Benchmade 440C what gives?

I've had great experiences with 440C for the most part.
I've owned two Griptilians and two Mini-Griptilians with 440C and they were fantastic.
They had a razor sharp edge when I bought them and the edge was very easy to maintain.
They held their edge for a very respectable amount of useage too.

I also have a Spyderco Meerkat with 440C and it is fine too.
It gets very sharp and is easy to maintain.

Now I did have a Boker with 440C that I could'nt seem to get very sharp...

Good luck,
Allen.
 
Halfneck said:
You don't like the Griptillian in 440c, then buy one of the several other Griptillians in another steel. I have a Benchmade FB in 440c that holds its edge reasonably well and is easy to sharpen on my sharpmaker. Grew up using knives that were 440c when it was considered "the" steel to use, no complaints. Right now I only own that 1 knife in 440c while I have several knives in other steels, yet for what I use knives for that 440c knife does just as fine a job. All comes down to personal preferance. I know this is a Sin against Bladeforums but I am not a big fan of the Griptillian - I'm a heretic I know. Yet there is apparently several Bladeforum members who are. Difference is I have not made a post about it because its my personal preferance and I know others knife preferances will differ.

440c crap steel? No. Is there better steel? Well there is steel out there that holds an edge longer (S30V), Rockwells higher (Zdp-189), is more Rust Resistant (H-1), and so on. Define better. Then look at what your personal needs are in a knife. Once that is done then buy the knife that fits the job. I like carbon steels but living in the humid south and rainy camping/hunting trips are not the ideal climates for a carbon steel knife. As such I own fewer carbon steel knives with those exceptions mostly being D-2 by Bob Dozier & Jimmy Lile.

Bkkd - directing people to the Glock thread is a bad idea. From reading it I can't really see anyone of those posters deserving of the comments in your last post there. In it you resort to sarcasm, terms like "Slick" and "Anal Retentive" which make you look like a angry child name-calling. You also say you like AUS-8a which I have always been under the impression is nearly the same as 440c. I think the explanations given about Heat Treat and Edge Geometry are probably the root of the problem you had with that Griptillian in 440c. As others suggested, send it to Benchmade with an explanation of the problem and see if they take care of it. Or just get the Griptillian in D-2.

In the future when you post something like this asking for feedback be prepared for criticism and arguement. Also be prepared to actually listen to what is being said and argue in a constructive manner. Just my thoughts - take them or leave them.
Click to expand...


lol i think i just found a mysterious poster on glock talk....and for whats its worth i didnt start the negativity i just finished it..................and no i dont mind 440 c ..........if its a 35.00 knife, not if i have to pay 50+ bucks for something it will NOT have 440 c in it period....
 
Why is it that so many custom knifemaker who sell knives for $200+ still use 440C? Because it's a good steel. Anyone who says otherwise is just wrong IMO, because I'm sure those knifemakers know a whole lot more about steel than I ever will.
I think the problem is people just cannot get past thinking the three numbers, 440, is bad steel. There are just too many crappy knives that say 440 for some people to ever think 440C is any good. Too bad for them.
 
I have three Griptilians in 440C, one in S30V and will have a D2 on the way (when Cabela's get round to it).

I have had no problems with the 440C models.
They are easy to get very sharp and hold an edge fine.
 
Is the "440C" Benchmade uses on their "Blue Line" (Grips, and any other "American made" model) the same "440C" they use in their "Red Line" (Pika's, and any other "Taiwan made" model)?

I remember Sal Glesser posting about the Spyderco "Byrd" line of knives, that were made in China, coming with "440C", which Spyderco later had to re-designate (8something-or-other), because it didn't fit the parameters of true "440C".

I have become very suspicious of the "440C" designation on knives that come from China and Taiwan (I have seen many such knives recently), as I suspect that composition of the steel is not the same as the "440C" we're used to (American made "440C").

Best wishes,
3Guardsmen
 
No I don't post on Glocktalk. Only firearm forums I post on are Sixgunner.com and S&W forum. Not a big fan of Glocks either.
 
