A few thoughts on selecting Titanium (Ti) vs. A-2 (steel) Mission knives.
Mission's website documents the Magnetic and corrision characteristics pretty well so, I'll just say that Ti and A-2 have no real comparison here - if you defuse magnetic mines or live in salt water, Ti is a better choice.
Now, to things that are not as obvious:
Edge holding and maintanence on the A-2 knives is better for most people's needs. A-2 is well known for scary sharpness and holding up to heavy cutting chores. The Ti Mission uses is normally associated with the cutting performance of 440A in relative terms by most people I have run into. Ti will require more frequent edge touch ups, and for most people this will be harder blade material to sharpen, especially to scary sharpness (I think a higher skill level is needed to properly sharpen Ti compared against A-2).
Strength:
A-2 has a well deserved and hard earned reputation for toughness when heat treated properly which Mission does well. It can be chipped or broken given enough force but, frankly most people just won't break it without using a mechanical assist of some sort because they just aren't strong enough with their bare hands or, the material they are cutting gives up first. But, yes, under certain conditions you can break it.
Ti is a material like few others. Most people have a frame of reference relative to ATS-34 or carbon steels so, saying Ti has edge holding like 440A but higher strength then properly heat treated A-2 seems like a contradiction. To a certain extent, I still suffer from these thoughts myself. The one thing that is not obvious unless you have owned Ti products before is the fact that Ti has a very stong memory. While not the same formula of Ti, my eyeglasses are a good example of Ti in general. For years, my eyeglasses were always getting bent from everyday occurences (kids yanking them off my face, bumping car parts while I worked on a vehicle, various farming related mishaps where I got smacked in the head, etc.). I now wear Marchon Ti frames with heat treated glass lenses. You can bend these frames anyway you want and they spring back to their true shape. With heavy glass lenses, minor differences in shape will show up as sore spots on my ears, nose, etc due to the weight and contact involved. Now, back to Mission. Their Ti is superior to my eyeglass frames which have served me so well for so many years. How does this relate to knives you ask? Think of how you use a knife. When you apply moderate stress to the knife blade, it should return to true. At some point a steel/stainless blade will either take a permanent "set" or break. Ti with its incredible memory will take extreme use and not take a set or break - well beyond what modern steels will take. Most anyone can build a good steel knife and make it drive through a steel plate with a hydraulic ram or cut steel cable for a time, but do you get a knife that will perform well doing normal knife chores? Mission has been around a pretty long time in the hard use community and, they are not getting blade failure reports nor, are they breaking them in their testing. Hard numbers and scientific proof I lack but, Cliff will thrash a folder in a few months so I will leave that part of the torture testing to him (which should remove any bias, as I am a Mission dealer).
Weight:
A Ti knife made to the same physical dimensions will be lighter. How much lighter? I don't have a scale accurate enough for hard numbers but, I would estimate it to be about 30%. For someone who wants to chop, A-2 is a better choice in this regard. Blade weight and balance will be where you want it. The Ti version will take much more arm speed to develop the same inertia, to achieve similar results. However, for a lot of normal knife uses, this weight differnce disappears. Opening boxes and mail, peeling fruit, cutting fabric and leather and, other similar uses can be done effectively with either blade choice.
The one real sleeper for me with regards to the weight and corrosion resistance is its potential to be made into a neck knife. If you are knife weight limited (not physical size limited), you can carry a longer and thicker Ti blade with a reduced over all knife weight. When you sweat or go swimming, there is no concern about corrosion. So, while the scary sharp edge of your A-2 knife is corroding (rusting) away, the Ti edge is unaffected, remaining sharp. Now, when I pull it out to use it, I have a knife that has a longer usable edge that can be thicker through the spine, with an edge that has not been damaged by corrosion in a package of manageable weight for a neck knife. With Ti's incredible memory and high yield strength, I would not be concerned with using it in way that would cause caution with a thin profile traditional steel neck knife.
I still consider Ti a special use material and don't advocate it for everyone but, if you want something you can store in a fish tank (salt water fish included), is incredibly strong, and find the non-magnetic properties of Ti appealing, you should give Mission's Ti serious consideration. It's not the ideal material for all uses, so don't give up your Sebenza or Busse yet! There are many fine knives and materials out there to choose from, consider them all. Now, does anybody have a Talonite folder to lend to Cliff while he thrashes that MPF folder?
