Cole Ransom
Owner and Artisan — Black Mamba Knives, Memphis, Tennessee
Cole runs Black Mamba Knives and still works the bench, which is the part he will tell you matters. The shop Mark Kovalsky started in 2009 is carried on the same way it was built: billets forge welded here from 1095 and 15N20, blades ground, fitted, heat treated, etched and sharpened here, and engraving done in house rather than sent out. Nothing on this site is bought in finished and relabelled.
His own work is at the finishing end — handle fitting, the heat treat, and the final inspection every piece gets before it is packed. He holds the shop to 58–60 HRC on almost everything, for the reason Mark always gave: harder steel chips when it meets bone, softer steel rolls, and a working knife belongs in between. A knife that comes back for sharpening is a knife doing its job. A knife that comes back broken is a failure of the shop.
He is also the person who decides what the shop will and will not take on. Custom orders get an honest answer about whether a profile is sound before a deposit is taken, and a piece that does not pass inspection does not ship, even when that means telling a customer it will be another week.
The standing rule has not changed since 2009: if something made here is not right, it comes back to the shop and the shop makes it right.
Meet the rest of the team · About the workshop · Custom orders
