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

If looking for a stainless steel knife what stainless steel would be you be looking for? I'm favoring stainless for multi use on trips where I'm likely to encounter wet conditions.

I like S30V, but that's just me.

Depends. How good are ya at sharpening knives?

S30V is real good, but not the easiest to sharpen for some folks.

I also like VG-10 and 154 CM......

S30V...

Talking about stainless steel and multi use, my favorite is the Leatherman Wave stainless still blade, 17 tools, reliable, great quality, and just under $100. Always have with me

S30V,ZDP 189, M390-but only for folders and only if you have diamond stones and know how to use them.

All 3 of these are my favorites. With the top being s30v.

strictly subjective, but for a hard use outdoors knife, I like the S30V. For a dead animal processing knife, I like the 154CM.
These over lap, but they are my favorites.

Fair at sharpening knives. And it would be a fixed blade. I've been doing some reading on steels and found there are many different types of stainless steel. I'll look into S30V and 154CM. Anyone familiar with CPM154?

Elmax will hold an edge longer than s30v and is easier to sharpen. 154 is easier to sharpen than either one for general field use. Grind and heat treat are still more important than steel.

I was gonna say Elmax also, problem is I still haven't really used it and sharpened it.

I guess I am not real picky in regards to steel being stainless or not, as long as it is done correctly. Each year I happily tote 1095, D2, A2, 52100, and/or or O-1 afield more than any of the stainless steels. 5160 and 1076-6C also.

If you think about it:

1095 remains the most popular knife steel of all time.

D2 is favored by more custom makers than any other steel IMO.

Convex ground A2 is the favorite or most widely used steel by Bark River. Which produces arguably the most popular and best made semi production fixed blade knife today.

Convex ground 52100 (ball bearing steel) is what Marbles used a lot of, and their knives are known to flat out cut. It is also a very tough steel. They remain one of the top 3 most collected knives in the world.

FWIW, Marbles also just happened to put out some the best (heat treated) 1095 of probably anybody ever. Not JMO, but Bob Dozier's and Ed Fowler's as well (amongst others). The 1076-6C they put out was amazing in several rope cutting tests.

And O-1 is what Randall uses. The most well known custom knife maker in the U.S. and maybe the world. Jim Behring of Treeman knives is a huge fan of Scagel, Randall, and Marbles. He uses mainly convex ground O-1, and his knives cut better than well.

He!! I used a Buck 105 on probably 20 whitetail. They do 420 as well as anyone ever has. It doesn't hold an edge as long as the others, but sharpens extremely easily and I don't know wtf it would take to make it rust cuz believe me, I have tried. It is easily the most rust proof knife steel I have ever encountered. Touch it up after every 1-2 critters, and it is good to go. I will probably hand that knife down to my nephew in Colorado.

LOTS of great steels out now. I have nothing bad to say about the stainless S30V, 154, Elmax, VG-10, or ATS-34. Have even been known to slum some 440C.

But when it comes down to it, I still think convex ground tool steel with a wicked heat treat is the most cuttingest stuff out there.

JMO....

for me, if multi-use includes dressing game, the easiest to touch up in the field

For normal field use where I might get caught in a rain or two I would have no qualms with a Dozier in D2 with his Wilderness sheath. The excellent Kydex sheath would be just as important since any leather will hold water no matter how well it's treated. D2 won't rust nearly as easily as many carbon steels that you have to constantly protect.

If I had to go full stainless I am very fond of the Helle knives with their 3 layers of bonded stainless. They are both easy to sharpen and keep a razor edge.

S30V, S35VN, Elmax in that order. I've used S30V more that the other two by a large margin....either of the other two may be a little better or a little worse...I can't say for sure.

Regarding sharpening, diamonds aren't just a girl's best friend!

I used to shy away from D2. Recently though I have gotten in some boning knives by Bret Dowell . Pretty high Rc,high satin polish & super thin slicer grinds. I have yet to see a spot,used daily in my kitchen & we cook a lot of salt water seafood. I can't dull it & it cuts & cuts.

Don't over think it. Like Dale Howe says & word is,it's more about the grind & heat treat.

I've never came across too many outdoorsman that would take an expensive knife afield , and deliberately neglect it.

As already mentioned, Buck knives have great steel and sharpen easier than getting laid on prom night. The cryogenic treated 420HC is a pleasure to work with. Went with S30V from Benchmade and came back to Buck. Just me.

I am currently working on a batch of blades I made out of CPM 154 at 61Rc with double cryo cycle. I have sharpened a couple and am really impressed with what I personally see. A couple of 'fire members will be able to give a report on how it performs in the field and relative to other steels.

I have used 52100, A2, 440C, 154 CM, CPM S30V and now CPM 154.
All have performed very well.
Its all about the geometry and the heat treat you know.
Just my observation.
Tim

Lots of good info. I like what I have heard about the Elmax steel. Been looking at the First Edge 5150. Would a custom made be in the same dollar ball park?

Have Gene Ingram make you one of his patterns from S30V. I have one, you won't be disappointed and don't worry about S30V being difficult to sharpen. The edge lasts forever and if it dulls Gene will touch it up for no charge.

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.
------------------------------------------------------------
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."
------------------------------------------------------------

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....

+1

What stainless steel is the wave made from ?

I guess a camp knife to me means cutting summer sausage and cheese, maybe pealing and slicing apples, cutting rope and cord, spreading peanut butter, stuff like that.

