The final part of our latest lock strength test! The Extrema Ratio RAO and the new Cold Steel 4-MAX Which knife will hold the most weight? Watch this video to find out! To find out more about Cold Steel, please visit: www.coldsteel.com
As a serial consumer I've got to say that I truly appreciate what you guys are doing here. There is not one single other manufacturer I can think of that is willing to test their knives to failure and actually put the testing out here to be publicly accessible. And as if that wasn't enough, when you do your head to heads against other brands you clearly give every advantage possible to the competitors product which in my opinion is just a class act all around. Even if anyone else was doing this they would have a marketing dept. skewing the results and angles in their favor. You guys don't sugarcoat it. You make the best product you possibly can, are willing to stand by it and prove it. I fucking respect that.
The Whiskey Gunner Benchmade does, they have a series of tests where they test lock strength, choppong, battoning and cutting with their knives. Really fun to watch too.
One single 4Max vs 3 RAO's. And the 4Max still worked & was usable in every way. If that doesn't show the haters & the doubters the strength, durability & amazing design of a CSK then I have no idea what will. Well done boys!
There is a certain satisfaction that comes with knowing the XHP Recon One clipped in your front pocket would make a $550 Strider spill its guts and shit all over itself..
You guys rock, as the honesty in your testing is unsurpassed, and it's awesome to see real life testing, side by side. Quick Tip: When you divide by ten, just move the decimal point to the left one digit.
At this point, i'm not so sure a lot of fixed blades can wtihstand this much weight. I'm pretty sure a Ka-bar would have the tang twisted at the very least.
I would be very interested in seeing a Triad lock knife tested via weight hang to catastrophic failure to see what actually fails in the Triad lock when it does break how does it break( would be pointless information but curious)
+csknives hi there man.... i just came across a seller of CSknives in India, their website is KnifeIndia.com.... and they claim to sell real CS products... can you please confirm if they are real so that i can buy your CS products in India.... please...... thanks you
366,5 kilograms hanging on a knife, that's what I'd call insane. I still prefer my slip joint folders coupled with a full tang fixed blade for heavy duty cutting though. Mr. Demko, what you design in Ventura are not just knives, they're more like tanks which happen to have a blade attached to them.
No shock here. Have not been in that thread with the "Alien Headed" guy for a while. But I told him flat out that the RAO's knockoff axis lock would crap itself, and become useless once the stress kicked up. Not surprised at the pin in spine whacks at all. And it has already been well established that the Triad is not the weakest link-the blade always breaks before the lock fails. I told him the 4Max's blade will outlast the backside of that RAO. We all knew it was going to shit it's pants coming out of the backside of the handle. As it stands Andrew, we are all still waiting for bld522 to show back up in his call out thread...but he is MIA...at least on the CS sub forum.
A.D. got a workout doing these tests. It's insane how much that Tri-Ad Lock will hold. Andrew Demko and Cold Steel put out the strongest knives ever made.
I’ve got a few. I like spyderco and benchmade and many other brands but cold steel runs the monopoly on TOUGH USE... they r not for everyone but I do love them
Brilliant testing! I was so impressed that I purchased the RAO II . Between the sheath, and overall design and feel I had to pick up the RAO II. I already own a Frame Rock so this just made sense! Now for the point blank reason why I went with the RAO II. ... Because I already have the 4 Max that I purchases from Knife center for just a bit over $400.00 . My favorite CS knives are as follows . A Trailmaster I picked up years ago that is still in awesome shape.and a CS Magnum Tanto II San Mai I believe was made in Japan ( exceptional quality ) . I own a Demko AD series already and I want to purchase the CS AD10 and AD15 . Not interested in much else atm. I remember watching the early torturous testing CS knives went through many years ago. The hanging rope and chopping through ribs was rather fun to watch. You folks also to be point blank made some rather silly knives. But the nice thing is you have a variety therefore whatever taste you may have something is always available.
Would love to see at the end the 4-MAX taken apart and a close up taken of the parts. Curious since after this amount of abuse, it still locks with little play, how loose the tolerances can be with the Tri-Ad Lock and so it should be dependable for a long service life of the knife. I think it would be neat to see how stressed the parts were on the inside of the knife to see how much they can take and still be this reliable.
Now can you do a test where the pins holding the top of the knives are in the same positions. The RAO pin is in pin hole three from the edge and the 4-max is in the pin hole two from the edge. For it to be an equal test, all parameters need to be the same...
