A shot of the Cold Steel Special Forces shovel :
The review consists of :
The Cold Steel Special Forces shovel is made from 5/64" carbon steel. It weighs 770 g and the center or mass is about about 8" in front of the grip and the sweet spot for chopping is pretty much right in the middle of the head, very similar in balance to a hatchet. The handle has decent grain. The edge is 0.072" x 0.070" which is about 27 degrees per side. There is 1-2 degrees in variance along the edge and from side to side. Note whilte the description of the initial edges from Cold Steel is :
All shovel edges have been sharpened to a sturdy utility/axe edge. It can easily be made razor sharp with a little effort.
On this one the initial edges did not even meet. The edge bevels had to be created, not just reshaped. They were ground to a 20-22 degree per side bevel. The steel machined far easier than Martindale machetes. It took about five minutes to file the edges so they were sharp and could cleanly slice paper, the burr was cut off with a 600 grit DMT hone.
Compared to a a 3/4 size shovel (often carried in the trunk of a car) for removing snow and shoveling dirt, the Cold Steel shovel is outperformed many times to one in terms of speed and even more in terms of effort to move large volumes of material. However the Cold Steel Shovel stood out readily on moving through very rooty soil because it could chop through the roots readily whereas a normal pick and shovel are very frustrating to use and improvided tools like digging sticks are far from optimal. It also has the abiilty to blast through thick ice readily which is difficult for most shovels. It is behind a quality small hatchet readily though on the ice chopping but infront of a large (7-10") knife.
Speaking of knives. On moderately loose soil where the shovel is ahead of the knife which is used as a pick to break up the soil which is scooped out by hand. In such a comparison the shovel is ahead by about 50% in terms of time. Even with the reduced edge profile as noted below, the shovel could still dig holes in rocky ground with little visible damage. The sharp edges tend to just take abrasion from the rocks as the leading edge takes the heavy impacts so it isn't difficult to preserve the sharpness on the sides.
For working in rooty soil where the roots need to be chopping through aggressively which can lead to the edge contacting rocks forcefully, one of the edges can be sharpened to a much more obtuse angle leaving the other side for mainly wood working.
While the shovel isn't the ideal implement for preparing a meal, it isn't as bad as might seem. It essentially handled similar to a chinese cleaver. The shovel balances just behind the head so if it is gripped with the index finger along the back and the middle finger just behind the head it is neutral in hand so even though it is fairly heavy there is little wrist strain. Before it was used in the kitchen the edge was reground to 35-37 degrees included and sharpened to a high finish, ending with 1200 DMT. It readily slices up some pork :
and has no problem with a fine dices on an onion, either making straight push cuts or even slices. It works full to the cutting board easily having essentially a very dropped blade profile :
It also slices carrots making even 1/16" slices though there is some curling and cracking, the slices do stay in one piece. The most efficient method is to use the blade in a rocking motion on one of the secondary points :
Pickles are also no problem :
Peeling a potato is awkward as the skin has to be sliced off in bits rather than a tradition peel as weould be done with a paring knife. However there is no issue with having to make thick cuts :
The bare potato is readily diced :
and the meal finished off with chunks of previously cooked chicken :
Presented with some sliced fruit and toasted sourdough bread to produce :
With the edges at a high sharpness it works ok as a basically shot and heavy machete for clearing brush. Since both edges are sharpened it can just be swing back and forth and clear decent size patches of ground efficiently :
It also has no problem in cutting lighter and springier woods like alders :
Cutting ability in general is highly dependent on edge angle and the shovel could be made to cut very well if the edges were radically thinned. However this has to balance with the use as a digging tool.
