Cold Steel stick. Just a fluke?

**Ignorami** · Posted On: 8/03/2012 1:25pm

I've got a pair of cold steel sticks. It's still pretty early days for them, but the advertising blurb is very heavy on the "virtually unbreakable" angle. If they don't replace it I'd be surprised.

Please do let us know how you get on.

**Twobits** · Posted On: 8/05/2012 12:38pm

My other stick snapped today. Again with my off hand. And this time it only took 4 swings. It broke in pretty much the exact same spot (we're talking within a millimeter), so I'm thinking this is must be a consistent flaw in the manufacturing process.

Cold steel hasn't gotten back to me on where I should mail these things and the website isn't clear about it. I've known people who chipped expensive CS knives and got a replacement so I'm not that worried about being cheated.

Still, I think I might move on to trying those stickman sticks or an old fashioned rattan stick after all this.

**Ignorami** · Posted On: 8/05/2012 3:41pm

Be interested in seeing a photo of the busted sticks, so I know what to be careful of.

Like I say, I am running two of those things at the moment

**escrimador6** · Posted On: 8/06/2012 12:54pm

I've been using a pair of Cold Steel sticks on and off for over two years now. I've hit tires, wooden poles, even a concrete pillar and aside from a few nicks and plenty of scrapes they are still going strong.

**Twobits** · Posted On: 8/06/2012 6:27pm

Originally Posted by Ignorami

Be interested in seeing a photo of the busted sticks, so I know what to be careful of.

Like I say, I am running two of those things at the moment

Too lazy to upload pics. But they're sheer breaks. Looks sorta like a snapped piece of chalk. They broke off at around four inches on the ends where the writing is stamped.

**RynoGreene** · Posted On: 8/15/2012 7:17pm

We've tried various composite sticks, including Cold Steel, and we always manage to break them. All that it takes is one little split, and the structural integrity gets compromised. I just don't believe in an unbreakable stick any more.

Kamagong is very breakable. I know that I've written this here before, but back in the 90's I went down to Stockton with my old club where they were having a tournament. The old Stockton crews loved showing that they were tough guys, so they decided to use kamagong in the tourney. In the first match, the fighters broke several sticks. In the second fight, they broke even more. By the third match, they had broken all of the kamagong, and the guys running things switched back to rattan.

A few of my clubmates and I had just invested in some kamagong, and got a little nervous about its reliability after the tournament. So we tested the sticks, and broke a good number of them from various well-regarded sources. Kamagong's got great density, but it can be a bit brittle, and failures are usually catastrophic.

If you're hitting people, you'd probably be fine with many composites, and kamagong. But against a hard-shelled helmet, or a similar hard stick in stick-to-stick blocks, they can really blow apart.

**jspeedy** · Posted On: 8/17/2012 8:03pm

What the hell were they doing with the kamagong sticks in tournament? If they were fighting with them that sounds crazy. Were the sticks padded? Were the participants padded?

One of the guys I train with in Garimot uses kamagong wrapped in tape for drills involving hard stick on stick contact. It's good hand conditioning for both parties in the drill but it eats up my rattan sticks.

I still don't have a lot of faith in kamagong for contact work. I snapped one over a tire as a newb to FMA. The weight seems good for hand and forearm conditioning but I get the feeling that it may be more brittle than some realize.

Has anyone here trained with bahi sticks? My understanding is that it's a palm wood and shreds like rattan rather than splintering like hardwood. The bahi sticks i've seen have the benefit of density, rattan sticks of the same diameter seem to weigh less. Of course, I haven't seen a lot of bahi so i could be mistaken. How is bahi for regular drilling? Any drawbacks?

**RynoGreene** · Posted On: 8/20/2012 11:48am

Like I said, the Stockton groups had a real "We're more macho than you" attitude, hence the kamagong. Participants were fully padded, sticks were not. My instructor thought the whole idea was pretty stupid, but wasn't one to be intimidated, so he and his brother (assistant instructor) stayed in the tourney.

Bahi doesn't break nearly as much as kamagong. I've been told that it's the center of a palm tree, with is very durable. (Having to hold up against hurricanes and all) It doesn't shred either though. It is a hardwood, but with a lot of directional grain to it. It's very fibrous, and when you look at it you'll see lots of brown/black and white slivers that run the length of the stick. It's very distinctive. Ah... Found an image...

The bahi sticks that I've got have held up very well, and are very durable. I think that they're vastly superior to kamagong when it comes to real fighting sticks. They are very hard to break.

My daggers however, haven't done so well. Daggers invariably get hit on the tip by a stick at some point. When that has happened, the dagger often tends to split right down the center, with the grain. Breaks are catastrophic, unlike rattan.

I'm not a great woodworker, but I'd bet that bahi is pretty tough to work with. With so much tough grain to it, putting it on a lathe and getting it to the shape you want would seem pretty tricky. Splinters would be flying everywhere, and you'd be at risk to splitting. Most custom bahi sticks I've seen look fairly crude in shape, probably for this reason. But even though it won't win any beauty contests like kamagong, it's just much more durable. It's good fighting wood.

**Permalost** · Posted On: 8/20/2012 3:16pm

I just finished up making quite a few wooden weapons out of local hardwoods. Will be putting them to the test soon enough.

**Twobits** · Posted On: 8/20/2012 7:29pm

I ordered a solid stickman stick and I'm a lot more impressed by its durability than the cold steel one. And since it's clear I can immediately tell if there's any bubbles to ruin my happiness. I only plan to use it for tire work since the fma I'm practicing doesn't do a lot of hard stick on stick contact.

No more hitting trees like a retard for me.