Please always make sure that you set the knifes in the same manner, meaning that the distances from the pivot point on the bench and the clamping point on the blade are identical as this can and will put different stresses on the knifes.
a ZT doesnt even come close to medford regarding Retail price...if you are a regular forum visitor and talk about cold steel. medford owners are usually the ones bragging about their folders...yet no one has ever put it to the test...and my bet is the ZT300 will outperform the medfords big time
+piet jansen well Medfords are Midtechs. And they use more premium materials. Lock strength is not what they advertise they knives to excel in. They are high end folding prybars with their thick blade stock and their expensive handle materials. So it wouldn't make much sense to test them in lock strength
seriously, if you're testing them one at a time just roll the hand truck back and forth and use the same weight stack for each instead of lugging all that iron by hand. in the Army they say if you aren't smart you'll be strong
New challenge. The Wander Tactical Hurricane T or Mistral T They run for 310usd which is around 4 max territory. Seriously they may be a 4 max killer with a screw in pin and titanium scales.
I'd be curious about this: Build a finite element analysis 3D model of a 4-Max knife, then get calculated values for the stresses encountered during battoning. We could probably model out how well a 4-Max can stand up to such use. One could also simulate the tests in the videos, and see how well the models match up to the actual tests.
I assume you just didn't think of it but once you were switching back and forth you should have just rolled the pallet jack back and forth between each knife. Lot less work:)
I would have liked to know what would have happened if they had put their support pin on the RAO from the beginning. Because they first weakened it, leaving it without its resistance pin and then placing it when it was already broken, it did not seem honest to me.
first one here?...wonder if you guys have enough weights...with the pin the RAO cant realy go anywhere...so my guess the entire handle will have to break...lets see ;-)...wont give away who wins this...but very impressive...RAO did much better than i thought
And you, I take it, must have a great talent at crafting useful replies? Actually, this reply is rather useless itself, ironically. To me, the concept of using a screw to turn a weak 4" blade folder into a relatively weak 4" fixed blade, all for far more money than an ordinary fixed blade of similar quality, is incredibly worthless. The only use would be in some municipality where a 4" blade locking folding knife is more legal to carry than a 4" fixed blade- a situation that, as far as I can tell, doesn't exist (and wouldn't follow the trends of other inane knife restrictions).
Andrew Tadsen haha not just fun.. also incredibly original! but in all seriousness, it doesnt matter if you find value on it or not.. you tell me about your knife preferences on this comment, not a topic i care about. Can we move on?
lol, I was thinking the same thing, just use the same of the dolly -- move it across. Not as dramatic though, seeing more weights get stacked up each time
Как можно честно сравнивать два ножа, когда на видео значок Cold Steel? Очень "честный" ролик) В любом случае Экстрема Ратио красивее, эффектнее и лучше режет!!!
Those tests are really interesting but clearly lacking some close-ups and overview of the others parts of the knives such as the blade (because this time it's still sharp and acting as a pivot in the test so I'd like to see if there are indentations in the blade or maybe if the handles are deform, that kind of things...).
Very interesting test, you have tried everything that is usually tested to know if a knife is good, who of us has never hung 100 kg to the handle of his knife, who of us has never tried to cut a wall with the back of the blade. After all, because you need to know which blade is sharper and stronger, which tip works best and resists wear, these are not the reasons why we buy a knife. We all use knives to pull the cars out of the way, certainly not to cut something. As always my opinion on Americans is confirmed, you people always do things the right way
Very impressed with the knife and thanks for the video. Just got the 4 max scout 62 rq from cold steel so I will need you to do the test all over with that knife. No just kidding I think the new poor mans version of the 4 max should hold up pretty similar. Glad to know these knives are strong because that was big part of what I was looking for in this folder. Stay safe and healthy.
If only you guys had knives contracted to be made in the US, I'd be even happier. Other than that, your knives are A1 for the price you pay, especially with that excellent CTS XHP steel
Cold steel super nice. tri ad lock super strong. 4 max super strong !!! Андрей выражаю большое уважение вы сконструировали самый крепкий и надежный замок в мире, не думаю что в ближайшем будущем что нибудь появится конкурентоспособное. Дизайн ножей у вас тоже очень логически продуманный и интересный. желаю новых успехов.
