Explain Swamprat Steel to a Newbie

Knife Crazied

Knife Crazied

Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
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I just received a swamp warden and its my first swamp knife and I was wondering about the steel. Is it rust resistant? Does it rust easy? Thanks for the time. Ash
 
SR101 is VERY rust prone, but it's an awesome steel. That stuff takes a great edge.
 
SR-101 steel is 52100 with the Busse family's typical super-optimized heat treat. The smaller knives tend to be through hardened. They used to do a differential temper on the larger 6+ inch blades, but I think they've refined the performance of and switched to through-hardened blades exclusively. 52100 isn't rust resistant, tends to have better raw edgeholding than infi but slightly lower performance in other aspects
 
it's been my understanding that sr101 is not just 52100, it's 52100 with additional chromium and possibly being kept towards the high end of it's carbon scale. sr77 is also not just S7, it's S7 with additional chromium. see:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...d-question-about-sr-101?p=5163606#post5163606

Unfortunately no third party analysis that I know of has been done on either steel, but the logic seems to follow that, even if the comments above are not exactly acurate regarding what has been changed about the steels, that something has actually been changed.
 
Knife Crazied said:
I just received a swamp warden and its my first swamp knife and I was wondering about the steel. Is it rust resistant? Does it rust easy? Thanks for the time. Ash
Click to expand...

Hey Ash, theres a forum dedicated to the Swamp Rat family of knives right here on BF with tons of info about them. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/778-Swamp-Rat-Knives

The Swamp Warden is a great little introduction to the Swamp! CongRats! I have one and love the size and utility and they need very little care.
 
I have had a swamp rat howling rat for some time and have not found it to be any more rust prone than other carbon steels such as 1095. I just keep some olive oil on the edge and obviously it is a good idea not to let moisture sit on the edge ... but that is a good idea for any non-stainless blade (and probably stainless as well).

From all of the research I did on it in deciding which knife to buy, I found that it holds an edge very well, and definitely better than INFI. Seems like a gret balance of a steel for hard use. I haven't put mine through enough use to be able to say a lot, but so far I can say that it sharpens up very well. I was able to put a great edge on it with some water stones. It is not a difficult steel to sharpen (that's good to know just for general use and also if you are out in the field in a tough situation and need to sharpen on a rock or something). Very sharp edge but seems to be a very strong edge as well (naturally convexed from free-hand sharpening).
 
Welcome to the Swamp Ash!! :D :D :D

Please do ask anything about our little corner of the Bussekin world. :)
 
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