Just for the record, and I dont think my post indicated it, but I am not trashing 440C. I was merely asking whether my Benchmade in 440C should perform basically like my Benchmades in 154cm, and D2 in regards to taking an edge. Thanks for the replies, I have my answer.
 
Halfneck said:
No I don't post on Glocktalk. Only firearm forums I post on are Sixgunner.com and S&W forum. Not a big fan of Glocks either.
Click to expand...

exactly.............and im sure you can come up with a bunch of reasons glocks are no good.............and thats your choice....

my choice is .................I DONT LIKE 440 C.................

and i dont like being charged an arm and a leg for it and that the reason for the post to begin with......................and the reason i wont pay more than 35.00 for a 440c knife.......

MY CHOICE.....................
 
brianNH said:
Just for the record, and I dont think my post indicated it, but I am not trashing 440C. I was merely asking whether my Benchmade in 440C should perform basically like my Benchmades in 154cm, and D2 in regards to taking an edge. Thanks for the replies, I have my answer.
Click to expand...


and no they wont.....no matter what heat treat they get......you can make a thinner, smoother, sharper edge that will last longer with use with the premium steels.......sugar coat it all you want thats a fact.
 
Now wait a minute, MANY steels can take an edge when properly heat treated.
440C has a tendency to lose its razorsharpness, but will maintain a lesser extent of sharp for a real good period of time under normal use
 
Nope don't like Glocks as they don't point well in my hands, other than that they are good pistols.

Fine you don't like 440c, we all get that. You bought the D2 Griptillian, good choice. You direct us to a post on Glocktalk where only 1 person, IMO, seemed to make a negative comment towards your post and you post a sarcastic response to point out how posters are picking on you or something, I don't get it. Several of the posters there and here offered civil, helpful advice on what the problem might be. Instead you had your mind already made up that 440c "sucks" and everyone offering the civil, helpful advice was wrong. Pointless to make a post asking opinions yet not willing to listen to those posting a response.

But then none of this will matter as you will just quote something off here and still not get the message. Last post on this as I am done feeding the Troll. Enjoy your D-2 Griptillian.
 
Let's try and diagnose the problem rather than just speculate.

Put your darker rods in the "30 degree" slots of your Sharpmaker with the rods rotated to hone along their edges rather than along their flat sides. Take a dark permanent marker (such as a Sharpee) and blacken the sides of your knife's edge bevels. Carefully holding the knife vertical do a about 3 strokes down the rods on each side of your blade. Look carefully at where the felt pen is rubbed away from the sides of your edge. If you can see any black between the shiny place you were honing (where the ink is rubbed away) and the apex of your edge the blade may just need serious reprofiling before it will work well.

It is a pain to do serious reprofiling (back-beveling as Spyderco calls it) on a hard stainless using a ceramic sharpener like a Sharpmaker (it might take you an hour). I would use the edges of the medium rods for all of the heavy work. Be sure to clean your rods with hot water and sink scouring cleanser before you start all this work. Sharpen just one side of the blade at a time. Use the black ink as a guide to see how much progress you are making. You might need to put more ink on after a while. Use only medium honing pressure so that you don't over stress the edge as you work. Just keep honing until you remove ink all the way up to the edge. If you start to reach the apex of the edge on one part of the blade before you reach it at another try and concentrate your honing where you still have black ink. Once you have honed up to the edge on one side of the blade repeat the process on the other side. After finishing the other side rotate the rods so that you are working on the flats in the 30 degree slots. Hone left-right, left-right rather than working one side of the blade at a time. Put some ink on the edge and confirm that you are smoothing out the sides of the blade up to the edge. If you had to do serious reprofiling you might do 20 or 30 left-right cycles to get the edge smoothed out.

