940 steel upgrade?

[Big_Tex]

Love my trusty 940 in s30v… I know there are some other variants and dealer exclusives that are out there, but I was curious if/when the classic 940 might get an upgraded steel and wondering what steel it would be?

 

[mrfields]

you got me thinking about this so i had to dig thru some old catalogs to check some dates. the 940 originally came out in 2001 in 154cm, then was upgraded to s30v in 2006. considering that bm made the same upgrade from 154cm to s30v on the base griptilian lineup just a few years ago, I'm not sure that there’s much of a chance of them making a change to the 940 any time soon. especially since they have, as you pointed out, done special runs in so many different steels over the years, and the fact that both regular production versions of the new 945 are also in s30v, i think the basic 940 is probably going to remain how it is for the foreseeable future.

 

[Silent H]

Considering they have a regular production 940 in S90V, I don't think they'll upgrade the baseline steel on the 940, and the rest of the lineup for that matter, until they run into an issue getting S30V from Crucible. The only way I could see that happening is if Crucible wants to phase out S30V to focus on producing S35VN or S45VN. In that case I imagine they'd move to S45VN since they've already released some knives in that steel.

As an aside, how cool would it be if they made a "retrograde" line in 154CM again, at a slightly lower price?

 

[Delta-v]

I wouldn't be surprised if Benchmade eventually transitioned to S45VN as their standard steel given that it's so similar to S30V but is easier to finish and therefore represents a cost savings. The improved corrosion resistance is good too. But if they stuck with S30V I'd have no problem with that since it's a fantastic steel.