Cold Steel 97JMS Universal Carbon Steel Tactical Jungle Machete with Cor-Ex Sheath, 22 Inch Length, Black

The cold steel machete is well made as you would expect a cold steel product to be. It's easy to put a nice sharp edge on it and it keeps a good edge for a long time. It will wack through blackberry bushes, and eats small branches and brush for lunch. As I said it performs like any well made Cold steel product..

Look at the YouTube reviews. It's awesome. My 1 gripe is the same as most other people. The handle is slick, hard, uncomfortable polypropylene. The handle angle seemed a bit awkward at first. After I applied heat shrink grip to the handle, it became very comfortable, and the grip angle makes perfect sense for power. Cold Steel only makes a few South African machetes with decent handles, like their Royal Kukri Machete (I know because I own it). The hard polypropylene is not enough to drop a star off the review, because you know exactly what you're getting with a Cold Steel machete handle, I have 4 Cold Steel South African Machetes. Only the Royal Kukri has a handle that isn't hard polypropylene. For $20, I'm not complaining. I own expensive knives to which I still have to apply more grip to the handle. This is also the 1st Cold Steel machete I've received that came near hair shaving sharp. I thought the sale to GSM Outdoors would be a negative. Maybe it still will be. However, the quality control may have increased. Perhaps I just got lucky, who knows.

Works how you would think. But handle is super uncomfortable. Need a good wrap job or new handle before alot of use.

Love it!This thing clears brush and saplings with ease.I had to put some Wilson racket handle wrap on it because it was too slick and smooth for my taste. Much better grip and control now.Buy one, you won't be disappointed but remember its limitations as its a thin bladed machete. If you chop away at large tree's repeatedly or baton it through large logs it probably won't last very long!

Just had this delivered. I was disappointed to find that this is one of the many products Cold Steel has modified since new ownership. The listing did not specifically say that the manufacture of this item was moved to China from South Africa and that the steel has been changed to 65Mn from 1055. I wasn’t positive until I opened the package. On one side of the label it said 65Mn on the other side it said 1055. But China is clearly printed on the blade where the old CS machetes where stamped South Africa. I bought this item based on a review of the original manufactured version. Time will tell if this version is as good. It’s possible that the Chinese got the heat treat right on this batch and maybe the poly handle will be more robust than the previous version because that was its only flaw. 3 stars to cold steel for not clearly disclosing country of manufacture and blade material up front. hopefully they will get another star once if it survives a JoeX type beating. But CS isn’t getting the other star back based on their purposefully vague advertising.

the quality of the built is not the greatest but is related to the price. However, the machete is a good tool for it's price

Very sharp and sturdy. Cuts wood well

Well balanced, easy to sharpen, sturdy sheath. Comfortable handle is somewhat slick, especially if the hand is sweaty.