At this point you need to seriously deburr your edge. Put the dark, medium rods in the "40 Degree" slots rotated so that you are honing along the flats of the rods. Take one of the white rods and lay it on your work bench crosswise to the orientation of the sharpmaker base (the sharpmaker base is oriented left--right and this white rod runs towards you--away from you). Lay the middle of the Sharpmaker base across this white rod so that it can tilt left and right across the rod like a teeter-totter. If you tilt the Sharpmaker to the left and hone on the left rod you will be honing at a greater angle than normal for the left hand "40 degree" slot. The "40 degree" slots are actually set to 20 degrees per side. When you tilt the base over one of the rods as I described above you will add about 7 degrees to that 20 so that you are now honing at close to twice the angle of your back beveling. What you want to do is to tilt to the left and hone VERY LIGHTLY on the left rod then tilt to the right and hone VERY LIGHTLY on the right rod. Repeat this alternating left-tilt/left-side, right-tile/right-side process for about 5 cycles.

After this back beveling and deburring process is done start doing a more normal Sharpmaker sharpening process. A key difference between 440C and D2 is that D2 tends to hone cleanly and not form a burr. If your normal honing process is not optimized to avoid burr formation then it would be expected that D2 would be easier for you to hone than 440C. To avoid forming burrs you want to do most of your honing on the flats of the rods and you want to stroke left-right, left-right rather than working one side at a time (so the reprofiling we did above is the exceptional case and required an exceptional high-angle deburring step). Stroke with light to moderate pressure so that you don't over stress the edge as you push it left and right. Hone about 10 cycles on the medium rods at 30 degrees (10 cycles means 10 strokes for each side, but alternating left-right as you do it). Switch the rods to the 40 degree slots and do about 3 cycles very lightly (for a light deburring). Put the white rods in the 30 degree slots (rotated to hone along the white rod flats) and do about 10 cycles. Switch the white rods to the 40 degree slots and do about 5 very light cycles. At this point the edge should be really sharp and deburred. Even if your blade has a bad heat treatment the above process should have given you a decent edge. If you have a bad heat treatment this edge will however break down rapidly.

To maintain the edge you can probably do about 5 cycles on the flats of the medium rods at 30 degrees, 5 cycles on the flats of the fine rods at 30 degrees, and 5 cycles on the flats of the fine rods at 40 degrees. If you want an edge that slices more agressively you could make that last step 5 cycles on the flats of the medium rods at 40 degrees rather than using the white rods.
 
GarageBoy said:
Now wait a minute, MANY steels can take an edge when properly heat treated.
440C has a tendency to lose its razorsharpness, but will maintain a lesser extent of sharp for a real good period of time under normal use
Click to expand...


is that not what i said?....the good steels will keep there razor sharpness for a longer period of time.........
 
Halfneck said:
Nope don't like Glocks as they don't point well in my hands, other than that they are good pistols.

Fine you don't like 440c, we all get that. You bought the D2 Griptillian, good choice. You direct us to a post on Glocktalk where only 1 person, IMO, seemed to make a negative comment towards your post and you post a sarcastic response to point out how posters are picking on you or something, I don't get it. Several of the posters there and here offered civil, helpful advice on what the problem might be. Instead you had your mind already made up that 440c "sucks" and everyone offering the civil, helpful advice was wrong. Pointless to make a post asking opinions yet not willing to listen to those posting a response.

But then none of this will matter as you will just quote something off here and still not get the message. Last post on this as I am done feeding the Troll. Enjoy your D-2 Griptillian.
Click to expand...



see.............i did not post anything bad about you, say your stupid, or call you a troll.......now you tell whos getting the attitude?
 
If you get real frustrated with 440C, find a knife with a hollow ground AUS-8 blade and you'll feel like a sharpening genius. Suddenly you'll get a razor edge with a fraction of the effort. It won't hold up like your D2 edge, but it sure will be impressive.
 
Did anybody else see the steel chart in the 2006 Benchmade catalog? Did anybody else notice that the 440C is listed as having a Carbon content of .75? Does anybody know what's up with this? Thanks!

Best wishes,
3Guardsmen
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top