1095 or What??

black mamba

black mamba

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Oct 21, 2009
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Recently I have begun to explore older USA made knives by Robeson and Schrade Walden. In addition, marks such as DE, Cattaraugus and others all used to use carbon steel for their blades. Were these all 1095, or do we even know? Case has used some form of 1086 to 1095 with small amounts of Vanadium in their CV over the years, but hardness has been from the low to mid 50s on up to today's CV at around 57.

And how about older German carbon steel? I've seen references to 1075 in Germany, but how hard was it, and did it change over the years?

Any and all info would be appreciated on these older carbon steels and their HRc numbers.
 
I will take a look in my Levine 4th guide. To add, I have an older Boker stockman marked Boker USA, and it takes a great edge. Guessing imported from Germany, mid to late 50s to 70s going by the marking. From the knives I have seen, they take a great edge, I can't even set foot around the collectible examples at gun or knife shows. I'm always afraid my clumsy fudge fingers will drop them.
 
IIRC, several knowledgable people have said that all the non-stainless Schrade knives were 1095. I believe that unless marked Germany, all the Boker USA knives were made in the USA. I carried a Boker USA congress knife for 17 years and worked it hard until it just gave up the ghost. It sharpened very easily to a great edge, but when you use a knife constantly, they do get used up. I can't say on the Rockwell scale, but I would surmise a little soft.
 
My (probably wrong) understanding is that Schrade-Walden and Schrade USA used 1095 and that they had a really good heat treatment that put the Rc in the 58 range.

You might try pointing google at this, as I seem to recall several threads (inlcuding some testing) in the Maintenance sub-forum. I get much better luck digging for gold on the forum by putting this into google (instead of the site's search).

site:bladeforums.com [search terms here]

This will constrain the results to posts on this site.

For example
site:bladeforums.com schrade 1095 hardness
 
You mentioned 1075 carbon steel; I have it in my notes (but forgot to reference where I got it from) that the Providence makers of shell-handled knives used mostly 1075. I know the ones I own (Imperial, Colonial, Hammer Brand, and USA) all sharpen up very nicely and very quickly. OH
 
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