AR 500 steel

N

ninetoednacho

Joined
Mar 7, 2017
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I just obtained a large piece of Ar 500 steel, and am planning to make a few knives, and a hatchet from it, is this steel a good knife steel?
 
It is a very tough and abrasion resistant steel but it lacks a significant amount of other alloying compounds identified needed to product a good blade steel.

Maybe your question would be better answered in the makers discussion area?
 
This is the same steel they use for target practice, correct? I think it's probably better suited for a hatchet than a knife. Carbon content is only .3%, hardness is only around 52HRC.
 
No, not good knife steel. Not even for axes especially since there is a mark up for the demand of what it's actually made for. Shooting bullets at.

Go make some targets and have fun.
 
Go buy some 80crv2 or 8670 over at Alpha Knife Supply. It's cheap, easy to heat treat and makes a good knife if executed properly.

You need something in the range of .60-.80 carbon, don't go lower or higher.
 
Ar500 is target steel.
You should either buy some 1095 or O1 these are simple carbon steels that are very easy to heat treat.
BTW are you a blacksmith ? Because otherwise I don't see how you could make a real hatchet from Steel of a knife thickness.
 
I am assuming that he got the "large" piece of AR500 the way I got mine - free. Maybe his was just "cheap" rather than "free".

What the OP can do with it depends on the size, thickness and state (heat treated or annealed).

It will never make a real good daily user knife the way people think of these things nowadays, due to the relatively low max Rc. It will make do for decent throwing knives, as long as you don't expect miracle steel performance.

My free AR500 is a hardened, 3/8" thick, 4 ft by 8 ft remnant after someone already cut a bunch of animal silouhette shooting targets out of.

I used a plasma cutter to chop it into manageable sized pieces and am using a water jet to cut blanks, which I then SLOWLY grind into final shape, mainly no-spin spikes.

IF the OP's piece is thinner, say 3/16" or 1/4", it could be used to make really good mountain man style throwing bowies, since the Rc of throwers usually 43 to 52. HTing AR500 is supposedly more difficult for the average knife making newbie, so if the chunk is annealed, the HT will be iffy. Easier to cut w/o a water jet and easier to grind if annealed, but harder to get HTed properly.
 
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