New cold steel ad10, my initial thoughts, and lots of pics with other knives.

I've never seen an ad10 at a store in person, and because of that, I kept waiting for a good sale on the drop point, since I couldn't handle one. Midway has had the tanto on sale forever, but finally put the drop point on sale, so I picked one up.

My first thought was that it doesn't feel to me like it's as bulky as people say. Obviously it's a larger knife, just doesn't have as much of an oversized feel as I was expecting from what people say. It feels less bulky than my adamas, probably due to being more rounded/chamfered, as opposed to the adamas being more blocky. It's noticeably wider than the adamas, but not thicker. The adamas hits the widest point towards the center of the scales, where the ad10 is widest at the end of the handle. I think for me, that also contributes to not feeling as bulky, since it's not quite as thick at the center of the palm as it is towards the pinky side of the hand. I'll put the calipers to it tomorrow to see the difference between center and end. I don't notice a difference in weight between the two, but the ad10 should be slightly heavier.

The blade came with an even bevel, and very sharp edge. No flaws in it, the blade is centered, and the action is really smooth. I grabbed some of my knives that are more common to give comparison pictures, they are the benchmade adamas, ontario rat 1, spyderco manix 2, spyderco para military 2, kizer begleiter2, benchmade mini griptilian, and benchmade freek. Luckily I have pretty basic taste, so I have several common knives to compare it to.