Cold Steel Bushman Durable Resistant 7" SK-5 High Carbon Fixed Blade Outdoor Survival Hunting Knife, 5.25" Hollow Handle, Secure-Ex Sheath with Ferrocerium Fire Steel

Years ago I bought one and gave it away.Recently I bought another 😊 for myself.I've heard people say ots a gimmick knife and I say "so?" It's an inexpensive way to make a spear and the knife alone AS a knife is easily worth the price!

Buy a broom stick and screw in the knife, and you're good to go.Hunt snakes and varmints but be careful.

love the hollow handle

The cold steel bushman is definitely an instant hit with its versatility, simplistic design and ability to take a lot of beating. I haven't field tested it yet on a camping / hiking trip so this review is based on some basic outdoor tests that i've done so far. I used the knife to make a spear shaft for the same and it took me less than 15 minutes to get the whole thing set up!Pros:1. Simple design, roach belly shape of the blade along with the double bevel grind is good for sharpening on simple lanskys for outdoor usage2. Versatility: use as a knife, survival knife (carrying stuff in the hollow handle with some mods) or as a spear.3. Quality of steel: excellent tempering, the knife retains its elasticity after insane abuse (bending more than 45-50 degrees)4. Value for money: nothing beats it at its price range5. Utilities: Comes with a nice ferro rodCons or minor gripes1. Handle: The handle has no gripping material and is very easy to slide your fingers on to the edge. Advisable to get a hockey stick grip/ badminton racket grip tape as soon as you buy this knife and secure the handle2. Coating: while carbon steels need the anti-oxidant coatings, the ferro rod is rendered useless if we try to use on this blade. I would suggest to probably remove part of the coating on the spine or carry a smaller knife like the Cold Steel Minitac Skinner (which produces excellent sparks with the ferro rod provided with Bushman). Or if you are really into the knife, follow Chris Tanner's detailed procedure to remove the coating and customise the knife. I live in the tropics so i choose to keep the coating and use an alternative knife for my fire needs)3. Sheath is ok, but not the best i've seen from Cold Steel. understandable at its price range. Also, one must extremely careful while unsheathing this knife and follow the instructions on the sheath!Overall, for the money I won't hesitate to give it a 5* rating. Things that could be improved are probably adding a notch for striking the ferro rod and probably a more durable sheath, but those are minor gripes as i said, for a 20 odd dollar knife!Update: 2 years and multiple jungle trips later, I still think this is my second most trustworthy knife (after the bk-7) for outdoors and camping. The black powder coating has held up well and the knife itself is still working fine. Works absolutely great as a spear.

This is an interesting knife. First of all this knife is a cheap Chinese Cold Steel knife. That is a plus in this example because it is really pretty much a throw away costing me about 25 bucks. A stone cold deal for a big survival size knife. The knife is carbon steel and will rust. It is coated with something like paint or some such to help alleviate corrosion, I don't think it would do in a salt water environment and you'll want to keep it oiled. The edge was a typical sucky Chinese hand ground edge, I didn't expect anything else. Spent some time getting the edge sorted out. It took a good edge and from what little time I have spent with it seems like it will hold that edge well. The blade is about 1/8" thick and I might think twice before abusing it too much. It has a nice full bellied shape and pretty pointy tip.Comes with a Secure-Ex plastic sheath that I have no complaints with (other than the warnings not to do stupid things 'cause it is a knife). It has a fire starter that sticks into a holder molded into the sheath, a nice feature. I like the plastic sheathe as it will not retain moisture and rust the knife and is sturdy enough to not fall apart itself. The sheath pretty much locks the knife in place so it is unlikely to fall out while carrying it. It is self draining through a small hole at the tip.The most interesting feature of this knife is the handle. Essentially it is flat steel that is forged into a round, hollow handle that could be used to make a spear of the knife. I do not know how practical that could be, but that is the reason I purchased this knife just to have that feature. One could also contrive to use the hollow handle to hold various survival materials. I did a paracord wrap on the handle for a better grip as the steel handle is slick painted and black, gets HOT in the desert.I got it to keep in my truck to use when out and about if I need such a blade and for that use I think it will be an asset. A good, solid utility knife with a few unique features. At the price I see no downside to the Cold Steel Bushman Knife.

Writing this review after 10 months of owning this spear. I finally broke the tip. I have used this item for 10 months also. Abused it. So for it to break just the tip after this long is really impressive. I'm just guna grind it down to another point and roll out

This think is an absolute blast! I loved it so much I bought the Bowie as well

I'll start with the good:1) I think the idea of this is great, a bushcraft knife that can turn into a spear.2) Sharp!3) The pice is hard to beat.The bad...1) They could have easily added a basic finger stop to this to keep your finger from running up the blade. The boar spear they make has almost the same thing.2) It could have a thicker blade for harder bushcraft use.3) The sheath has zero retention... and I mean ZERO!!! The knife slips and slides out at fairly shallow angles. Did I mention that this thing is sharp?I'll be doing mods to the sheath so it has some retention. And I'll add some gaffer tape to the handle for some better grip.