G.I. Tanto 7" Durable 1055 Carbon Steel Fixed Blade Tactical Outdoor Throwing Knife, 5" Handle w/ Polypropylene Scales, Integral Quillon Guard, Resistant Secure-Ex Sheath

...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.

I'm a field biologist and I needed a knife that could handle light to moderate bushwacking and provide a bit of peace of mind when working in the bush alone in places where the predators are large and bitey. My normal habit is to do a bunch of research and then spend a bunch of money on a knife I can show off to my friends and feel cool about, but for work like this, I wanted something that was cheap enough for me not to cry about if it got destroyed or lost. The important thing was functionality, and a knife that's too pretty to be carried isn't very functional. I've been pleased with the quality of Cold Steel blades in the past, so when I saw this for $30, I didn't hesitate to buy it. It comes with a decent edge, which proved durable enough to chop through some 2" green branches. More importantly, the edge was easy to restore with light honing on ceramic. Stropping with a bit of compound brought it back to shaving sharpness. The ground edge does rust fairly quickly, but the black coating prevents corrosion on the majority of the blade. The weight is good for heavier tasks like chopping, but I barely noticed it on my hip after carrying it around for some long days. The plastic sheath is adequate, but the weakest part of the system. I wish the retention was a bit stronger, and that it had straps for attaching to MOLLE/PALS webbing. If a thigh strap isn't securing the bottom of the sheath, drawing the knife can lift the sheath a couple inches before the knife will begin to dislodge. Not really a big deal in practice, just a little annoying. If this had been a really expensive knife, I might have cared, but at this price point, I'm just happy it wasn't a fabric sheath.

Great quality, the blade is sharp and thick. the finish is well executed with a tough handle. The sheath is well made and fits the blade well. An awesome value at this price point.

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.

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)

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.

A faca é muito bonita, robusta,exelente.

It's a big thick, full tang knife. It will very likely outlast me. I like the design and the tanto-style edge lends itself to precise cutting. For self defense there are better alternatives since the blade is a little too thick. I've thought about sharpening the small angled part of the spine, which would make more suitable for stabbing, but might also make it harder to sheath.