G’day.

This little beaut is the Cold Steel Bush Ranger.

Come to think of it, “little” is an… imprecise… way to describe it. Completely wrong, in fact.

“Bloody enormous” is more appropriate.

It’s 8-3/8" long when open, for a start. That’s including its 3-1/2" clip pointed blade, which is an impressive 0.156" thick and made of very fancy, very tough S35VN crucible steel. The Bush Ranger is 4-7/8" long when closed, and weighs every bit of 164.8 grams or 5.84 ounces. It’s also a very sturdy 0.673 thick not including its clip, and 1.787" in breadth at its widest point which is at the peak of blade right at the knurled thumb-opening plate doohickey.

With its remarkable bulk and Bowie-esque shape, this might just be the only folding knife Paul Hogan would ever approve of. And all this for around $100? Crikey. (For what it’s worth, Cold Steel tries to MSRP this at $224.99 at the time of writing. Nobody actually has it listed for that price, nor I suspect would anyone actually be willing to pay it. So there are meaningless numbers in the world, and then there’s that one.)

Actually, speaking of said thumb-opener doohickey. Its design is shared with Cold Steel’s “AK-47” model, and the tiny gap between this horizontal plate and the spine of the blade means this has the unique property of theoretically being capable of hooking your pocket hem for automatic opening, similar to the Emerson “Wave^tm” mechanism. But, notably, without stepping on Emerson’s trademark.

I say theoretically because, alas, it doesn’t actually work very well. The added breadth sticking out of the sides tends to cause it to snag rather than cleanly come off of your pocket, which leaves you with a half opened knife still clinging to your pants. And then there’s you, standing there looking stupid. The gap between the plate and the spine isn’t very big, either, which you’d think would preclude it from working with thicker fabrics but I actually found the opposite to be so. You probably don’t want your pants fabric to actually fit in there, because that tends to lead to even more severe snagging.

So as a pocket-hook-opener, the Bush Ranger is kind of, shall we say, pants. Oh well. You can still open it one handed via a thumb easily enough.

Unlike practically every other presumptive hook-opener (well, not every one, but you know what I mean) the Bush Ranger is a lockback mechanism.

Oh, sorry, that’s Cold Steel’s “Tri-Ad Lock.” Sure, whatever you say, guys. Mechanically, it’s really a regular lockback. It’s just that Cold Steel must pathologically invent a trade name for everything, even if whatever it is has already been invented. They seem to think that their mechanism is the strongest out of all lockbacks and, if you squint a bit when you read the literature, they sort of insinuate that it might be the strongest locking mechanism, period. I’m not entirely sure I believe that. But the Bush Ranger at least does lock up solidly with a very loud clack, and no perceptible lash in any direction.

This is a half length lockback system, with the cutout where you press about midway down the spine of the knife. Just like everything else about this thing, the lock bar is very thick. The handle slabs are very thick, too, being made completely of sculpted G-10 without liners underneath. Cold Steel does not actually specify the color, but it is a sightly greeny earthy brown. So don’t drop it into any dry brush or you’ll never see it again.

This is a Mike Wallace design, and Cold Steel spend some words describing how comfort was one of the design goals, aiming for long term use without hand fatigue. Towards that end there is a generous finger notch and the fat handles are very rounded on the edges. The finger notch carries through across the face of the handles as well. Unusually, there is also an additional trough towards the tail of the knife where the heel of your thumb might naturally rest.

It’s got a reversible clip that is comically dinky compared to the rest of the knife, too tightly sprung, too short, and honestly just not very good. It’s there, but it presents yet another impediment to hook-opening this knife. The too-tight clip and very grippy handle texture conspire to bite your pocket hem like an outback crocodile.

The star of the show is really the Bush Ranger’s blade. While its finish work isn’t impressive, its robustness certainly is. There’s no two ways around it, this is a serious chunk of steel. Cold Steel seem to think that heavy duty usage is the Bush Ranger’s raison d’être and it’s tough to argue with them on that point. Spearing sharks or fighting Mulga snakes or fending off drop bears or whatever it is you do – The Bush Ranger is probably equipped to handle it. Well, outside of urban civilization, anyway. It’s very likely to attract comment if you draw it to clean your fingernails while, say, standing in line at the post office.

Think of this as the diametric opposite of a Benchmade Bugout. Yes, both knives are made of very fancy steel sandwiched between linerless composite handles. But other than that they couldn’t be any more different, and serve needs found as far apart from each other on the spectrum as I think anyone could possibly manage without trading either knife for a machete or possibly a battle axe.

If you’ve ever wondered what the hell all the fuss is about Cold Steel’s Tri-Ad lock, here you go. All of the components are suitably beefy but there is no mechanical difference between this and a lockback.

The Bush Ranger’s halves are separated by a backspacer made of some kind of composite. I think it is also G-10, and has a similar sort of structure and texture as the handle slabs. As you can see, the lock bar is sprung by a hefty leaf spring and this also serves as the closed position detent. A quintet (that’s five) of shouldered threaded barrels accept screws that hold on the clip as well as secure the backspacer to the tail end of the knife. The lock bar pivots on a plain shouldered pin that sinks into both handle halves, and another one serves as the endstop for when you open the knife. Notably, these don’t press out from the sides, so don’t try that if you’re taking yours apart.

Because apparently nothing about the Bush Ranger can possibly not be oversized, the pivot screw is enormous. Most knives can be disassembled with a T6 Torx driver, and the pivot screw might be a T8 or T10.

That’s for paintywaist girly men. The Bush Ranger’s pivot screw is a T15. You’d better hope you have one of those in your bit kit.

The pivot washers are PFTE and both the pivot screw and its hole have an anti-rotation flat on them. Accordingly, there is no screw head on the female side:

The thumb opener plate is held on with a single T6 Torx screw and is removable, e.g. for cleaning or to get it out of your way when sharpening.

All five of the threaded spacer barrels also have anti-rotation flats, so they must be placed in precisely the correct position to get the knife back together. It’s not that hard, but for some reason they all face in different directions.

The Bush Ranger is cartoonishly huge.

I mean, just look at it. The CQC-6K up at the top there is not a small knife, but it’s handily overshadowed by the Bush Ranger.

The Inevitable Conclusion

Don’t buy this knife if you want a non-Emerson hook-opener on a budget. If you want one of those, and you want it to be huge and bushcrafty, consider a Kershaw CQC-11K instead.

But there is something to be said for the Bush Ranger’s gargantuan slab of high end steel, if you have a use for such a thing – especially for the price. Probably not if you have small hands, though. Or if you’re planning on going to town today.

Fair go, mate, she’s a whopper. No worries.