Hard or soft, 1095 should take a sharp edge. The most common problem with 1095 blades is that often they are manufactured with a rather obtuse edge (due to notions that this is better for a hard use field knife). Commonly you need to back bevel the blades to under 15 degrees and then finish off with a 15-degree micro bevel if you want it to perform like you expect. This can require the removal of a lot of material which is most efficiently done with a belt sander, coarse hone or file. On black-coated blades I kind of like to use a file. A smooth mill bastard file can give you very clean results if you know what you are doing. You can get a sharpening bevel with a nice straight transition to the black-coated region. I would do that in the 12-degree sort of range before moving on to your normal honing method.
With the correct edge geometry you should get 1095 sharper than almost any other steel I can think of. If the file won't work it indicates that the blade is harder than normal and that may be contributing to your problem. In that case you will need to use a coarse hone for the reprofiling. Diamond would be best, silicon carbide would be my next suggestion.
lol jk. but yeah, thats what I think!
