A2 impact resistance and edge retention

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noob93

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Feb 6, 2016
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Just curious as I was reading through some pages on other forums it seems people say a2 has a low impact resistance. This would seem to go against the data sheet? I'm talking standard hardness around 60. Also this leaves me to wonder if it doesn't shine in impact resistance and is used on combat knives often as well as bushcraft does it have fairly good edge retention then?
 
I have several knives in A2 that have seen some real use, never notice any issue with impact resistance. Its no 3V but its a nice steel, the edge retention is better than o1 or 1095, so above average in an outdoors blade.
 
A2 is one of the great fixed blade steels of modern times. There are better steels today, but not many when A2 is properly HT'd. There was a survivalist in the 90's that used one and included it in his article he wrote. I spoke to him about that A2 Busse steel heart and he told me he tried intentionally to do things in the field to break the knife and could not do it. He added it held an edge better that most of the folding knives he had on hand. In 2003 I added the article to the forum by hand typing it in. Then others added it in later on by scanned pages. In the article he does not discuss how hard he abused the A2 knife because he was trying to avoid internet battles which were very common in those days. Below is a link to the thread I posted about his article just for fun reading. If all there was was A2 steel, I could be happy with it.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...NG-THE-RIGHT-SURVIVAL-KNIFE-by-Chris-Janowsky
 
A2 is my standard steel. I have had nothing but good feedback from (ab)users of my knives.
 
Cobalt said:
A2 is one of the great fixed blade steels of modern times. There are better steels today, but not many when A2 is properly HT'd. There was a survivalist in the 90's that used one and included it in his article he wrote. I spoke to him about that A2 Busse steel heart and he told me he tried intentionally to do things in the field to break the knife and could not do it. He added it held an edge better that most of the folding knives he had on hand. In 2003 I added the article to the forum by hand typing it in. Then others added it in later on by scanned pages. In the article he does not discuss how hard he abused the A2 knife because he was trying to avoid internet battles which were very common in those days. Below is a link to the thread I posted about his article just for fun reading. If all there was was A2 steel, I could be happy with it.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...NG-THE-RIGHT-SURVIVAL-KNIFE-by-Chris-Janowsky
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Great article I really enjoyed that one. There was much to be learned in that thread
 
A2 has been used in industry in high speed stamping dies for years.Made to cut steel.Jerry Busse used it for years built his reputation on it.
 
CRK one piece hollow handle knives were made in A2, good steel.


1234,,:)
 
Ya but those were tempered down to like 55 56 I believe. I think almost any decent steel should be fairly tough that soft.
 
noob93 said:
Interesting 1095 is a tough steel so that's saying something. I love how you called them ab(users lol you got that good busse warranty or what cm
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Well, I'll put it this way... I haven't got one back yet! I see the stuff my buyers do with their CMFTW stuff on instagram. It ain't pretty.
 
noob93 said:
Ya but those were tempered down to like 55 56 I believe. I think almost any decent steel should be fairly tough that soft.
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If you have to leave pretty much any 'high" carbon steel that soft in a knife you are probably using the wrong steel.
 
A while back, Kevin Cashen commented that with the common knife steels, in some cases, you "take what the chemistry gives you" But, as he and others have been discovering, with a number of them, you can devote from the "industry standard" Ht and get steel that is better suited for knives. BoB Dozier has been dong that for years with D2 and in recent years, we have seen some slight variation in the formula for stuff like 52100 which gives it some interesting new properties like increased toughness while still retaining the really great fine edge stability. There are a couple of threads over in Shop Talk about how guys have found that simple old school steels like AEB-L and 15N20 can do some neat stuff at higher hardness levels like 61-62., We already know the improvements you can get when tempering CPM 3V at low temperatures and doing cryo straight out of the quench.
 
I run mine at 59-61.
 
I've had A2 chip on me. I was trying to chop a .22 casing in half. I had it sitting on a phone book. Chipped the hell out of the edge in two spots.

It didn't bother me because that knife holds onto an edge like grim death. It takes a razor sharp edge and holds it forever.

I have no idea of the heat treatment, the rc level, etc. All I know is it is a custom knife made by John Greco.

I can say that before that it had behaved very tough. I beat the crap out of it doing all sorts of stuff with it that I shouldn't have. I was shocked that it chipped chopping soft brass.

A2 is one of my favorite steels. Maybe my second or third favorite.
 
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