best budget stainless steel

[W.T. Beck]

Thanks, Serg,

That is excellent information. It is much easier to understand the differences between steels with such statistical facts. If one just reads alot of personal opinions, one can end up more confused than before.

 

[Sergiusz Mitin]

Hmmm, not always statistics make understanding easier... I'm accustomed to rely on my personal experience over statistical data.

In my humble opinion my test brought more confusion than explanation

My personal impression is that the steel is influencing knife performance as just one of the lot of factors but this is the topic for quite different discussion...

 

[anthony cheeseboro]

Paracelsus, Benchmade used to make the blades of their balisongs from Sanvik 12C27. I still have one of those older balisongs which I bought before I learned about steel differences and the knife was quite tough and held a great edge. I used the knife extensively on my first trip to Africa (Sudan) for six month stay.

 

[W.T. Beck]

Hello again, Mr. Mitin,

Still I think measureable statistics are very helpful in understanding the differences between steels and knives. One can find good and bad opinions of every steel on these forums, and sometimes the reason for these opinions are not clearly stated. If one says "I prefer steel A to steel B because A has 20 percent better edge retention", that is a better explaination that simply saying "A has better edge retention than B". In the second case it is not known if the edge retention is one percent better or 100 percent better, yet the degree of improvement is very important.

Of course, I understand that other factors such as heat treatment and edge geometry are equally as important as which steel is used.