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

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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.