CPM-M4 vs. CPM-S110V......GO!!!

JediKnight86 said:
I find it interesting that high speed steels became so popular in the knife industry over air hardened steels like D2. What's S110V btw, is it new?

Ultimately carbon steel is better than any stainless, we know this. Rust is easy to avoid if you know how to care for your tools. High hardness, high carbon content steel laminated with softer stainless in the Japanese tradition is the way to go. Thinnest edges, easiest sharpening, amazing edge retention, no chipping. You can't beat it.
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yea it's new, it's supposed to be an upgrade to s90v. the only knife that I have seen it on is the kershaw shallot.
 
M4 is tougher then S90/110V. It's got great edge retention and performance. Think M2 on steroids. It will handle abuse better then S110V, so if you don't mind the stainless, I'd say go for that.

Carbon steel is not necessarily better then stainless steels. I'd take my Spyderco Military in S90V over just about any other folding knife given the choice. Using the CPM process it becomes possible to get very hard, yet also very stainless, steels. Think about H1. It's very tough and cannot rust. Holds an edge very well too.
 
jiggyfly16 said:
so you think the bm in m4 is worth it?
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Well, to me the M4 is worth an extra $20-$30.

I will not, and I recommend no one else, pay some of the rediculous "premiums" I have seen for any knife made from any of the "super" steels or limited production steels. Buy when they come out, go on reduced price sale, or skip it till one is offerred at, near, or less than the original price. (off topic a bit there, but these "$300" M4 710 knives and M2 710 knives are irking me a bit - but I've got a few).


The thing I like about M2 and presumably M4 (with my limited experience - I've stropped my Gaucho and Spyderco, no major edge work needed yet) is that, once I've achieved the edge profile I like, it is relatively easy (note that "easy" is not the same as "short in time") to get a great edge again when resharpening. No fuss, no muss, just basic sharpening techniques.

I also note that there are a plethora of steels with this characteristic; it is just that many of them are not hardened to approximately 60 Rc or more and are often not available in knives that I will carry.
 
mnyshrpknvs said:
I understand your frustration with the response to get a Sebenza, but it looks to me like trimcut123 is making a recommendation. No need to get bent about this post!:confused:
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no man, I'm not pissed at him, just at benchmade because it's taking a long assed time for them to release that LFTi knife that I want. That's why I started the post. to know more about cpm m4......maybe I used too many exclamation points and angry faces.:o

apologies to trimcut123 if it looked like it was directed at him.
 
Cpm M4 is the best its super hard 61-63 HRc and really tough. ever wonder why almost all of the knives in national cutting competitions are M4
 
I still want to see some T-15 or Rex-76 in the high 60's Rc range, they should be about as tough as S90V or ZDP-189 so it's not like toughness is the problem.
I think if we just throw the names out enough someone will pick them up eventually.

(Doh, I forgot Crucible has gone under. That means there's pretty much no chance for Rex-76, but T-15 is a little more common so it should still be doable.)
 
Nebulae said:
Cpm M4 is the best its super hard 61-63 HRc and really tough. ever wonder why almost all of the knives in national cutting competitions are M4
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There was already a thread regarding this, M4 isn't technically the best, it's just proven to be effective for the situations the contests put the knives through. I'm sure a contest champ could elaborate but he said (paraphrased) that it's the ability of M4 to take the acute angles that other steels can't without experience chipping under the situations the contest subject the knives to, which makes it perform better.

But there's no saying that under identical edge geometry, it's any better, it's more of it's versatility to handle an edge geometry that others can't.
 
M4 is used on comp knives because you can grind the edge down until it is ridiculously thin and it will still hold up. Some of those knives are taken down to like 15-17 thousandths and then sharpened. The bad news is that it is so abrasion resistant that you had better not plan on doing any hand finishing of an M4 knife after you heat treat it. I have been able to take large forged W2 blades down to around 20 thousandths and then put a convex edge on them with the KMG and then clean them up with a four sided strop bat. My left forearm is pretty much bald and they hold up very nicely when tested on pressure treated 4 x 4's. The advantage that any fine grain carbon steel like W2 or Aldo's 1084FG has is that if the edge does get a little dull, you can sharpen on darn near anything. Bailey Bradshaw taught me a little trick to see if your grain size is fine enough without having to break the blade. When you set the edge on the belt grinder, with very fine grain steel, you can create a VERY long wire edge that you can push back and forth with your finger like it was made of cloth. Then you just strop it off and you have a giant straight razor.:D
 
s110V has the best edge retention of all three. M4 has the best combination of toughness and edge retention of all three, it can be used hard, and still be sharp. S90V is in between in toughness and edge retention.

