Cheap Knives: Why The 440A Craze?

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Hickory n steel said:
Don't people just buy knives and analyze the performance themselves from a practical EDC standpoint anymore ?
Just curious because people focus so much on different technical properties that might not even mean much to their personal needs.
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in a word, no. if it is an EDC, there are only certain makers considered and only the current hyped steel. that fact that the spine thickness is the same as my daily use cleaver and that the knife weighs more than my 8" chef's knife does not enter discussion.
 
craytab said:
Another PSA for the new folks. Gaston gets all his info from cliff stamp who was banned from here for being a detriment to this community and insulting everyone here including the forum owner. Don't listen to him either.
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nice to hear, especially from someone who didn't join this forum(if your profile is correct) until 5 years after Cliff Stamp left.
 
I would suspect that most people pick up their knives at the home centers, the local hardware store, Walmart, Bass Pro/Cabelas, Dicks, and so forth. I look at Cabelas and Bass Pro knives more now since they built stores near me. I bought a bass scale Vic Tinker at Bass Pro. Kinda cool actually. Visiting BP and Cabelas has ceased to be "an event".
 
scott.livesey said:
nice to hear, especially from someone who didn't join this forum(if your profile is correct) until 5 years after Cliff Stamp left.
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You've been here less than three months more than me. Why is it when anybody tells the truth about Cliff Stamp you jump in to defend him? I mean, by your own logic, you didn't join this forum until 4 year and 9 months after Cliff left. So why do you care? Don't bother answering. That is a rhetorical question. I already know the answer.

I'm not going to further waste my time talking about Mr. Stamp with you as I know the camp you stand in. There is no need to further derail this thread giving airtime to a childish longtime banned member.
 
22-rimfire said:
Thanks for the info. I for the most part have stopped going to the SOG forum.... maybe a couple times a year now. Interesting about the AUS6 and AUS8 and Seki. My SOG buying pretty much stopped just about the time when SOG shifted to Korean manufacture and then shifted again to China initially with the Sogzilla line (as I recall), but they clearly showed that manufacture was in China. Really don't have many problems with SOG in general as a company. I have gotten over the imitation Spydie hole thing that initially caused me to shift away from them. Still use some of my SOGs.
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Not sure they ever made anything in Korea. I think you are thinking of Taiwan. At one time I had most of the Seki made Fixed blades and quite a few of their Taiwanese made ones. Got out of collecting but I still have 4 or 5 of the more classic Taiwanese blades (Pups and Seal Teams). They are great knives for what I paid on the secondary market. Most of their new stuff is to mall ninja for me and to expensive for what you get. And that sogzila thing was BS. I've moved on to different things but my most used and abused knife is still the AUS8 Seal Team I pictured earlier in this thread. I was happy to see them produce a USA made S35vn Fixed blade. I'd be all over it if it weren't overpriced IMO.
 
Planterz said:
Excuse me if I seem rude - I'm not meaning to be - but I have to ask why you even bother with that crap? S&W, SWAT, Taylor, Frost, M-Tech, etc. You're already aware the steel is of low quality, and on top of that you know the heat treat is questionable.
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I don't bother with them anymore as these were all knives I've bought long ago. S&W knives are mostly pretty good for their low prices. My old Homeland Security takes and keeps a good edge, batons with no problem and out of the box that huge, crowbar of a knife sliced paper into ribbons. Even after hard use the camo finish has virtually no wear, and the blade sharpens back up to a very nice edge. As a camp knife it's a bit uncomfortable in the hand, but it cuts as well as much more expensive knives, and it won't break, period! In fact, I love my 440C knives.

Another S&W 440C knife I've liked enough to toss into my tool kit is their cameo PowerGlide. It's unique design is very strong and while nothing to write home about, the blade sharpens to a fine edge and it holds the edge about as well as some of my more expensive knives. Even the case that came with the PowerGlide is a perfect fit for my old Cold Steel Gunsite II (which is still my EDC to this day). After carrying that 5-inch blade Gunsite since 2006, the PowerGlide case is still going strong. I've worn out two pairs of jeans and am working on my third. The case also fits my 5-inch CS Voyager, which I sometimes swap with my Gunsite. The PowerGlide itself has a solid design that's strong enough to be included in my tool kit. It's sharp enough to strip wire, but it's totally lacking in charm. Still, sometimes a knife is a knife.

I've also found a S&W HRT boot knife in my box and a CK6A ExtremeOps, both with 440C blades. These are cheap knives I've not found uses for. I've never thought buying a boot knife with good steel made a lot of sense. It's not a knife that will find a lot of use. Boot knives tend to stay hidden until used, which means they only need to be sharp enough for a single use. That's why Cold Steel initially used 420 in the blades of its OSS other double- and single-edged combat knives. Lyn Thompson figured that fighting knives didn't need to be made with higher grade steels, but had so many people asking for a better steel that he subsequently switched to AUS8A. I have some of the knives in both steels, and the blades of both are extremely sharp. And though I have no doubt the AUS8A blades will hold their edges better than the 420, I've never tested them. They're both sharp enough for their intended purpose.

