A !VERY! detailed review of Huntsman knives

[Moorik]

We're back to my therapy (cross out and say it's knife sharpening).
Just taking and sharpening the blade after tests wasn't enough for me.
It's kinda, let's say, boring.
I decided to min-max the Z-Tuff steel on my Tyrant Bowie and sharpened it to 150,000 grit (formally it's like a bit over 50 thousand, just by using a combination of abrasive surfaces with diamond pastes that have a suspension-like consistency, it comes out to something like 120-130k grit, but I'll say 150,000 grit—it sounds cooler).
If we're being totally honest, it's down to 0.25 micron. Grits don't mean anything at this point.
I really loved the result I got with Z-Tuff steel at a 22-degree sharpening angle.


I started with 20/14 micron paste, which is roughly equivalent to about 800 grit. I'm mentioning grits for you to make it clearer, but in reality, diamond paste doesn't have a grit rating as such.
Actually, this is where it becomes clear why I like Z-Tuff.



14/10 and in grits that's 1000, just look, honestly, I don't even know what to tell you here
Everything just looks incredibly beautiful.
Structure super nice and clean.


10/7 micron, that's already 2000 grit.


5/3, well, let's say it's around a bit over 3000 grit here.


2/1 micron, that's already 5000-6000 grit; this is the trickiest part—the polishing—where I have to make sure I don't lose the carbides but still get a polished edge. Basically, I combine a cast-iron abrasive with the paste and a strip that I stick onto glass; it's a special abrasive-resistant strip that lets me expose the carbides (I'm freaking insane, seriously, guys).


The previous step essentially won't differ much in the intermediate grits, so I'll just jump straight to showing the 0.5–0.25 micron polish I did, while still keeping the carbides intact.


Here's what I love about Z-Tuff?
It's the fact that, from my perspective, this is a real EDC steel you can actually use for cutting tough materials. For example, I often cut reinforced rubber hoses—they have really hard inserts in them—so no stainless steel can handle it due to toughness issues.
Z-Tuff beats even 3V here, believe me—I’ve had around 20 top-tier 3V blades, with hardness from 59 to 64 HRC.
And Z-Tuff outperforms them. I’m confident that if you max out Z-Tuff, it becomes an even more incredible steel.
So, if I wanted an EDC knife I’d use for life, it would be one made of Z-Tuff. By the way, I didn’t say that—Larrin did—but I have a very similar opinion.

Now, microscopy.
You’ll say there are a lot of parasitic scratches here, and here’s my answer:
They’re only visible at 1500x magnification or higher. I use diamond emulsions/pastes with extremely high diamond concentration, and if the concentration were lower, I’d get an edge with no tiny white parasitic marks at all—but! I’d lose the cutting aggression that Z-Tuff has right now.
And aggression is exactly what you don’t want to lose during polishing.

And real tests of course

P.S
Honestly, I'm doing this for the experience and to understand the maximum limits of steel — both in terms of the damage it can withstand and the sharpening, as well as at what cost the restoration of the cutting edge will be achieved after impacts against a steel plate.

It's always very interesting what steel is capable of when you push it to the possible maximum, and even beyond.

 

[Huntsman Knife Co. LLC.]

I love you conclusion on Z Tuff for EDC. This stuff just cuts so well! A hard, thin edge with top tier toughness and some vanadium is a winner.

 

[Moorik]

I love you conclusion on Z Tuff for EDC. This stuff just cuts so well! A hard, thin edge with top tier toughness and some vanadium is a winner.

To be honest, I’d be interested in two things:
1. Reducing the hardness to around 60 HRC, or thereabouts, with cryo, to maximize toughness—or even down to 58-59 HRC. This is questionable, since I already have more than enough toughness here; it’s just out of curiosity.
2. What’s *really* interesting is seeing something like a small knife, 3-4 inches, or 5-6 as a kitchen blade, or specifically a skinner—purely a cutting tool—with hardness in the 63-65 HRC range, pushing the steel harder. That’s extremely intriguing to me.

And overall, you know, my personal opinion and conclusion about the steel is that for blades that will be chopping/cutting and used hard and constantly, honestly, I think Z-Tuff is even better than 3V.
I’m sure you remember how earlier I specifically wanted 3V knives from you, but after seeing this steel, sharpening it, and testing it, I genuinely consider Z-Tuff the winner in its category.

