Cpm-4v

R

Ruarch

Joined
Jul 4, 2015
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So I ordered a MT-21 and have started looking for real world experiences with this steel on the internet. I am not coming up with much. So far I have found that it is (depending on the hardness) more wear resistant but less tough than 3V and it has about the same wear resistance but tougher than M4. I can see just by it's composition it will not be much in the way of corrosion resistance. Does anyone have anything that might enlighten the rest of us? Or do we have to wait until the MT-21 starts taking some beatings to see what it can do?
 
I've seen it offered on some customs but that's about it as far as I know. So not many people have used it. It looks like a great steel as long as corrosion resistance is not a priority.
 
Ankerson tested a knife that Big Chris made with 4V, I now have that knife. You can go to his thread and read about the results.
I'm very impressed with 4V and like the performance of the steel.
 
Ajack60 said:
Ankerson tested a knife that Big Chris made with 4V, I now have that knife. You can go to his thread and read about the results.
I'm very impressed with 4V and like the performance of the steel.
Click to expand...

Can you post a link? I am very interested.
 
I think the idea was that 3v was excessively tough, if you could raise the edge retention significantly, even giving up some toughness would end up with a steel with both extreme retention and toughness.
 
I think that there is limited information out there because it is still a fairly new steel in the knife world. Ankerson tested a custom, but I think it is probably a mistake to compare the heat treat from a custom maker with a Spyderco heat treat. That is not to say that both HTs are not good, but the makers may be trying to achieve different things. That said, I say go out and use it. Finding out its capabilities first hand is always one of the funnest parts of ownership IMHO.
 
You can also look up Vanadis 4 extra. It's essentially the same according to chemical composition. There are some good tests out there on that one too.
 
I got mine a couple days ago. I live 200yds from factory so I had the option to looks at about 5 of them and chose the " best" one. Went home and reprofile it using three quarters on the spine to set new angle...not sure of exact inclusive angle but my guess is less than 30deg. Went outside and beat the hell out of a piece of particle wood until something failed. All I got was some rolling on the edge....not exactly ideal but I want this to be a cutter so thin edge was my goal. All in all I'm very happy with the steel, but I may reprofile to a more obtuse edge just to assure myself that this steel won't roll over. Or I'll keep it thin...who knows.
 
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