Curious about Kizer's heat treat, (D2 & Nitro-V)

[SwissHeritageCo]

I don't have much experience with Kizer outside of some 4v (I don't like 4v). Does anyone have any experience with their D2 or Nitro V? No idea how hard they run either of them but I do know there is quite a noticeable difference from one chinese maker to another so I'm curious if anyone can weigh in.

Chronovore , your experience would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Rowan McDirk]

Blade Banter does Rockwell tests on knife blades.
There is a spreadsheet of his results in the description of his YT video.

 

[SwissHeritageCo]

Blade Banter does Rockwell tests on knife blades.
There is a spreadsheet of his results in the description of his YT video.

Well damn. Looks like it's a coin toss between quite a few different brands. Lots of winners and losere, even between the same brands.

 

[Chronovore]

Blade Banter does Rockwell tests on knife blades.
There is a spreadsheet of his results in the description of his YT video.

Well damn. Looks like it's a coin toss between quite a few different brands. Lots of winners and losere, even between the same brands.

Keep in mind that this video is 6 years old. So that's the most recent information you'll see there. Checking the Google Doc, it doesn't look like this project has been kept up either. The last date on the data I see is 2023. That doesn't mean the information isn't useful, especially on older models, but keep in mind that some companies seem to have improved over the last six years. Also, some companies are using different steels than they did previously. Thankfully, we've seen a lot of companies move away from Chinese D2.

On a side note, who else is doing community testing? LuvThemKnives has continued to do batch testing for steel identity and/or hardness but not frequently. His last results were posted on his YouTube channel 5 months ago and the last results before those were 10 months ago. There were also some guys doing carefully controlled cut testing. (I'd contributed several samples.) Unfortunately, I don't think that is still happening. Last updates from the guys I knew were some interesting results on the effects of factory edges going on hot, but it's definitely been a while. (Specifically, it was tracking improvement in edge retention across subsequent edges applied the same way with a KME and looking at how deep the problem can run.)

Getting back to D2, there had been a bit of a fiasco with companies either running it too soft or edges just not holding. Speculation included sensitivity or issues in production heat treatment, variability in the vanadium content with Chinese D2 specifically, or those factory edge issues. Whatever the cause or causes, performance results for Chinese D2 were all over the map. Coincidentally, the same was true for lots of production M390 and not just from Chinese companies. We also saw some issues with S35VN in production knives. Some companies had been doing those steels better than others, with Petrified Fish being among the better for D2. Kubey and WE both seem to have improved a bit with M390/20CV more recently.

I'm very happy to have seen more companies mainstreaming Nitro-V and 14C28N over the last couple of years. Because that happened more recently and during what seems to be a lull in community testing, I don't have good resources on it. My supply of personal anecdotes is limited too now as my EDC rotation has grown to insane levels. For instance, I've got a bunch of new models from Kizer, Vosteed, etc.. Going over my 2025 EDC posts to figure out some knives of the year, I realized that some only got carried a couple of times! Yeah, I know. First-world problems.

 

[Monofletch]

Luvthemknives does Rockwell testing in his videos too

 

[kylemiller]

Kizer generally gets you what is on the item description, but you're trading performance for aesthetics. In that price range you can only have one. On the performance side you've got plastic Cold Steel, Spyderco and Byrd, on the pocket candy side, Kizer, Kershaw, CIVIVI and whatever other flavor of the month $70 flipper is out there. I've got room for both in my collection but lean toward the Cold Steel and the Spydies.

 

[Chronovore]

Kizer generally gets you what is on the item description, but you're trading performance for aesthetics. In that price range you can only have one. On the performance side you've got plastic Cold Steel, Spyderco and Byrd, on the pocket candy side, Kizer, Kershaw, CIVIVI and whatever other flavor of the month $70 flipper is out there. I've got room for both in my collection but lean toward the Cold Steel and the Spydies.

Don't be so sure about that. For instance, the Byrd knives are all made in China and almost all of them are 8Cr13MoV. All of those get smoked on material, action, and performance by your average Civivi, Sencut, Kizer, et al in 9Cr18MoV, 10Cr15CoMoV, Nitro-V, 14C28N, 154CM, etc.. The same is true of Spyderco's budget stuff in 8Cr13MoV.

This isn't just my own anecdotal use or having owned, used, taken apart or tinkered with an absurd number of models from these brands in addition to Byrd and Spyderco. I mentioned carefully controlled cut testing in my longer post above, in which the same edge at the same angle and DPS was applied via KME and repeated edges on the same knife were tested in a 1" section for statistical accuracy against standard cardboard. At least in that testing, the 9Cr18MoV on Sencut and Civivi knives was rivaling Spyderco's VG-10.

 

[SwissHeritageCo]

Don't be so sure about that. For instance, the Byrd knives are all made in China and almost all of them are 8Cr13MoV. All of those get smoked on material, action, and performance by your average Civivi, Sencut, Kizer, et al in 9Cr18MoV, 10Cr15CoMoV, Nitro-V, 14C28N, 154CM, etc.. The same is true of Spyderco's budget stuff in 8Cr13MoV.