I can only speak for s90v out of use, it has vanadium carbides which arent very fine, and it is very difficult to sharpen to a scary sharp, but once you do, it will stay sharp well. Also, when its gets duller, it still somehow manages to cut great.

Id get m4. None of the steels you listed are bad, quite the contrary, their all so called "super steels"
 
jdm61 said:
Bailey Bradshaw taught me a little trick to see if your grain size is fine enough without having to break the blade. When you set the edge on the belt grinder, with very fine grain steel, you can create a VERY long wire edge that you can push back and forth with your finger like it was made of cloth. Then you just strop it off and you have a giant straight razor.:D
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Or you can etch a polished portion of the blade and look at it under a microscope to see the grains directly =)

According to Crucible's datasheets, at a similar hardness S110V and S90V have the same wear resistance. However, S110V gets much harder, up to 63.5 hrc. It looks to me like an improvement over S90V in all aspects.

CPM M4 at the same hardness won't have the wear resistance of S90V/S110V, but can reach 66 hrc and hold a more acute angle edge. Every 2.5 points in hardness doubles the edge retention for the same steel, and just a few degrees thinner edge would double edge retention as well, so for knives optimized specifically for CPM M4, I'm not sure anything can beat it.
 
you guys are splitting hairs,after you leave confines of your lag equip.& get the real world of knife use i doubt you will be able to tell any difference.i used to chase every super steel myself.1095 with a triple quench in the field will probably carry you thru the average hunt or camping trip.keeping your blade clean & lubed is more important than whether same will cut 12 minutes on cardboard as oppossed to cutting cardboard 15 minutes.alloy formulations do'nt always dictate performance.t remember gerber bringing the foldind sportsman 2 out in 1983. on paper we thought it would do wondrers @ eat rotten cucumbers.it was a dismal disapointment.an eye brand stockman with .87 carbon would cut twice as long on cardboard.all you need to do in the field is wash @dry your blade well @ you will find some very common alloys if heat treat. is good will make you very pleased.
 
cotdt said:
According to Crucible's datasheets, at a similar hardness S110V and S90V have the same wear resistance. However, S110V gets much harder, up to 63.5 hrc. It looks to me like an improvement over S90V in all aspects.
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If you are willing to live on the edge, you can get CPM 10V up to 64.5. I have one from Phil Wilson, and it is incredible. I have no idea if it is tough or not, but I don't care, as it's a skinner, not a chopper. I've got lots of choppers for chopping. ;)

It's not a small difference, it's a *very* large difference in edge retention cutting through abrasive media compared to D2, CPM D2, and most other steels. And I hold D2 in *very* high regard... M2 at 65/66 HRC is one of the few that can keep up, but the 10V comes out on top.

I haven't tested it yet against S90V, but I just got my Spyderco Mule, so will hopefully try those two out. Good stuff!

Edited - My remarks were for CPM 10V, not S110, sorry...
 
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DennisStrickland said:
you guys are splitting hairs,after you leave confines of your lag equip.& get the real world of knife use i doubt you will be able to tell any difference.i used to chase every super steel myself.1095 with a triple quench in the field will probably carry you thru the average hunt or camping trip.keeping your blade clean & lubed is more important than whether same will cut 12 minutes on cardboard as oppossed to cutting cardboard 15 minutes.alloy formulations do'nt always dictate performance.t remember gerber bringing the foldind sportsman 2 out in 1983. on paper we thought it would do wondrers @ eat rotten cucumbers.it was a dismal disapointment.an eye brand stockman with .87 carbon would cut twice as long on cardboard.all you need to do in the field is wash @dry your blade well @ you will find some very common alloys if heat treat. is good will make you very pleased.
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Of course you are right. But then we wouldn't be knife knuts! ;)
 
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