The bottom line is that I see no real need for having cheap, liner-lock knife designs. Most is us have a box, or boxes, of cheap knives we got years ago when we were first getting into knives, or knives given to us. I've got such a box and only carry the cheap knives when I'm going into cities where the legality is such that I may have to ditch them if going into a museum where there are metal detectors. Or if I'm going to use a knife so hard it may result in its destruction. Most of the time I use my Gunsite II and it's held up very well. As I type this, I've got a Cold Steel Frenzy coming and I expect that to be my new EDC knife. I'll then retire my Gunsite and look for a new sheath.
 
What's your "tool kit"?

Looks like you have moved to Cold Steel stuff or maybe you've always been a Cold Steel person. One day you'll probably move on from there just like I did from SOG like 10 years ago. I seldom even look at the selection of knives available from Cold Steel. Lyn Thompson... too much BS for me. I own two Cold Steel blades; the Tuff Lite and a sword.
 
Move on to where? :confused: Must be some high end stuff because Cold Steel (in spite of Lynn and his strange marketing) puts out some REALLY good product. :thumbsup: Not everything, of course, no one does. :rolleyes: Perhaps you should look more often. ;)
 
Well, I can think of two possibilities for the common use of 440A steel for knife blades. I'm sure there are more.

1. I think that a knife using 440A for the blade steel is probably in the class of products that many regular people would buy. It has the two attributes that marketing people and product managers look for and in this order: Cheap and Good Enough for our target market.

It is good enough for Joe Sixpack and well within his budget. It's sharp right out of the box and how can you beat surgical steel? In fact, it is cheap enough that his wife won't complain about him buying it. Heck, she won't even know! He could slip it in the next time he's at the lumber yard picking up those pink flamingos for the front yard she wants. Besides, his grandfather Joe Twelvepack had one pretty much like it and it is still around after all these years.

2. It is a vast conspiracy to sell pull through knife sharpeners.

In all seriousness, if purchased from a decent company it is often "good enough" for Joe and it is easy to sharpen to an serviceable edge, even if he doesn't have a pull through sharpener. :).
 
^Exactly, "done right"; my understanding has always been that Heat Treat is critical to 440C (the Dawsons did a heck of a job :cool:). If "done right" it is a fine performer. :thumbsup:
 
we need to add "HT Done Right" when talking any steel. even a 25* or 30*F difference in temperature has an impact on hardness, grain size and retained austentite. 440A has about the same carbon as AEB-L and with careful heat treat and cryo Rc60 is probably doable. you would end up with a steel with more free chromium than AEB-L to resist stain but the same fine grain. I would like to try some, but can't find less than a $1500 minimum buy.
in manufacturing, saving a minute in process time means big money. if I run my furnace hotter, move the belt faster, get rid of quench tanks and go with blown air, grind dry instead of wet, I could save big $$$. so I change the ad from Rc60-61 to Rc57-61, 99.9% of buyers won't notice. that my out of box performance has suffered a bit, that peak performance isn't seen till after 3 or 4 major trips to the sharpening stone, again 99.9% of buyer won't notice. I call the steel X70CrMo15(even though it is also called 440A) and beat the drum about it having 40% more carbon than X50CrMo15 that my competition uses. beat the drum that more surgical blade makers choose X70CrMo15 than the CPM S30V you use and heck S30V was originally used for poop grinding blades in waste water treatment plants.
 
Because cutco has an army of greedy college kids hard selling the hell out of their garbage knives world wide!

The only overpriced DDs I want in my kitchen are... well...not made from 440A!
 
440A can be quite serviceable when heat treated correctly. Kershaw used to do a fantastic job with it on their budget offerings way back when. It's a fine-grained corrosion-resistant low-alloy steel that's good for knives run on the tougher end of the hardness spectrum. It just has to not be given a total garbage heat treatment. It's no super steel, but it's not inherently junk.
 
You buy a knife - made in China say, by "CHINA." It is sold as being made of xx steel. You try it and reach conclusions.

How do you know it is really made of of xx steel?
 
Thomas Linton said:
You buy a knife - made in China say, by "CHINA." It is sold as being made of xx steel. You try it and reach conclusions.

How do you know it is really made of of xx steel?
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The same can be said about US made knives, especially the lower end of things. But my general feeling is that US companies tend to represent their product more accurately over all.
 
I am just guessing, but I believe an American company would suffer more than some company in SOME other countries if it were found to misrepresent the steel used. I just think that the American consumer is less tolerant than most about such things (maybe just BF members ;)). Anyway, who would lie about their steel being 440A? :rolleyes:
 
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