CPM-M4 = Good Stuff

L

lambertiana

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Last night I was helping set up for a wedding reception, when the bride's best friend came in to cut down the bouquet of two dozen yellow roses. They were wrapped in nice blue cloth for part of the stem length, and she wanted to trim off the stems at the bottom of the cloth. I had my Bradley and thought it would be a quick and easy job. However, when I started I discovered that it was taking far more force to cut than expected. After getting through most of the stems, I discovered why - hidden from easy view were green florist wires wrapped around each stem. My first thought was that I would have to repair some serious edge damage after using that much force on a bunch of steel wire. But I didn't need to worry, there was only one small area where I could see a very slight edge deformation in the right light (but I couldn't feel it, and I had to look hard to even see it). 30 seconds on stone and strop brought it back to hair popping. This CPM-M4 is good stuff, it can take a lot.
 
Yeah, Spyderco needs to get more M4 stuff out. I'd get Delica or Dragonfly 2 made from M4 immediately into EDC. Spyderco's M4 is wonderful thing. I got Benchmade in M4 its bit softer but its excellent aswell, but Gayle Bradley is ahead of it.
 
love my gayle bradley the thing just ate up a ton of carpet i had to rip up and that stuff is rough....id love a sage sized knife with that steel
 
yup, the bradleys a beast. I'm a construction worker and it goes with me every day. the only thing I cant bring myself to cut with it is drywall. but eventually I'll be in a tight spot and use it for that too.
 
The Ti-Millie in M4 is my EDC too.

Stays sharp a long time, then is very easy to resharpen - That's great steel ~;-)
 
I will never understand why Spyderco stopped using or never used the best American steels ever made: CPM-3V, 10V, S90V, S110V etc. And now the only blade made using CPM-M4 is made in Taiwan (nothing wrong with that, but why not a Military in CPM-M4 made in Golden?). And where is BG-42?
 
You know alot of ppl prefer knives made in america and i will say that i am one of them. I especially like to pick up blades made in my state. but those cats over in taiwan know their stuff. if my gayle bradley is any indicator of the other taichung knives they are custom in quality. I have never seen a smother knife than my gb. In fact i saw in another thread where some1 said that their $400 crk wasnt as smooth as the gb.

and i still dont understand how cpm-m4 stays so sharp then sharpens so easily. Usually i associate crazy edge holding with super hard and therefore hard to sharpen. I have a rough time sharpening my vg10 spydies on Arkansas stone but that m4 gets a great edge from it.

I think it might just be cpm steels that preform a head above their peers
 
There was a US-made Millie in M4, but it was only a sprint run. I believe cost is always a factor but its a good question. I know we would all like to see more offerings from Spyderco in these steels. On the plus side, there seem to be lots of CTS-20CP Paras flying around. This is also an American steel and the equivalent of S90V but apparently has not captured the imagination of the market as much as the S90V Para. So get one while you can!

Outdoors Fanatic said:
I will never understand why Spyderco stopped using or never used the best American steels ever made: CPM-3V, 10V, S90V, S110V etc. And now the only blade made using CPM-M4 is made in Taiwan (nothing wrong with that, but why not a Military in CPM-M4 made in Golden?). And where is BG-42?
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In my uses, M4 is amazing.

The thing I find most interesting about M4 is that along with it's high levels of Molybdenum and Vanadium, it's one of only three notable steels that contain Tungsten at 5.5% which is only rivaled by M-2 at 6.4%. Hitachi Super Blue has around 2%.

Tungsten is one of the hardest metals and is frequently used in ball bearings and other high-impact machinery. I think it's toughness and resistance to shock and high impact is what makes it so good for Bladesports.

I got my steel info from the steel chart in the back of the Spyderco catalog.
 
the heat treating process is probably a problem too. it looks really complicated and require pretty high T°c.

and no it's not tough at 70hrc they state that care should be taken when straightening because the grade is brittle

crucible said:
This grade has limited toughness; straightening may present a risk of cracking.
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