Carpenter CTS XHP Alloy

A

Alberta Ed

Joined
Jun 29, 1999
Messages
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Being a long-time fan of CS knives, and not having bought a new blade in an awfully long time (months!), what's the take the new Carpenter CTS XHP Alloy CS is using in some of its new knives? Edge holding, ease of sharpening, etc.?
 
I love my code4...

It's sharp as bejeebus
I haven't "hard" tested it, but have use-used it quite a bit, and haven't needed to resharpening it yet, so I'd say edge holding is pretty darn good...
All in all I'm quite happy with it...
 
Carpenter CTS-XHP is not exactly "new"... I got my mitts on my first piece of it almost 5 years ago.

I have no idea how CS is having it HT'ed, and I have not had the pleasure of examining or using any of their knives made from it.

But I have made and beaten the snot out of a couple CTS-XHP blades that I ground and Peters' HT hardened and tempered down to 58Rc for me... and I gotta tell ya, it's truly remarkable stuff.

Before using it, I would never have claimed that any "stainless" steel could be that tough, take such a fine crisp thin edge, and withstand as much abuse as I put it through. Elmax performs very similarly in my experience, and I've read that M390 is really good in similar situations.

It's not "easy" to sharpen, but that's offset by the fact that it can be ground very thin without fear of failure, and it keeps it's edge extremely well. So you simply don't need to sharpen it often.

This is gonna sound like "hype", but I'm not kidding... as for toughness, I would have full confidence putting a 4-10" CTS-XHP blade up against any "plain carbon" steel 4-10" blade in any kind of chopping or rough-use situation.
 
It's good stuff. In my experience XHP holds an edge about like S30V and Cold Steel does a good job with cutting geometry, so that'll help too. It sounds like the exception to this is the Ultimate Hunter, which they're running a lot harder. In Ankerson's testing it blew S30V pretty thoroughly out of the water.
 
Carpenter claims it as a more stainless D2, in their literature it says it has the stainless properties of 440C and the edge holding similar to D2.

It's a newer steel used by custom makers and Spyderco has been using it since it came out. I recall Sal saying that it was developed with his input having a relationship with Carpenter. It has been getting plenty of positive feedback and I think CS made a good move going with it. Of course, now that CS is using it, it's going to be claimed to be twice as good as adamantium ;) They are already claiming that it is eight times better than Aus8.
 
Carpenter claims it as a more stainless D2, in their literature it says it has the stainless properties of 440C and the edge holding similar to D2.
Click to expand...

It is stainless D2. They had 440XH in the books for decades ( stainless D2) so it's not really anything new. The XHP is a powder version given a new name to sex it up for sale to the knife industry. D2 is a good steel. Stainless D2 is also. The first powder D2 we saw in this industry was CPM D2 which Spyderco brought out a while ago in the original paramilitary. It was a great performer and just as good as XHP to me. Kershaw used it too and even used up some stock as the non edge side of their brazed blades using 2 steels. .

So, it's not new. Just new to "you" ( not talking to any one person). 440XH was around long ago.
 
My experience with XHP steel has been with the Cold Steel Ti-Lites and I'm very impressed with it.

These knives were probably the sharpest out-of-the-box I've ever purchased and are still holding their edge. I'll be surprised if I am able to return them to factory sharpness when they eventually need it (no doubt beyond my sharpening skills with stone or strop) but so far they have stropped very well. I have yet to see any noticeable lessening of the original edge. I would have no problem eventually returning them to CS for sharpening when necessary, their factory edge was so impressive.

Considering that future sharpening should, in theory, only get better once beyond the factory edge I have no criticism of the steel.

I can't really comment on corrosion properties as I haven't owned them long enough yet to give it time. I purchased them when the new steel first hit the market on these knives. They are bead-blast, which I generally do not like on blades as it makes steel the most vulnerable TO corrosion, but I have faith in the properties from reviews alone if nothing else. The bead-blast finish is done very well, flawless and very fine on naked eye inspection.

As to their advancing the Cold Steel line:

As I've posted here before the knives are far beyond what I expected before actually handling them. The first time I held one it was, "Wow, I didn't expect this level of overall quallity and "feel" in either knife." Their patent-pending liner locks seem to be incredibly strong due to the 90-degree bend of the lockface, seemingly adding a lot of strength vs. just a straight liner. Hard to explain unless you have one in hand and examine it.

I used to think CS knives were on the "cheapo" side in construction and steel. I was wrong. They have made a believer of me and I'll probably try a few more of their models down the line. Mine are solid winners, literally cheap at twice the price IMO. PB washers now too !

I understand CS had improved their quality control as well, prior to my purchasing these. If mine are any indication, CS has really hit a home run here and I expect their reputation to greatly improve, perhaps even putting them near or at the Benchmade/ZT/Spyderco, etc. level. We'll see.
 
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