Cold Steel Peace Maker III – Product Review

Looking for an inexpensive knife to throw into an “operator’s bag”, I decided to give the Cold Steel Peace Maker III a try.

I like fixed bladed knives and Cold Steel has satisfied my proclivity toward them for a number of years. I normally carry the Cold Steel Kobun as my EDC to accompany the Springfield XDs 4.0 .45. To satisfy the “want” for a good knife in a 4” blade length, the Cold Steel Peace Maker III was chosen from a number of knives.

Here are the basic features of the knife:

• Blade Length: 4″
• Overall Length: 8 1/2″
• Blade Thickness: 2.5 mm
• Steel: German 4116 Stainless
• Weight: 3.4 oz.
• Handle: 4 3/4″ Long High Impact Polypropylene
• Sheath: Secure-Ex Sheath

The blade is sharp from the factory, but a little light honing made the edge just a little but sharper. “The Peace Maker’s “Scandi” ground blade bevel makes them very easy to resharpen, while the unique compound ground clip point -provides a very stiff, distal tapered point capable of piercing thick targets without compromising precious cutting power.”

The knife is of the full-length tang design that adds strength to the overall knife. A lanyard hole in the grip provides for a nice place to add a Para cord lanyard. The grip is well-designed and provides adequate protection in preventing the hand from sliding forward onto the blade during wet operations. The grip is ridged top and bottom to ensure a good hand hold and has a curved butt to help fit into the little finger. This feature is handy when operating the knife from blade-forward or blade-back positions.

Although Cold Steel flaunts the Cold Steel Peace Maker III as a “boot knife”, the Secure-ex sheath’s design, I believe, prevents it from being a good boot knife. When worn as a boot knife, the grip should be readily accessible for easy retrieval of the knife; the design of the Secure-ex sheath prevents this from happening.

The Cold Steel Peace Maker III slides into the sheath well and is secured by tension of two flaps and a grooves that are built into the sheath. The knife may, in fact, be held too well. The sheath flaps (for lack of a better description) cover about two-thirds of the knife handle. The operator must grab the upper one-third of the handle and pull until the knife is freed from the sheath, and a healthy pull is must be. When one is in the time of need to pull a boot knife, it is no time to be concerned about anything that might hinder the draw. My immediate thought was to cut off a substantial amount of the sheath’s flaps, but that can’t be done.

A well-constructed metal belt/boot clip is mounted to one of the sheath’s flaps. The clip is adequate to hold the sheath on a belt (up to 1 ¼”) or inside a boot. Inside a boot, the majority of the knife is hidden, as the clip is high on the sheath. There is only 3” of grip surface to grab above the clip and three-quarters of an inch of that is sheath. I have a number of knives intended for boot carry and all allow easy access to the handle. The Secure-ex sheath negates any fast draw of the knife. The Secure-Ex Sheath falls short, in my opinion, for adequate access to the knife handle. Although the Cold Steel Peace Maker III itself gets a 4-star rating from me, the Secure-Ex Sheath is a -1.

For my purposes; however, the Cold Steel Peace Maker III is a good knife; it is light and compact enough to fit into a pocket in my “operator’s bag” or be attached to one of the straps with a suitable retainer. The Cold Steel Peace Maker III fills a role more as a general purpose utility knife than as a boot knife.

The Cold Steel Peace Maker III is available through Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Steel-20PBS-Peace-Maker/dp/B00BD56SWA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417104011&sr=8-1&keywords=Cold+Steel+Peace+Maker+III) at a price of $19.15 and other fine stores.