Chopping thick woods, even after the edge had been reduced to 22 degrees per side and highly polished, when the shovel was compared to knives and saws, it did not fare well. Chopping through 20 pieces of spruce 2x4 with the shovel, Ratweiler with a modified edge profile and cutting with the saw on a Rucksack gave the following times :
| tool | weight | time | rank | scaled rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| grams | seconds | |||
| Cold Steel shovel | 770 | 39 (7) | 4 | 0.5 |
| Ratweiler | 540 | 15 (1) | 10 | 2.5 |
| Rucksack | 100 | 21 (1) | 7 | 10 |
This was the first timed cutting done in awhile so the performance of the shovel and Ratweiler are both about half optimal, but the ratio is personally still accurate. The big standout is that the extra power of the shovel doesn't translate into more chopping ability as even though the penetration is very high it binds too much as it has little chip clearing ability and thus the time is very high. The knife is far more fluid in the wood and thus is faster which a much lower fatigue rate. The saw is readily outperformed by the knife a difference which is also seen readily on composite lumber but if viewpoint from a performance/weight perspective it is quite high. This is shown in the last column and note how strong the small saw stands out from such a viewpoint.
Later the edge was significantly reduced in angle with use of a belt sander to the minimal profile with could be obtained due to the curvature of the shovel preventing it from bring any lower. The edge was refined with a file and after several sharpenings stabilized at 28-30 degrees included. The edge was raised to a high polish through waterstones and compared extensively again to the Ratweiler for both limbing, bucking and felling. The felling was mainly on small saplings, from one to four inches in thickness on pine, juniper and spruce. The shovel hit with much more impact energy than the knife which is to be expected as it is heavier and has much more of the weight forward. With the greatly reduced edge angle and higher sharpness than the initial profile the cutting efficiency had increased significantly. It was cutting much deeper and since the relief grind had penetrated high onto the back of the blade it was also wedging less and being more fluid in the wood. The smoother cutting also made it induce much less vibrations upon impacts so it was much more comfortable in hand during the cutting. It now handled much more like an axe or wide blade machete than a shovel. It generally ran behind the Ratweiler in terms of time simply due to problems with the curved edge tending to reduce accuracy and make the blade want to turn in the cuts. The knife was also easier to use in heavy ingrowth due to needing less room to swing. The bucking was mainly done on dead woods which had to be sectioned for burning :
The shovel still had lots of penetration on the dead and well dried wood and readily chewed it into sections :
a significant amount of work was also done on fresh woods :
There were still issues with binding on the fresh woods though dead wood tended to fracture readily and the binding was a lot less of an issue compared to felling. The blade turning was also less of an angle as there was no need of a relief cut as the chopping angle was symmetrical on both sides. The only drawback to the Ratweiler was the handle was a little uncomfortable when chopping harder woods due to feedback. In regards to specific performance the shovel was ahead by 25 (5)% in terms of the number of chops. This was about half as low as the penetration rank due to problems with precision and accuracy as well as the shovel tended to make curved cuts.
For limbing, there was little difference noted in the ability of the shovel or knife to remove limbs. The edge on the Ratweiler is slightly more acute but the shovel a lot more powerful on the swing and it all tends to balance out. The biggest difference is the curvature of the shovel tends to make it a bit awkward as it want to either go down into the wood or glide up depending on which face leads into the cut, and the fatigue rate is higher due to the heavier heft which isn't really needed for limbing small woods.
For splitting, the shovel has a lot of impact energy due to the relatively high mass and forward weight, it hits very much like a heavy framing hammer. However the head is also fairly thin and thus it has binding problems similar to machetes. It was benchmarked against a Ratweiler, and Fiskars 14" hatchet on 2x6 spruce which were cut to 6, 9 and 12" lengths.
The performance was as follows :
| knife | chop split | prying | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6" | 9" | 12" | 24" | |
| Fiskars hatchet | easy | difficult | ||
| Ratweiler | easy | moderate | moderate | |
| Cold Steel shovel | easy | difficult | fail | easy |
The hatchet split all the wood with no effort, even a light swing would break the lumber apart and have little effect on the speed of the blade. However trying to pry apart the lumber was awkward because it has to be twisted and the handle is hollow and flexes readily. This is a relative rank, it is just more difficult than with the other two tools, it isn't in general demanding, far easier for example than trying to remove tire lugs with a 4-way for example.
The Ratweiler chop split the six and nine inch spruce with little effort but required a bit of a shoulder swing to split the 12". It was easier to use than the hatchet for prying apart the longer woods because it could just be pulled sideways to break the wood apart. The Special Forces shovel split the 6" spruce easily, but the 9" required a heavy swing to stop it from binding and four attemps on the 12" had the shovel stick each time. However it was be far the easiest to use splitting the longer woods to its increased leverage.