What do you think about maximizing this steel? Do you see any room for that?I mean,for Tyrant,Fell beast and big blades,in context of toughness
P.s
So many thoughts that I’m adding to the post.
You know, my favorite steel for pure cutting is 15V, pushed hard to 65-66 HRC.

But in the context of toughness, EDC, and real-world use, your Z-Tuff has, in my view, surpassed every 3V I’ve seen or known.
I think the key with Z-Tuff is the nickel and the higher molybdenum content compared to 3V (2.0% in Z-Tuff vs 1.3% in 3V).
3V has no nickel, and I’m not being ironic when I say that Z-Tuff currently feels like the steel with the *most untapped potential*. The higher molybdenum seems to make it respond better to heat treatment, and the lower carbon content makes Z-Tuff simply *better* than 3V—like a modern evolution in the same category.

I’d actually make a few variants of Z-Tuff.
In one version, I’d remove the chromium and add more vanadium—not just pure vanadium, but play with the nickel too. It feels like there’s room to even increase it.
In another version, drop the nickel *and* chromium, and go to around 6% vanadium. I’m confident it could be something like 15V, but tougher and more EDC-friendly.

Though I’m sure that just by varying heat treatments and geometry on the current Z-Tuff, it could show some *extremely* interesting performance.

 

[Huntsman Knife Co. LLC.]

To be honest, I’d be interested in two things:
1. Reducing the hardness to around 60 HRC, or thereabouts, with cryo, to maximize toughness—or even down to 58-59 HRC. This is questionable, since I already have more than enough toughness here; it’s just out of curiosity.
2. What’s *really* interesting is seeing something like a small knife, 3-4 inches, or 5-6 as a kitchen blade, or specifically a skinner—purely a cutting tool—with hardness in the 63-65 HRC range, pushing the steel harder. That’s extremely intriguing to me.

And overall, you know, my personal opinion and conclusion about the steel is that for blades that will be chopping/cutting and used hard and constantly, honestly, I think Z-Tuff is even better than 3V.
I’m sure you remember how earlier I specifically wanted 3V knives from you, but after seeing this steel, sharpening it, and testing it, I genuinely consider Z-Tuff the winner in its category.

What do you think about maximizing this steel? Do you see any room for that?I mean,for Tyrant,Fell beast and big blades,in context of toughness
P.s
So many thoughts that I’m adding to the post.
You know, my favorite steel for pure cutting is 15V, pushed hard to 65-66 HRC.

But in the context of toughness, EDC, and real-world use, your Z-Tuff has, in my view, surpassed every 3V I’ve seen or known.
I think the key with Z-Tuff is the nickel and the higher molybdenum content compared to 3V (2.0% in Z-Tuff vs 1.3% in 3V).
3V has no nickel, and I’m not being ironic when I say that Z-Tuff currently feels like the steel with the *most untapped potential*. The higher molybdenum seems to make it respond better to heat treatment, and the lower carbon content makes Z-Tuff simply *better* than 3V—like a modern evolution in the same category.

I’d actually make a few variants of Z-Tuff.
In one version, I’d remove the chromium and add more vanadium—not just pure vanadium, but play with the nickel too. It feels like there’s room to even increase it.
In another version, drop the nickel *and* chromium, and go to around 6% vanadium. I’m confident it could be something like 15V, but tougher and more EDC-friendly.

Though I’m sure that just by varying heat treatments and geometry on the current Z-Tuff, it could show some *extremely* interesting performance.

If we skipped Cyro, Z Tuff with my HT, the hardness would probably be around 58-59RC, but I'm thinking the edge stability would stuffer. We could certainly try it.

There's a few things that I'd like to try with Z Tuff.
`1. First, is getting my own ultra long oven (that can accommodate swords) and doing plate quenches which should make an all around better blade.
2. Is seeing if Zapp would be open to rebalancing the Chromium and Vanadium to reduce chromium carbide formation. Larrin has stated that this would greatly benefit the toughness + we would get more edge retention with more V.
3. I want to try a 300F temper and also experiment more with differential HT. I've heard from a few makers that when the 1000F temper is used, the edge is more chippy but the knife is harder to break. I'd like to see if there actually is an increase in durability thats measurable. I did a differential HT on several Fell Beasts and tested one, but I don't have enough data to draw any conclusions. They are so hard to break that its hard to quantify if the DHT is beneficial.

