Cold Steel Steels

The original Carbon V, 0170-6, went away in the early 90's with the demise of Sharon Steel. The recipe has been changed a couple of times from what i have heard. if you want "original" Carbon V, buy a KaBar/Becker. 1095 CroVan is basically Sharon 0170-6 aka 50-100B.
Confederate said:
Yeah, Cold Steel uses good steel and they seems to heat treat it just right, though there are exceptions with every manufacturer. Their San Mai steels are a gimmack, though as a knife blade is only as good as the best steel that makes it up. And in the case of the San Mai steels, the protected (core) steel is either AUS8 or VG-1. In short, you're better off spending your money on a real premium steel. Spending a few hundred dollars on AUS8 or VG-1, laminated by 420, just doesn't make sense. Either steel holds up just fine without the 420 slabs.

But I like many of the Cold Steel's knives. They're a good value and they're strong and dependable. And by and large they're improving their steels, except in the cases where they've gone from Carbon V to AUS8A, but that wasn't their fault (their Carbon V source dried up.)
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1095 may be ok but seems brittle, if all the broken ones are any guide...

I prefer 5160 in carbon steels.

For Cold Steel, the San Mai III VG-1 core does seem impressive. But Japanese Aus-8 is to me just as impressive in use, and is in fact a favourite.

Gaston
 
Gaston444 said:
1095 may be ok but seems brittle, if all the broken ones are any guide...

I prefer 5160 in carbon steels.

For Cold Steel, the San Mai III VG-1 core does seem impressive. But Japanese Aus-8 is to me just as impressive in use, and is in fact a favourite.

Gaston
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Really 1095 brittle? not if done right. Fast forward to 5:55 minutes

[video=youtube;9zz2Tp2tEWg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zz2Tp2tEWg[/video]
 
A lot of commercially available 1095 is not done "right" It is left too soft.
 
jdm61 said:
The original Carbon V, 0170-6, went away in the early 90's with the demise of Sharon Steel. The recipe has been changed a couple of times from what i have heard. if you want "original" Carbon V, buy a KaBar/Becker. 1095 CroVan is basically Sharon 0170-6 aka 50-100B.
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I do find my Carbon V SRK harder to sharpen than my BK-15, however. Though this may be due to the initial grind.

Zieg
 
Gaston444 said:
1095 may be ok but seems brittle, if all the broken ones are any guide...
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Really? Wanna cite enough examples to back up this claim? 1-2 pics you found on the internet hardly constitute demonstration of a trend, let alone a proof.
 
You must not have been looking very hard: I've seen literally dozens of different photos broken BK-9s... In fact I have seen more photos of broken BK-9s than of any other knife I can think of, not that this is absolutely statistically significant...

I have posted up to ten or twelve photos of various broken BK-9s in one post, and I am not going to do that every time this is called into question...

And now I guess I'm going to hear BK-9s are not really 1095, but a Cro-Van variant or something like that... We've been through this before...

I have also seen a surprising number of broken BK-2s, all in the handle, including one supposedly broken while merely chopping...

I am not claiming that 1095 is bad steel, but it is certainly nothing spectacular in terms of strength. That it bends well may not reflect its resistance to impact vibrations... In fact, for all Cold Steel knives in both stainless and carbon (usually a similar carbon steel to 1095) there are far more broken carbon ones than stainless ones... To play up strength as an advantage of 1095 over most non-Chinese origin stainless is rather amusing from the amounts broken...

5160, on the other hand, does seem to live up to its reputation for strength. I could not see any disadvantage in edge-holding, so I find this steel preferable, and in fact I would choose it over any other carbon steel. It also seems to be a bit less prone to rust, which is a big deal to me.

1095 is not in the category of steels I would refuse to buy, just less preferable. So far the only steels I will flatly refuse to buy are two highly regarded CPM steels: S30V and CPM 154CM. When I tried them they did micro-folds with thick edges on practically every hit.

Gaston
 
Gaston, did you see the video I posted? My point is that it most cases it is not the steel as much as it is the inconsistent heat treat or even improper heat treat. I know there have been many failures. But take a look at how most fractures happen and it is certainly a poor heat treat. 5160 is a good steel but it also has half the carbon. That would be like comparing 440C with 440A. Big difference in carbon and the resulting toughness. 1095 is not the best steel for sure but it is an excellent steel when properly heat treated.
 
Perhaps, but I don't recall any 3V knives being left softer and sold as having a super duper proprietary heat treatment. :D
Cobalt said:
A lot of commercially available 3V is not done right either. That's not the point.
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Never liked the idea that if you make up a name for a steel and copyright it you can then change the actual steel used and still call it the same name ala Carbon V.

That said whoever is making Cold Steel's AUS-8 is doing it right and the knives in it are a good deal for the money. The San Mai stuff seems to get a price increase due to the hype.
 
digging up old threads, mods ain't gonna like that. Interesting new discussion though, so I'll chime in. @Gaston444 even though there are a ton of videos of 1095 breaking, keep in mind that could be because there are many millions of 1095 knives out there being used very hard. So without being able to compare and analyze the statistical significance, one should not say that 1095 "seems brittle" based on the videos out there. That said, as compared to 5160, 1095 is certainly more brittle. The charpy test results show that 5160 is a much tougher steel, one of the toughest, in fact. But as others are saying, it's still all in the heat treat. 1095 is supposed to be plenty tough enough, and not brittle, if heat treated properly. Look at the Tops knives. They're all 1095 and very tough.

And there's one other thing about the BK9. It's only 3/16 thick. Whereas the standard for a really tough big knife seems to be 1/4 inch. So it stands to reason that pushing a 3/16 inch knife to the extremes of hard use will have a good chance of causing catastrophic failure. I'm not saying the BK9 is no good. I have one myself and think it's a good knife. I'm just saying I wouldn't use it as hard as a Cold Steel Trail Master in SK5 steel (equivalent to about 1080 American), which is 5/16 thick.
 
Coming up with your own name for a steel is not uncommon. Look at kitchen knives like the new Kramer Essential line for Henckels. They steel is call FG61 which, as best as we can tell means fine grain at 61Rc. By most accounts it is AEB-L/13C26. Misono appears to use the same steel type for their high regarded UX-10 line which they just cal Swedish Stainless Steel.
 
I'm no steel expert so I will let others chime in about that. What gets me is how so many blades are broken in the first place. I've been carrying and using knives of many different styles and blade steels for over 40 years and I have yet to break a blade. 1095 is my favorite steel for outdoor use.
 
it's still all in the heat treat.
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Being kind of outside the loop here; not being a big chop 'em up with a big blade kind of guy . . .
Still I'm really into light metal structures and designing for high performance (high strength for longevity but with absolutely the least material to save weight and as a game in its self).

so with all that said I have to say . . . it seems like I saw where there were stress risers involved in some of the failures and when the knife makers improved the transitions between blade and tang etc., that took care of some of the failures.

So maybe say "It's mostly in the heat treat" but blade design, execution and even impurities in the steel CAN play a role.

Yes ?
 
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