10V vs K390...

mycough

mycough

Joined
May 20, 2007
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Hi, I know the difference in molecular composition but what real world differences do you guys experience with these?
I have a couple OTK fix blades by Dave Williamson in K390, a 10V by Big Chris, a 10v by Jeremy Garrison. One of the OTK knives is a safe queen but the other 3 seem very similar.
Crazy edge retention, seem to work pretty well with toothy or polished edge, and fairly rust resistant for not being stainless.
Any insights comparing\contrasting these two steels would be appreciated
Incidentally the one off edc from OTK in K390 at 63hrc is for sale under custom knives forn sale by individual. Dave makes some intense knives.
Russ
 
Typically they are very close, will depend on actual HT and geometry.
 
Just for fun I'll throw in my thoughts about K390 based on my experiences with a Spyderco Mule in the steel. Highly unscientific and purely anecdotal, but here goes:

surprisingly corrosion and even patina resistant (even after a couple years of life in a subtropical Mexican beach town it was still pretty clean), awesome edge holding, aggressive cutter (you can feel it, even on a polished edge), not nearly as terrible to sharpen and work on as I imagined it would be (successfully smoothed the shoulders and worked out a rolled edge just by using wet/dry sand paper and a mousepad and about an hour of my time), and also, surprisingly resistant to chipping compared to what I expected out of this class of steels...at the risk of being slapped out of my ignorant cloud by our resident steel experts, I'd even call it tough for what it is supposed to be.


The day I received it (Spyderco was nice enough to ship it to Mexico for me), I went for a hike in my local jungle and came upon this tire:

- I couldn't help myself and proceeded to slice the tire up with both pictured knives. The K390 performed admirably, even with the weird angles and forces it was subjected to while I worked my way around the tire. I eventually ran it into the steel belting and rolled the edge - the afformentioned wet dry sand paper and mouse pads were enough to bring the edge back to super sharp.

Another use that it handled surprisingly well involved a few days in the desert while on a peyote pilgrimage:

- over the first couple of days, while we were harvesting medicine, my K390 mule ended up being my primary choice for this job. The ground was tightly packed, rocky, desert land and I'll say I didn't go easy on the knife at all as I jammed it below the surface to cut the many buttons I harvested over the course of that trip. In the end, all it needed was some more time on the sand paper mouse pad setup and even with the repeated trips into rocky soil at sometimes really weird angles, the K390 mule took it like a champion.

I really was expecting some kind of major chipping and damage to show up over the 2 years I had with that mule. One of my intended uses for the knife was just to learn about what this class of steel is all about and based on my time, I am SUPER impressed with K390: AMAZING edge holding, while also being surprisingly easy to service and surprisingly resistant to chipping.

As I type this and reflect on how well that steel did for me, I'm kinda kicking my own ass for ever letting that Mule go.
 
singularity35 said:
Hehehe medicine....
Click to expand...
Medicine indeed. ..doesn't mean it isn't still a great time though ;) Although in this instance it was a pretty serious few days of ceremony, Huichol style.



Back to topic, k390 rocks! Eagerly awaiting for the k390 military to finally come out....
 
hookahhabib said:
As I type this and reflect on how well that steel did for me, I'm kinda kicking my own ass for ever letting that Mule go.
Click to expand...

Rest assured, it's still going strong and getting regular use. ;)

I would like to see k390 folder.
 
Just as an aside this years forum knife over on Edgematters.uk is a Spyderco Pingo in K390. Going down a treat with us over here
 
You will not go wrong with either! They are both fantastic! Love my k390 flipper so much, makes me want to order another, and I probably will! Would be nice if a production company made a k390 folder, or a smaller 10v folder! In comparison, my personal preference is K390, with the 3rd generation PM, it seems to be easier to sharpen and it seems to get sharper, also is tougher. They are pretty much neck and neck though, very similar.
 
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