CRKT's New Chinese Steels

C

Confederate

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Sep 5, 2005
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I noticed in a recent CRKT catalog that some of their knives were marked as having 8CR14, while others were marked 8CR14MoV. Are these the same steels or does the latter have other elements in it? In the steel selection portion of the catalog, CRKT doesn't include either, specifically, but implies that 8CR14MoV lies between AUS8 and ATS-34.

Much of what CRKT now makes is junk, though I'm impressed with the company's Thunderbolt series, which has blades of 8CR14MoV. The blades are double ground, which I think is a big improvement with their serrated models, but the serrations on the front of the tanto blade is a bit of a pain.

I don't understand why a company like CRKT doesn't spell out the differences in the steel. Right now, I'm fairly comfortable with 8CR14MoV and AUS8, but I won't order knives made of anything else.

Does anyone know anything about these new Chinese steels?

CRKTThunderbolt_2.jpg


The Thunderbolt series sport 8CR14MoV blades.
 
it appears the names just indicate what alloying elements are in there.

the first number is Carbon, then Chromium.
so 3CR14MoV would have 0.8% Carbon, 14% Chromium, and a little Moly and Vanadium too.

the spyderco byrds use 8Cr13MoV, which is supposed to be similar to AUS-8. the CRKT steel has 1% more chromium. So I expect it would be a little more stain resistant.
 
Confederate said:
I noticed in a recent CRKT catalog that some of their knives were marked as having 8CR14, while others were marked 8CR14MoV. Are these the same steels or does the latter have other elements in it? In the steel selection portion of the catalog, CRKT doesn't include either, specifically, but implies that 8CR14MoV lies between AUS8 and ATS-34.

Much of what CRKT now makes is junk, though I'm impressed with the company's Thunderbolt series, which has blades of 8CR14MoV. The blades are double ground, which I think is a big improvement with their serrated models, but the serrations on the front of the tanto blade is a bit of a pain.

I don't understand why a company like CRKT doesn't spell out the differences in the steel. Right now, I'm fairly comfortable with 8CR14MoV and AUS8, but I won't order knives made of anything else.

Does anyone know anything about these new Chinese steels?

The Thunderbolt series sport 8CR14MoV blades.
Click to expand...

Well,
For what it is worth, while I can find Chinese steel supplier web sites that list 8Cr14MoV, I cannot find a Chinese steel supplier who advertises 8Cr14. So it seems that this is a shortcut on the part of CRKT copy writers. As confirmation, when I looked on the CRKT website, their steel chart doesn't show the short form of the steel name, only the long.
http://www.crkt.com/steelfct.html

I have found the same thing on the Benchmade web site. Some of their knife descriptions list the Chinese blade alloy as the Carbon content and the Chromium content only, without mentioning the other elements, but if you go to their table of alloys, only the full name is used there. I contacted Benchmade at one point and asked. I was told they just sometimes use shortcuts in their writing.

I have tested 8Cr13MoV and AUS8 of the same hardness side by side and found their edge retention to be roughly equivalent. My guestimate is that 8Cr13MoV, 8Cr14MoV, and Aus 8 all have approximately the same edge retention properties when heat treated to equivalent hardnesses. That is a measurable step below the edge retension of ATS-34 / 154CM.

I see they use 9Cr18MoV in some of their blades. I would that say that9Cr18MoV does have performance that lies between that of AUS8 and ATS-34. 9Cr18MoV is roughly the equivalent of 440C.
 
The CRKT catalog that had both listings was the annual 2008 issue. If 8Cr14MoV is in the AUS8 category, that would be good news in that several of their recent issuings of folders are priced at $23/$17 for the large/small models. They seem substantially less expensive than the knives with AUS8.
 
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