Splitting up some rounds in both wedges, shingles and fine pieces, the performance was very different :
Again keeping in mind that the rankings are relative to the performance of the other blades :
| knife | heavy chop split | fine splitting | batoning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fiskars hatchet | high | awkward | low usefullness |
| Ratweiler | low | high | high |
| Cold Steel shovel | moderate | low | moderate usefullness |
The hatchet easily was the most powerful splitter and could crack some of the smaller wood directly and all of it in a few reverse hits off the block. However it was not overly useful for batoning as you don't want to be pounding on the handle and the head quickly sinks into the wood. The bit is also very thick and difficult for fine splitting :
The shovel tends to bind readily in the woods :
and it can not be reversed as the other side of the head will just cut into the block, and batoning doesn't work well either beating on the steel shaft is uncomfortable. The most effective way to free the shovel when stuck is to just raise the block and slam it down again until the split is made, this is much more fatiguing than reversing as would be done with the hatchet or batoning with the knife. The fine splitting work is fairly awkward due to the nature of the head. The secondary points due to the triangular nature of the head are also powerful impact points and for splitting sectioned wood it is easier to lay it flat on the chopping block and use the side point of the shovel to split it :
The Ratweiler doesn't have much ability to chop split the wood directly but with aid of a baton is in the same class as the hatchet and is much more efficient when splitting smaller woods and making shingles. It can make small splits directly which either a light chop if the precision is there, or just a bit of a pop with the palm on the spine to drive the edge into the woods.
In terms of general splitting, the primary and secondary point on the shovel also act as focus points for prying and readily enable it to pry apart dead standing woods. It does this far easier than a hatchet and significant better than a large fixed blade because the shovel can lead with the secondary point on a chop and sink deeper into the wood to allow more forceful prying :
The initial edge on the shovel has little cutting ability but once reground there is no problem in carving some stakes :
and chopping through some sections of poly rope :
It is difficult to do any precision carving such as trying to contour a curve as the blade is so wide, but there is no trouble in making notches and points and cutting various cords, plastics and synthetics to length.
The shovel is also promoted for its weapon aspects and throwing demonstrated on video by Cold Steel. It does hit very hard due to the weight and has no problem getting solid penetration into a piece of black spruce. However as with all wooden handles breakage is a concern and the the handle split during a throwing session and was fixed with epoxy and a cord wrap.
The edge retention is behind a high quality knife however it can for readily run 250 chops into thick woods plus limb a couple of dozen small saplings and still easily slice photocopy paper, or for a more "field" test of sharpness, split the feather of a gull.
The shovel can be readily filed so it can be restored after a digging session in a couple of minutes even removing visible damage. The edge can then just be deburred with a few passes on a 600/1200 DMT diafold. Since it is multi-edged, one side can be kept more obtuse for chopping roots and the other more acute for chopping and shaping woods and/or varying the grit finish for slicing vs push cuts. There was no problem in obtaining a high push shaving sharpen when desired.
There is an optional sheath however it costs as much as the shovel so one was just made out of heavy synthetic fabric and velcro.
A hole was drilled through the bottom to allow it to be carried over the shoulder. It also works well in a standard carpenter hammer loop. :
The grip fills the hand well as is decently secure when dry and the hand is strong due to the taper keeping it stable. It is however near impossible to hold onto if the grip is compromised with a lubricant (oil, grease, soap) .
While the cutting and chopping abilities of this shovel are promoted strongly by Cold Steel, with the stock profile it is a shovel first and a cutting tool a far distant second. However the edge angle can be adjusted to raise the cutting ability so it will perform as a combination short machete/axe in the same class as high end tools such as the Wildlife hatchet and still retain enough durability for digging. The edges can also be sharpened to different profiles for optimization of different tasks similar to common use of a double bit axe.
Comments can be sent to : cliffstamp[REMOVE]@cutleryscience.com or by posting in the following threads :
Other reviews that may be of interest :
| Last updated : | 01 : 10 : 2006 |
| Originally written: | 07 : 22 : 2002 |