This isn't just my own anecdotal use or having owned, used, taken apart or tinkered with an absurd number of models from these brands in addition to Byrd and Spyderco. I mentioned carefully controlled cut testing in my longer post above, in which the same edge at the same angle and DPS was applied via KME and repeated edges on the same knife were tested in a 1" section for statistical accuracy against standard cardboard. At least in that testing, the 9Cr18MoV on Sencut and Civivi knives was rivaling Spyderco's VG-10.

I've clocked you in Outpost76's comments, I'm assuming he's one of the chaps you're referring too. There are a couple of youtubers running rockwell tests on random chinese knives (cjrb etc) but nothing that references performance like Outpost76 (still surprised about petrified fish's k110).

I'm no steel snob but I am a geometry snob... but things get weird with Chinese D2. I know LTK had ganzo tested at authentic (and hard) d2, but for some reason I'm still a bit shifty toward D2 from china. One of the reasons Petrified Fish is appealing. In any case, I went ahead and purchased the D2 from kizer over the nitro-v because I'm more concerned with edge retention but we'll see what's up after I reprofile it

Appreciate your input! You're basically our resident chinese steel expert.

 

[Chronovore]

I've clocked you in Outpost76's comments, I'm assuming he's one of the chaps you're referring too. There are a couple of youtubers running rockwell tests on random chinese knives (cjrb etc) but nothing that references performance like Outpost76 (still surprised about petrified fish's k110).

I'm no steel snob but I am a geometry snob... but things get weird with Chinese D2. I know LTK had ganzo tested at authentic (and hard) d2, but for some reason I'm still a bit shifty toward D2 from china. One of the reasons Petrified Fish is appealing. In any case, I went ahead and purchased the D2 from kizer over the nitro-v because I'm more concerned with edge retention but we'll see what's up after I reprofile it

Appreciate your input! You're basically our resident chinese steel expert.

Thanks! I hope you'll update the thread. I'll be curious to hear how it goes. The mysteries of why the Chinese D2 did so badly sometimes was probably a combination of the factors I mentioned. Reprofiling will at least give you a head start on any edge fatigue from the factory grinding. During all that testing a few years back, there seem to be some hidden factors in how steels perform including things like sensitivity in heat treatment or sensitivity to issues in factory grinding. I'm no metallurgist but I get the idea that being friendly or forgiving to work with is part of why 14C28N tends to be decent from so many companies. Of course, it still does better when done right and no amount of friendliness will rule out the possibility of a late Friday F-up on the grinder.

I'm mostly happy to see Nitro-V and 14C28N taking over as defaults for so many companies, although I wish all the Nitro-V was 14C28N at the end of the day. Some people say they get a tiny bit better edge retention from Nitro-V but 14C28N is just a better steel overall. I don't usually see issues with 14C28N, even when it gets run soft. I've seen one example of Nitro-V with serious edge issues, wherein I think a thin blade got run way too hot. It was probably the above issue...

 

[SwissHeritageCo]

Thanks! I hope you'll update the thread. I'll be curious to hear how it goes. The mysteries of why the Chinese D2 did so badly sometimes was probably a combination of the factors I mentioned. Reprofiling will at least give you a head start on any edge fatigue from the factory grinding. During all that testing a few years back, there seem to be some hidden factors in how steels perform including things like sensitivity in heat treatment or sensitivity to issues in factory grinding. I'm no metallurgist but I get the idea that being friendly or forgiving to work with is part of why 14C28N tends to be decent from so many companies. Of course, it still does better when done right and no amount of friendliness will rule out the possibility of a late Friday F-up on the grinder.

I'm mostly happy to see Nitro-V and 14C28N taking over as defaults for so many companies, although I wish all the Nitro-V was 14C28N at the end of the day. Some people say they get a tiny bit better edge retention from Nitro-V but 14C28N is just a better steel overall. I don't usually see issues with 14C28N, even when it gets run soft. I've seen one example of Nitro-V with serious edge issues, wherein I think a thin blade got run way too hot. It was probably the above issue...

I will indeed report back I always do an extensive reprofiling so I should get past any hot edge issues pretty quick.

Yeah the D2 is always a gamble but I'm hoping that Kizer (being one of the more experienced chinese brands) have their act together.

Couldn't agree more about the 14C28N, it's a favorite steel of mine and it's devoid of chinese "scrap steel" mystery. You should pickup an MBK china production, they went to a lot of trouble instituting a protocol very close to Larrin's for their 14C28N (that info is straight from the owners).

 

[Chronovore]

I will indeed report back I always do an extensive reprofiling so I should get past any hot edge issues pretty quick.

Yeah the D2 is always a gamble but I'm hoping that Kizer (being one of the more experienced chinese brands) have their act together.

Couldn't agree more about the 14C28N, it's a favorite steel of mine and it's devoid of chinese "scrap steel" mystery. You should pickup an MBK china production, they went to a lot of trouble instituting a protocol very close to Larrin's for their 14C28N (that info is straight from the owners).

MBK is great. Sanford Owen did some custom laser work for me. I only have a couple of their knives and the ones I have were made by Kizer.