The Cold Steel shovels are good to go.

I keep one, along with a snow shovel in my 60 Series Land Cruiser.

Last month I used them to get me out of a minor muddy situation up by my cabin:







I have trashed enough cheap harbor freight/Home Depot shovels to know that a good shovel is worth the extra coin, especially when you are hours and many miles from a paved road, not to mention it might drop to below freezing temps at night.

Good post.  Good to have people with experience posting.  I haven't used that Cold Steel shovel.  My only (minor) reservation is it doesn't fold but that's not an issue for a vehicle use.  

Do you have a winch on your vehicle?

Thanks,

No winch.

I use a length of chain +/- tow rope with a handy man jack used horizontally. I drive an anchor spike and use the Jack to manually winch out of tough spots. No batteries required.  . It is a slow  but reliable process.

Eventually I might put a winch on, but there are a few things that will come first. I plan on doing a motor swap one of these days. I am still running the original 6 cylinder, which I would like to have replaced with a 350 Chevy (A very common swap on Land Cruisers).

Gotcha. I don’t have winches on any of my vehicles but do have winches on my ATVs and RZR. I’ve had to use them a few times to get out of a tight spot and they are worth their cost. I just have the Badlands winch from Harbor Freight on them and they have handled everything I have needed them to. I wouldn’t have an off road vehicle without one

I must have a lemon, I used mine on some light yard waste and the edge started to "roll" and it didn't bite into material worth a darn.

Yea that's odd, I have a few and have used them pretty hard without much issue.

I have heard of some SovUnion/ComBloc shovels having deficient steel, and quite often, extremely fragile handles.  Have seen YouTube vids with almost instant handle failures with some ComBloc shovels  

Not specifically speaking about Cold Steel units, BUT, as with any wooden-handled shovel, the quality of wood used in the handle is extremely important as to the durability of the shovel.

I have always assumed Cold Steel to have used top-quality steel and wood in their products, and have no first-hand knowledge to the contrary.

That said, an astute owner might consider buying a spare handle from the vendor, as long as the wood of the handle is decent.  IMHO, Birch or hickory wood seems to be ideal for most wooden handles of items that are impact items; this means hammers, axes, hatchets, and even some shovels.  Straight, cnventional shovels, pushing along the length of the handle are a little different, and usually can use a different type of wood.

In any event, having a SPARE high-quality handle available for your chosen implement is always a wise idea.  Having done a fair amount of replacing implement handles, doing so, properly is time-consuming task, because the exterior of the wooden handle must be closely-fitted to the interior shape of the metal tool.  The more time taken to do this procedure, the longer-lasting the assembly will be.  FWIW, takes me, using hand tools, about 1/2 hour to fit an axe/hammer handle.  But then, I'm no expert.

One sweet pro trick is to use automotive anti-freeze liquid to "tighten-up" very slightly loose wooden handles fitted-into metal heads.  Some folks use water to do so, but the water evaporates, and the wood shrinks back to its' original state.  Using glycol antifreeze, the antifreeze stays in the wood for a long time, and does not cause wood/metal deterioration.  Soak the head of the slightly loose implement in pure antifreeze overnight, making sure the entire loose joint is submerged in antifreeze.

This is a temporary fix, and gives the user some time to get a new handle and so forth.  It's pretty slick, but NOT a proper fix.  It's a warning, and a temporary fix.

My cold steel shovel is one of the things I'd grab if I could only take what I can carry.  I'm going to grab a spare and spare handles just in case.  Love that thing.

I have many types of folding shovel, German surplus, GI tri-fold, Glock, etc...  The Cold Steel beats them all.