Monday, May 2, 2011

Cold Steel Rajah II Folding Knife Review

Cold Steel Rajah II Folder Knife 6" Kukri Style Blade with Grivory Handle

The main design idea behind the Cold Steel Rajah II Knife is that it's a pocket folding interpretation of a kukri machete. To achieve this Cold Steel needed to build an extremely robust folder with the strongest lock on the market.



The Rajah II measures a closed length of 8". The blade length comes in at 6" with a thickness of 4.8 millimeters. Straight across the overall length comes in at 14". Frame thickness comes in at 11/16 of a inch. The total weight comes in at a few ounces short of a full pound at 13 ounces.

To start with, I photographed my Rajah II and a Case Large Folding Hunter together. This photo gives a good indication of how large the Rajah II actually is.

Cold Steel Rajah II Folder Knife 6" Kukri Style Blade with Grivory Handle

The Rajah II is a very robust and solidly built knife. The attention to detail and overall build quality are excellent. The Grivory handle is full lined with recessed stainless steel liners that run the full length of the frame on both sides. The frame is held together by 3 double end torx bolts and a large torx pivot bolt. The blade runs off a pair of phosphorous/bronze bushings giving the blade a relatively smooth action......

Cold Steel Rajah II Folder Knife 6" Kukri Style Blade with Grivory Handle

The lock bar is 3/16" thick and short at only 2 3/4". It pivots on a solid stainless 1/8" thick pin. The blade stop is also a solid 1/8" thick pin but is surrounded by a slightly larger diameter stainless sleeve inside the frame where the blade makes contact. The locking system is the TRI-AD lock which is apparently designed to use this blade stop in such that all force applied to the blade goes through this stop and through the entire frame instead of on the lock bar. The lock bar is stout and the spring pressure is fairly heavy. It locks up rock solid.


Cold Steel Rajah II Folder Knife 6" Kukri Style Blade with Grivory Handle

The 3/16" thick Kukri-style blade is made of AUS-8 stainless and is flat ground and finished in a smooth bead blast. The edge is a V-bevel and evenly ground on both sides it's entire length and came out of the box hair-popping sharp. It easily shaved a patch right off of my arm with little effort. The blade sports a ambidextrous thumb disc right above the blade's tang. It is nearly 1/2 a inch wide by 9/16 of a inch long, and about 1/8" thick. It's torx bolted to the spine of the blade and is serrated on both sides which gives your thumb good purchase. It works very well, and despite the stoutness of the lock bar spring the blade opens fairly easy one handed. Although for people with small hands or short thumbs I can see this knife/short sword being a bit of a pain to get open one handed.

The Rajah II came with two black-coated pocketclips, one for either side of the frame, but they only allow for Tip-Up carry. That said, regardless of hand size pulling this out thing out from Tip-Up you will have to adjust the knife in your hand to get to the thumb disc for opening.......here a Tip-Down position would negate such an action and put your hand and thumb right where it needs to be on presenting the knife.

The Cold Steel Rajah II is a great knife. I'm smitten.

To buy or get more information on the Cold Steel Rajah II, click the link below.

Cold Steel Rajah II Folder Knife 6" Kukri Style Blade with Grivory Handle





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