Weird Knife Wednesday: Cold Steel Kudu

I herewith swear that I will write this entire post without ever once making a joke about that Kudu that you do so well.

…Damn.

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This is the Cold Steel Kudu. Specifically, the ring locking version.

As is typical for Cold Steel, they’ve come up with a story with the intent of attaching some manner of vague mystique to this knife’s design. Cold Steel knives are seemingly always a style once used by traditional ninjas, or Navy SEALS, or KGB operatives, or Shaolin Monks, or Aztec warriors or Scots berserkers or Cherokee indians or Sir Francis Bacon or Elvis or whoever they think will help get whackers to buy the things.

This time they bill the Kudu as a modern reimagining of traditional ring pull folders, specifically singling out the ones commonly used throughout Africa. Which probably has, it must be said, at least some historical validity. You can read the entire block of bumf here if you’re inclined.

This isn’t something you hear about very often but there is apparently a small but very dedicated fanbase devoted to these sorts of knives. And some prone to affixing to them… let’s just call it a helping of nebulously quasihistorical woo. Check this sort of thing out, for instance.

Significance of the mystical symbols, my left toe.

Anyway, suffice it to say that the idea of this type of ring pull folder has been around for a very long time, far predating the advent of mass manufacturing, and was most likely initially of European origin and then spread throughout the world via the usual channels. (I.e., white men in tall wooden ships sailing around planting flags on shores that already belonged to someone else, bringing all their junk with them.) Today’s machine made examples are to some extent surely mechanically copies of an idea that craftsmen have been hammering out by hand for centuries.

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The Kudu and its ilk are back locking folders, but not in the typical manner we’re used to seeing on this continent and in this era. As you pivot the rather large blade it humpity-bumps over six very distinct detents thanks to a series of lobes around the heel. Only the last position truly locks, with a square edged peg going into the matching slot on the external lock bar which is a single piece of springy steel riveted to back of the handle.

This locks it in place quite solidly, but if you pull up on the attached ring (which is clearly just a regular split keyring that otherwise dangles freely) it’ll unlock and allow itself to be closed. The lock bar is extremely stiff and doesn’t bend very much, but you hardly need to lift it any distance at all to unlock the blade.

It must be said that closing it with one hand is difficult, but opening it with one hand is outright impossible. This is quite possibly the least “tactical” knife design ever devised.

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The Kudu is surprisingly large. It’s a full 10" long overall, with a 4-1/4" clip pointed blade made of 5Cr15MoV. The blade is 0.90" thick and is polished to a near mirror shine which both causes it to smudge like a son of a bitch and also makes it tricky to photograph. Closed, the knife is about 5-5/8" long and measuring its breadth is a tricky proposition because of the presence of the ring. So minus that, it’s about 1-5/16" across at its widest point which is the peak of the blade. It’s 0.637" thick including the heads of the rivets holding the lock bar on.

The handle is made from glass filled nylon (which Cold Steel is calling “Zy-Ex” this time) and has a hot-rod flame inlay in it which is made out of some type of steel. It’s probably some manner of austenitic stainless like 304 or 18-8 because a magnet is only weakly attracted to it.

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The inlay is only on one side, so the reverse isn’t nearly as interesting. The markings on the other side of the blade list the manufacturer, steel, and made in China origin.

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There are no thumb studs, but a large fingernail nick is provided. Both the marketing and the markings on this knife try very hard to play up its Africa-ness, and the critter depicted on the blade is, well, a kudu: An antelope endemic to southern Africa that’s got some very spiraly antlers.

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From a latter-day EDC perspective, the Kudu is enormous. Mostly it’s just very long. It just towers over the CQC-6K, which is already on the larger end of the spectrum of modern EDC knives.

Since the Kudu is partially riveted together I did not bother to take it apart. The blade is held on with a pair of Torx head screws and is thus theoretically dismountable, but since the mechanism on this knife is on the outside I don’t think there’s much to be gained there. How it works is already on display for all to see.

The Inevitable Conclusion

The appeal of a ring-pull folder like this is in a way its simplicity, and the Kudu definitely has that. This is a super budget knife, usually retailing for around $10. But despite that it seems to be built tolerably well. I personally put it in the same category as the various twist-lock Opinels, slip joint Texas Toothpicks, Svords and other extended tang friction folders, and similar low tech knives. This is a crocodile: archaic in its way, largely unchanged since ancient times, but that’s because it didn’t need changing.

Due to its length, lack of clip or any other carrying provision – it doesn’t even have a lanyard hole, although I guess you could tie one through the ring – and awkward protrusion of the ring itself the Kudu would actually be kind of tough to carry in the typical way that we’re used to. But it’d make a great camp knife, scout knife, or tool to leave in the shed or tackle box. Or, if you must, to be carried for hipster purposes.

The beauty of the, frankly, crude mechanical design means it should continue to work even if it gets dinged, dented, abraded, or otherwise fucked up in a manner you probably wouldn’t want to subject one of your exotic supersteel pieces to.

Plus it’s neat. That’s got to count for something.