Best Blade Steel

[marcinek]

I think that, if you, as you say, are "pretty new to the world of knives," then you are obsessing way to deeply about steel.

Unless you buy cheapo garbage the steel you are going to get in a modern knife is going to be quite good. So good that unless you are a steel junkie, you are probabaly not going to be able to tell the difference. You are not going to be able to say "This isn't S30V! This is 440C!"

What knives do you have now? What steels are they? What do you like or not like about those steels? And, again, what do you expect to do with a "combat knife"?

Of course, you are certainly welcome to obsess over new, sexy, super steels, but there are plenty of long time knife users out there who don't, and get along just fine without them.

 

[james terrio]

"This steel (440C) has the greatest quenched hardness and wear resistance upon heat treatment of any corrosion or heat-resistant steel."

That's flat-out nonsense. It may have been true 40 or 50 years ago...

It does however serve as a very good reminder to not trust everything you read, and to always seek out corroborating sources. Beware any maker trying to convince you that only he knows how to use a widely-available steel, and especially that only one steel is "best". That, my friend, is what I call... shall we say... horsefeathers.

440C does make a fine knife blade, but it's nowhere near the class of toughness as the other steels we've been discussing, and there are many, many steels that surpass it in terms of hardness and wear-resistance.

 

[hank_rearden]

for # 1 it's 1095. > 100 years of use from < 2-inch ultra-thin blades for slipjoints, to combat bowies that have circled the world in more than 3 wars, to machetes and katanas.