 

[totallynotalex]

Will there be more z tuff bowies ever made?

 

[Huntsman Knife Co. LLC.]

Will there be more z tuff bowies ever made?

I'm working on a huge batch of Z Tuff tyrants with a tooling error that I will be selling at a massive discount. Other than that, it will be awhile before I have more back in stock. I probably won't do another run of these until 2027.

 

[Moorik]

Well, I tested a micro-bevel on Z-Tuff steel with the Tyrant Bowie.At first I was excited about it, but then I became disappointed with the whole micro-bevel idea. And I wouldn't recommend doing it (probably).


What did I get from the micro-bevel and how did it perform/look?
Well, I did a bunch of sharpenings to make sure, and at first I was surprised by the tests on the micro-bevel, done like this:20 degrees on the primary edge and a micro-bevel at 25 degrees, finished at 1500 grit.


It looked like this:You're reinforcing the edge by rounding its geometry—essentially, the primary angle is 20 degrees, and the secondary is 25.


In the end, this gave me, let's say, a solid increase in strength and edge retention.

So, what was the downside?Every time you resharpen your blade after doing a sharpening like this, you have to remove a huge amount of metal. In essence, you don't really gain anything in the long run.


The blade becomes slightly stronger, but when it comes to subsequent sharpening—and let's say, if repairs are needed—it gives you nothing.


In the end, you're kind of cheating, because the steel has a micro-angle at a higher degree, and yeah, it works well.


But eventually, when I came to the idea of raising the angle by just 0.2–0.3 degrees during sharpening, I got the same result—the edge held up better.

In the end, the blade's geometry doesn't change, but your edge becomes stronger. Plus, to be honest, after all the testing distance—impacts, cuts on various materials—it turned out that sharpening to a single angle while adding just a tiny fraction of a degree (usually 0.1–0.2–0.3) on abrasives like 1500 grit is more advantageous, simpler, and gives the exact same result.


Here's how the sharpening results look, taken to 1 micron in stages, with the angle raised by 0.1 degree.

Yes, this is the stage at 15 microns, and this is the burr—it seems like the most unusual burr I've ever gotten. Imagine how tough and ductile this beast Z-Tuff steel is.


Like, this burr is only visible under a microscope, and it's this huge yet thin thing.


I've gotten burrs on 3V steel before, but those were just stretched out and small, whereas this one is massive—a huge piece by microscopy standards—that's somehow still holding onto the steel like that.


I think this is exactly the reason why Z-Tuff is the toughest steel I've ever used and tested.


Here, polishing at 6 microns—nothing unusual.


I've got some new diamond abrasives that seem to be the best fit for Z-Tuff steel so far.

These are Jende diamonds—they're a bit softer in terms of how they work, cut much faster, and for some reason, they give the best results when sharpening Z-Tuff.

This is at 3 microns, and the result is stunning—you can even see the steel's structure.



And here's 1 micron.


What did I want to convey with this test?


It seems I wanted to say—and confirm—that a standard V-edge is the best thing you can do with a blade made of Z-Tuff steel, because additional reinforcement isn't really necessary for what is already the toughest steel out there.


Plus, with this approach, it holds an edge just as well as it does with a micro-bevel.


On top of that, I'm not a fan of complicating the sharpening and maintenance process, because when you add a micro-bevel or convex edge, you end up removing a lot of metal in the long run.


And you know, in the end:


The steel should perform perfectly with a regular V-edge, say at 20–22 degrees per side, and at those angles, Z-Tuff on the Tyrant and Fell Beast is literally the champion.


Any additional complications to the cutting edge—like micro-bevels or anything else—are just overcomplicating the geometry, which gives certain benefits upfront but then makes sharpening and resharpening the edge much more difficult.


I found the sweet spot DPS for the Tyrant,and it's 22 degrees.


At first, I was surprised by the results that a micro-bevel gave on different steels.

But when you actually resharpen or do any work on the blade, it significantly complicates the subsequent process. On top of that, it doesn't provide such a big bonus as to justify the amount of time it takes for sharpening and resharpening.

Because you'll have to remove a fairly large amount of steel.

And that's not what you'd want.

By the way, the factory edge is also an amazing value, because I got feedback about the factory edge from Z zaedion

And you know, this guy who loves wielding one Tyrant in each hand hasn't even had to resharpen his blades yet, because they hold their edge so well.