Stay sharp,
Sid
Mission's website documents the Magnetic and corrision characteristics pretty well so, I'll just say that Ti and A-2 have no real comparison here - if you defuse magnetic mines or live in salt water, Ti is a better choice.
Now, to things that are not as obvious:
Edge holding and maintanence on the A-2 knives is better for most people's needs. A-2 is well known for scary sharpness and holding up to heavy cutting chores. The Ti Mission uses is normally associated with the cutting performance of 440A in relative terms by most people I have run into. Ti will require more frequent edge touch ups, and for most people this will be harder blade material to sharpen, especially to scary sharpness (I think a higher skill level is needed to properly sharpen Ti compared against A-2).
Strength:
A-2 has a well deserved and hard earned reputation for toughness when heat treated properly which Mission does well. It can be chipped or broken given enough force but, frankly most people just won't break it without using a mechanical assist of some sort because they just aren't strong enough with their bare hands or, the material they are cutting gives up first. But, yes, under certain conditions you can break it.
Ti is a material like few others. Most people have a frame of reference relative to ATS-34 or carbon steels so, saying Ti has edge holding like 440A but higher strength then properly heat treated A-2 seems like a contradiction. To a certain extent, I still suffer from these thoughts myself. The one thing that is not obvious unless you have owned Ti products before is the fact that Ti has a very stong memory. While not the same formula of Ti, my eyeglasses are a good example of Ti in general. For years, my eyeglasses were always getting bent from everyday occurences (kids yanking them off my face, bumping car parts while I worked on a vehicle, various farming related mishaps where I got smacked in the head, etc.). I now wear Marchon Ti frames with heat treated glass lenses. You can bend these frames anyway you want and they spring back to their true shape. With heavy glass lenses, minor differences in shape will show up as sore spots on my ears, nose, etc due to the weight and contact involved. Now, back to Mission. Their Ti is superior to my eyeglass frames which have served me so well for so many years. How does this relate to knives you ask? Think of how you use a knife. When you apply moderate stress to the knife blade, it should return to true. At some point a steel/stainless blade will either take a permanent "set" or break. Ti with its incredible memory will take extreme use and not take a set or break - well beyond what modern steels will take. Most anyone can build a good steel knife and make it drive through a steel plate with a hydraulic ram or cut steel cable for a time, but do you get a knife that will perform well doing normal knife chores? Mission has been around a pretty long time in the hard use community and, they are not getting blade failure reports nor, are they breaking them in their testing. Hard numbers and scientific proof I lack but, Cliff will thrash a folder in a few months so I will leave that part of the torture testing to him (which should remove any bias, as I am a Mission dealer).
Weight:
A Ti knife made to the same physical dimensions will be lighter. How much lighter? I don't have a scale accurate enough for hard numbers but, I would estimate it to be about 30%. For someone who wants to chop, A-2 is a better choice in this regard. Blade weight and balance will be where you want it. The Ti version will take much more arm speed to develop the same inertia, to achieve similar results. However, for a lot of normal knife uses, this weight differnce disappears. Opening boxes and mail, peeling fruit, cutting fabric and leather and, other similar uses can be done effectively with either blade choice.
The one real sleeper for me with regards to the weight and corrosion resistance is its potential to be made into a neck knife. If you are knife weight limited (not physical size limited), you can carry a longer and thicker Ti blade with a reduced over all knife weight. When you sweat or go swimming, there is no concern about corrosion. So, while the scary sharp edge of your A-2 knife is corroding (rusting) away, the Ti edge is unaffected, remaining sharp. Now, when I pull it out to use it, I have a knife that has a longer usable edge that can be thicker through the spine, with an edge that has not been damaged by corrosion in a package of manageable weight for a neck knife. With Ti's incredible memory and high yield strength, I would not be concerned with using it in way that would cause caution with a thin profile traditional steel neck knife.
I still consider Ti a special use material and don't advocate it for everyone but, if you want something you can store in a fish tank (salt water fish included), is incredibly strong, and find the non-magnetic properties of Ti appealing, you should give Mission's Ti serious consideration. It's not the ideal material for all uses, so don't give up your Sebenza or Busse yet! There are many fine knives and materials out there to choose from, consider them all. Now, does anybody have a Talonite folder to lend to Cliff while he thrashes that MPF folder?
Stay sharp,
Sid