I have spent big money on big choppers before but practically speaking a good 12" machete, axe, and small knife like the Mora is cheaper and better.

Agreed.....and just about any knife can do those chore's....just depends on what you like....

I always have a folder in my pocket anyway so I simply add a belt knife that fits the task when I go camping/hunting/fishing....big game...big knife...small game/fish...small knife....
Never have got the "camp knife" thing.....and who the hell goes camping without an axe anyway.....

just fer schitz n' giggles.........


http://bestpocketknifetoday.com/discovering-the-best-knife-steel/


I also do appreciate the caveat at the close of the article.......

Note – just because a blade is made from the premium or high-end steels listed above does not automatically mean it’s “better” than the lesser steels. The heat treatment techniques used by the manufacturer as well as the design of the blade itself play a huge role in the ultimate outcome of knife performance!



ya!


GWB

Here are the two knives I use the most out of all the knives I own.



The folder is a Boker Kalashnikov auto opener. It is of AUS8 steel. I carried a Boker Top Lock Auto for over a dozen years and it absolutely spoiled me for using a "walk and talk" manual or an assisted opener. Most assisted openers are set up for "righites", and I don't care at all for an auto that "ejects" from the handle.
I bet I use this dude 10 or more times a day from opening letters to prying caps off beer bottles. It is set up to clip the knife on the inside of my left pocket. I just reach down, wrap my fingers around the handle and push the button. Very handy if one is in a nine-line-bind.

The second most used knife is a Jerry Fisk/Whitewater collaboration. It is of S30V. JF put a convex grind on the knife before he sent it to me. The kydex sheath keeps the knife secure and I carry it horizontally on my belt between the buckle and my right hip when at my deer lease. I'm there anywhere from 4 to 8 days a month. It cuts anything and everything during that time. In over a year of use I think I've hit it with a ceramic rod for a few licks twice. The kydex sheath has spoiled me for carry and the knife has a toothy edge that flat cuts.

So AUS 8, a "low end" stainless and S30V a high end stainless. Not so much by design as by happenstance and conveneience

GWB

I would think it depends on what kind of critter and what "doing one" means.....is it a field dress or complete butchering? Do you cut through bone or around it? Variables aplenty. Deer are not much of a challenge. They are clean and lightly constructed. Dirty animals with thick hides like hogs or perhaps elk that like to wallow in the mud are going to work an edge a lot harder.

As to the OP question, I think Buck's 420 is pretty optimal for edge holding, ease of sharpening, and value. I would never feel handicapped with one. With a good edge applied, they will cut a long time. You do have to be careful to remove burrs when sharpening to get the best performance out of it but that is likely true with any steel. I also see that they are starting to bring out models with S30V steel at reasonable prices.....roughly twice what they charge for the 420 models. I have read on here that S30V is "10 times better" than 420. If that is true, then getting it for twice the price is a great deal. I would not mind trying one myself to see how it performs and how hard it is to sharpen. I like sharpening knives and would consider it a challenge.

Nay. The question was about the ease of sharpening and I believe Tim answered that.

Boning-wise in the day, wore out many scores of Olsens and their ilk, cutting between the bones...) They sharpened easily and quickly. That was the point...

But they were cheap knives you bought in the bulk. OTOH, customs and semi-customs are great knives and carry an edge. I guess a guy can't have it both ways--but it seems I always try.

The difference in price to acquire the various raw steels for ONE blade is not all that different, say approx $4 to $10 range.

So double the retail price (say $100 jumping to $200) seems a little bit of a gouge to me. Once you have the raw steel, the rest of the process to completion is not really different except for a heat treat schedule difference.
But price is set more by what the customers will pay, not necessarily fair mark up.
Just my thoughts and opinions.
Tim

I have always a thought t he at to IV be the case, buttanks for confirming it.

Looking at the charts that rank various steels for different qualities, vg10 is right in the middle for every attribute. Never top or bottom. Would that make it desirable, or jus middling.

Sometimes the charts do not show the whole data. They sometimes only show the tops of bars on graphs without going clear down to zero the base line. Can make things look a lot further apart than when you see the whole columns.
Empirical data charts should pretty much tell the story, but a bar graph starting at zero is really easy to get the idea of how much difference there really is.
There is one heck of a lot of good steels out there.

For a general use stainless, I'd still go with edge retention over stain resistance. I have knives in S30V, D2, cpm154 VG-10 and 440C in varying grinds and shapes. They mostly all work fine. Decent heat treat and temper are just as important as steel. My favorite steel is VG-10, but I wouldn't abuse it like I do with D2 and CPM154, it can chip although I haven't seen it do so.

I've yet to see enough stain/rust on decent steel to worry about

Both of my favorite blades happen to be vg10. I am sure it has more to do with the grind and design of those two knives rather than the steel.

I gave my nephew one of Dales knives made of 154 something or other. That was an awesome blade I damn near kept for myself. Strangely enough it had a similar grind to my favorite vg10 blade.

Huh....

Thanks all. I did go with an Elmax knife. After much searching (not many knifes out there with made with Elmax) I picked up a FirstEdge 5150. One bonus of the knife is the sheath. You can adjust the rivets to custom the holding tension. Turning the sheath upside down you can shake the it and the knife will not fall out even without the snap closed.

Read lots of good reviews about the new Opinel Explorer with a Sandvik 12C27 stainless steel.
Opinel is apparently very popular with excellent reputation in europe, and their latest knife looks pretty good.
Any Opinel owner ?

I have a ZT with an Elmax I like real well.