas über, was nicht gerade von einer optimalen Verarbeitung zeugt. Für mich ist das Konzept des Messers so nicht stimmig. Wer das Messer nicht härter ran nimmt (weil z. B. draußen noch ein Beil mitgeführt wird), hat vielleicht seine Freude daran. Allerdings würde man dann eher auf einen schnitthaltigeren Stahl setzen und gerade nicht auf V3, der ja gerade für die "härtere Gangart" der vielleicht beste Stahl der Welt ist. Ich vermute das Gleiche gilt für Jäger: sie suchen wahrscheinlich eher einen Stahl der in Sachen Schnitthaltigkeit und Rostträgheit Akzente setzt...

It came quick and was an awesome knife but I had to choose between this and the srk in vg1 and went with the srk. The hunter felt great in the hand but I wanted something just a bit longer for when I baton camp wood so I sent it back.

Il coltello è ben fatto molto proporzionato e con una impugnatura che si adatta bene alle mani grandi come le mie, devo ancora provarlo ma le impressioni sono positive,quello che dà fastidio e mi ha fatto dare quattro stelle è la confezione giunta danneggiata , la garanzia e sulla scatola , e il coltello nella sua custodia pieno di grasso,Amazon mi ha stupito ancora una volta ma questa in negativo .

Great knife! But in my opinion the factory edge could be a bit sharper otherwise I'd give it 5 stars! I would still recommend this knife for sure!

I prefer 1095 steel and carbon V steel instead of this 3V steel. The 3V steel is very very difficult to sharpen on a stone. compared with the 1095 or the Carbon V steel, I returned this knife.