Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades If looking for a stainless steel knife what stainless steel would you want?

Sounds like a good choice for my wives kitchen knives. I have been promising her to sharpen them for about 30 years...

Tim, does the 154 sharpen up more easily that the S30V?

I am not Tim, but IME the answer is "yes"........

I'm with you Vince.....seems like all the new "super steels" are a lot like computers or smart phones in that as fast as as one comes along that you just gotta have to be a real man something else shows up that's even "better" and that knife you just spent $200-$300 on is obsolete.....it's exhausting trying to keep up...
Most of my knives are D2 or good ol 1095 Carbon and I get along just fine.....

close enough, thanks...I imagine he's headed out to the beach...:)

In my humble opinion from my experience with 400 or so knives using the steels I mentioned above and sharpening from a blunt edge----
I do not see all that much difference in sharpening (or grinding) between the different steels. The difference in edge performance is more about the geometry of the blade/edge and the heat treatment.

I historically went with an approx 59/60 Rc using 440C, A2, 154CM, CPM S30V and 52100. All not too difficult to sharpen and holds and edge thru multiple animals.
ie: quite similar to sharpen and hold and edge.

This batch of blades I am doing now is out of CPM 154 and I am going with 61Rc. I did not notice a great difference, (possibly a few more strokes) to get sharp and seems to take and hold and edge EXTREMELY well.

I do not have any measured or retained data on this, just my fading senior memory.

I would think that most any blade from a reputable maker will perform quite well (that is why he is reputable). Certainly should be better than most production blades.

Just my opinion from the beach.
Tim

The top 1% do get a lot of beach time....and all those women...

Humor me here...so if a guy wanted a knife that sharpened up quickly at the expense of maybe doing one critter rather than several--a 59Rc would be more applicable?

No, a 55 to 57 Rc would be good for about one animal.
A lot of production stuff is (or at least was) in this area.
Hence the many pictures of deer camp with guys setting around spitting on a stone and stroking their blades.

I used 59 Rc on all steels to allow multiple animals with one sharpening and still be 'soft' enough for most semi capable sharpeners to resharpen their own blade.
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Re read the above quote from me.....
"I historically went with an approx 59/60 Rc using 440C, A2, 154CM, CPM S30V and 52100. All not too difficult to sharpen and holds and edge thru multiple animals."
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The 61 Rc on this batch of CPM 154 will take a slight bit more work I imagine. But I don't see much difference on my Edge Pro with clean stones. I am expecting a longer edge retention at 61.

You must have had too many martinis for lunch.
Tim

Thanks Tim

Yeah, old butchers idle their days away giving martinis a bad name. I haven't seen any of those guy's stroking pictures--must be perusing different web sites than you...:)

That 55-57Rc may go a long way to explain my favorite, but long extinct, Olsen boning knives...

Will talk to you soon.

"Will talk to you soon."

-----So the steelies are moving in??????

I abused this blade the last couple weeks, saltwater, butchering fish, cutting sausage, cuttin bait, it's elmax from Dale, bastard holds a edge and still looks new. Seems to be excellent blade material...

Slight deviation from stainless steel...but steel related, none the less.

Saw a couple guys gandering over the Newaygo bridge. Young GSD can't drink w/o full immersion and he came back up smelling like a whole herd of fish last nite...so yeah, the salmon are coming up

Steelhead to follow...another month or so should be good...be ready...:)

hmmm....maybe bring some elmax....

Great thread. Enjoying the read.
Can you define "multi use"?

I have made a few out AEB-L from Aldos. They seem to hold a keen edge well.
My wife has one that I made her for the kitchen everything else seems to be left alone now that she has it.

Camping, multi night float trips, and elk/deer hunting.

That is asking a lot of 1 knife.

For the price of that First Edge knife , you could get a camp knife and a hunting knife.

I would look at the Kabar Becker, Bark River, Ontario, Tops, or Esee knives for a camp knife. Not stainless but who cares?

Then get a nice stainless deer/elk knife.

For $300, I would rather 2 knives, each better suited for the task at hand.

JMO.....

I might add:

If I were to use one SS knife for all, be it not a custom, I would check out the Bark River Gunny or Bravo in Elmax or some Fallkniven VG-10 offerings....

Honestly, a stainless Mora will serve you perfectly for less than $20, but where's the fun in that?

A $20 Mora would have a pretty small blade for a camp knife, IMO. But when I think of a camp knife it has a larger blade than something I would use on a deer.

The Moras are a great value.....

Good advice....it's hard to go wrong with any of Bark Rivers knives....
I only own one BRK but the one I have is built like a tank and the fit & finish is excellent....



When I think of a camp knife it looks a lot like a small axe....