All things being equal, A2 blows away 1095. Take a look at this chart by relentless knives. https://www.google.com/search?q=ste...i=DNoMWbCnJMrTjwSv9ICADA#imgrc=45pY8nQBidZHvM:All things being equal which of these steels has a higher degree of toughness?
All things being equal, A2 blows away 1095. Take a look at this chart by relentless knives. .....
You can achieve a finer grain and still get full hardness, that's the benefit of adding the alloying elements it improves the hardenabililty by taking up space in the grain boundaries where softer structures try to form upon quenching.There are so many comparison charts on the web, many with contradictory claims, that it's difficult to get a straight answer, especially when so many of the characteristics of steel are in the heat treat.
But Crucible shows that O1 -- which is very close to 1095 on the toughness scale -- is equal to A2 for toughness. A2 will give you a bit more wear resistance.
Check out Crucible's comparison chart at the bottom of this link (Resistance to chipping is the toughness bar):
http://www.crucible.com/pdfs/SelectorKnifePocketRotatedCrucibleLLC.pdf
My own sense is that you don't get much difference in toughness -- resistance to chipping and breaking -- with 1095 and A2. Both are tough steels. You could drop the carbon down from 1095 a bit and soften the heat treat to get an even tougher steel. Or, if you could stand a little better wear resistance, you could go with a better steel, such as 3v or Vanadis 4 Extra.
But for just the two steels that the OP is asking about, they are so close that he should mostly pay attention to the large effects of heat treat, rather than the small differences between A2 and 1095.
But most companies out there do not use your heat treatment. The late Bill Moran said that in his experience, W2 was almost a tough as 5160, but took and held a much better edge. The reason that he stopped using W2 was that they stopped making it. My experience with W2 at hardnesses quite a bit higher than what many manufacturers use for 1095 is that it makes for a pretty tough chopper without restoring to edge quenching, etc.With my ht - up until last week, A2 was tougher than 1095 at high hrc. Here is my latest 1095 hard chop tests (7 minutes video). Yep, 1095 can be quite good
So in my opinion well heat treated 1095 is much tougher than well heat treated A2
Comparisons of toughness from different sources is tricky. Charpy testing has a lot of scatter and many charts don't specify the sample configuration.