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Fellow Knife Users;
Good morning all, I trust this finds you all well and warm - and less smoky than we are up here just across the medicine line in south central BC.

The subject at hand is like a few others here - '06 vs .270 comes to mind - where some users have a preference they stick with and others are on a lifetime journey looking for the "ultimate" of whatever is being discussed.

I've played with a fair few different factory knives over the years - here's a photo from a few years back of the EDC rotation back then.


Going off of faulty memory and from the left, the steels are Elmax for the first two, 154CM, S30V done by Paul Bos for the next two, VG10, then I can't recall the next two - sorry. The little Twitch at the end is just a finger nail cleaner and knife that gets borrowed to folks who ask "Do you have a knife".

Have also played with 52100


The old Gerber Skookum folders are hard, hard steel but perhaps a bit brittle. The Gerber in the center I think is 154CM, then the old Kerhaw is who knows what, the custom beside it is some Cobalt steel blend, then the Mountain Sheep horn twins are Simmonds planer blade D2 cold ground and lastly the little Bark River is A2 I believe.


As well, we've processed what we've killed for the last nearly 4 decades and help out a bunch of friends to theirs too - along with cooking, so we've got a bunch of those blades too.



Anyway sorry for all the photos, but sometimes on the 'net it's tough to explain the depth or breadth of the poster's experience.

The short answer to the question about Buck knives is - in my opinion - yes they are still well made and with some of the new steels are capable of holding an edge as good or better than other blades/steels.

We toured the Buck factory about 10 years back and coming from a lifetime of production shops I was impressed with a number of aspects of the plant and staff.

To answer the quoted question, I'd opine that S30V as heat treated by Paul Bos is about as good as any steel I've worked with to date. Whatever it is that he does different, it works.

Obligatory knife in use photo...


That open heart work was a second rack mulie buck hit at about 200yds. It was done by a .250AI launched 80gr TTSX by the way, that broke the off side bone below the scapula, just below the knuckle joint, then lodged under the hide and still weighed 79.5gr. They work too.

Apologies to you all for a too long response, thanks for sticking with it to the end, good luck to you all in your hunts this fall and I hope the summer is a good one.

Dwayne