A2 vs 1095 Toughness

I have a lot of experience working with A2 and it's plenty tough and excels at edge holding. 1095 with HT done right, can handle it's share of abuse. I would use either one for hard use.
Scott
 
My personal experience has showed the opposite. I broke two of my A2 steel knives using a pipe to baton it through a hard dense log. The first knife broke on accident. I was so disappointed and shocked I decided to test the other one made from A2 by delivering impact to the side of the edge with that pipe. Was horrified when with each blow knocked chunks the size of dimes and nickles out of the blade. So I repeated the same test on Ontario knife made from 1095 and K-bar made from 1095. I must have hit each blade 2 dozen times, so hard sparks were flying but neither blade failed or broke. Now K-bar has other issues its weak spot is where the tang meets the blade, so I'm not saying the knife is perfect, but 1095 definitely proved to be a lot tougher. Its a much simpler carbon steel, A2 has too many carbides that make the steel hard, and brittle compared to simple carbon steels such as 1095, 1080, 1070, 1060, 1050. Now if you are asking if A2 is stronger than 1095, then the answer is a definite yes, but not tougher. People use these characteristics as if they are the same thing, but they are not, they have an adverse relationship. The stronger the blade the less tough it becomes, the tougher the steel the more strength it looses. Strength is the ability for the steel to take load with out permanently deforming or breaking. That requires for the steel to be hard. Toughness is the ability of the material to absorb impacts and shock with out cracking and shattering and that requires for the steel to have some ductility and be flexible and slightly softer. And a softer more ductile steel would start to deform and bend quicker if subjected to heavy loads vs a stronger more ridget steel. Good analogy would be a file is strong, you can't bend it but strike it and it will shatter. While spike or nail is tough, you can beat it all day and it won't shatter or snap, but can be bend using light strikes.
 
R Razor080

Interesting observation and thread.

It appears you’ve been doing some deep dives into steels and heat treatment. Sux about those A2 knives but as per some of the above posts, that’s likely due to a heat-treatment issue rather than the steel itself.

Also, I noticed that you haven’t posted much here yet so you probably don’t know that in this forum it tends to be frowned upon to “resurrect” older threads (I’m not really sure why and don’t mind it myself, I just want to get ahead of folks making fun or scolding you about it).
 
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My personal experience has showed the opposite. I broke two of my A2 steel knives using a pipe to baton it through a hard dense log. The first knife broke on accident. I was so disappointed and shocked I decided to test the other one made from A2 by delivering impact to the side of the edge with that pipe. Was horrified when with each blow knocked chunks the size of dimes and nickles out of the blade. So I repeated the same test on Ontario knife made from 1095 and K-bar made from 1095. I must have hit each blade 2 dozen times, so hard sparks were flying but neither blade failed or broke. Now K-bar has other issues its weak spot is where the tang meets the blade, so I'm not saying the knife is perfect, but 1095 definitely proved to be a lot tougher. Its a much simpler carbon steel, A2 has too many carbides that make the steel hard, and brittle compared to simple carbon steels such as 1095, 1080, 1070, 1060, 1050. Now if you are asking if A2 is stronger than 1095, then the answer is a definite yes, but not tougher. People use these characteristics as if they are the same thing, but they are not, they have an adverse relationship. The stronger the blade the less tough it becomes, the tougher the steel the more strength it looses. Strength is the ability for the steel to take load with out permanently deforming or breaking. That requires for the steel to be hard. Toughness is the ability of the material to absorb impacts and shock with out cracking and shattering and that requires for the steel to have some ductility and be flexible and slightly softer. And a softer more ductile steel would start to deform and bend quicker if subjected to heavy loads vs a stronger more ridget steel. Good analogy would be a file is strong, you can't bend it but strike it and it will shatter. While spike or nail is tough, you can beat it all day and it won't shatter or snap, but can be bend using light strikes.
So, who made your A2 knives that broke?
 
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