Finally found one: Benchmade 710bk

00ChevyScott

00ChevyScott

Basic Member
Joined
Dec 3, 2010
Messages
2,678
After a good couple months of looking, I finally managed to snag one from an awesome member here in the exchange forum. It's a used 710 plain edge with M2HS steel. It's my first knife in this steel, or any M series steel for that matter, so I'm excited to try it out. Here's some quick cell phone pictures of the pair.

aPhuIuQ.jpg


HtwDBuf.jpg



I'm loving the 710, haven't carried anything else in the past couple weeks.
 
Congrats indeed. Great knife. Took me some time and the aligning of stars to acquire one. I too owe my thanks to a member on the board..

Lousy pic
 
Ickythump said:
Congrats indeed. Great knife. Took me some time and the aligning of stars to acquire one. I too owe my thanks to a member on the board..
Click to expand...

The subtle differences between Benchmade knives are so weird lol. Yours has the BK symbol on it, while mine doesn't. Then I've also seen a white background behind the M2HS text on the blades. Also, mine does not have the model number under the Benchmade symbol like most others I've seen.
 
Yours sound like an earlier version. BT, I think was the coating designation, a different formula. Others would know more than I about some of the differences. Mine lacks antennas on the butterfly, I was slightly disappointed about that. I imagine yours has antennas..

Did you get the box for it?
 
Ickythump said:
Yours sound like an earlier version. BT, I think was the coating designation, a different formula. Others would know more than I about some of the differences. Mine lacks antennas on the butterfly, I was slightly disappointed about that. I imagine yours has antennas..

Did you get the box for it?
Click to expand...

Yep, there are antennae on mine. Hadn't even noticed it. I go a box, just not the original one haha.


Awh9oc1.jpg
 
Earlier version, very nice.

Use it well, brother. Great steel. Wont be anymore of the M2's. No way, no how.
 
It does seem weird to me that nobody uses M2 anymore, but they use M4. Is M2 tougher than M4 to work with, or is M4 just more bang for the buck so nobody wants to use an inferior steel if it's going to be tough to work with?
 
00ChevyScott said:
It does seem weird to me that nobody uses M2 anymore, but they use M4. Is M2 tougher than M4 to work with, or is M4 just more bang for the buck so nobody wants to use an inferior steel if it's going to be tough to work with?
Click to expand...


Again, others would know more than me. I believe, at least one reason was that M2 was very hard on the tools, dye's, mills, bits..so forth.. This steel was before powder metallurgy technology...not exactly sure how that figures into the equation, if at all.
 
00ChevyScott said:
It does seem weird to me that nobody uses M2 anymore, but they use M4. Is M2 tougher than M4 to work with, or is M4 just more bang for the buck so nobody wants to use an inferior steel if it's going to be tough to work with?
Click to expand...

CPM-M4 is arguably an incremental improvement to M2. I believe some of that is from the PM process. While the Rockwell Hardness of Benchmade's M4 is higher than their M2 was and Crucible notes greater wear resistance with M4, I can't honestly say I have used Benchmade's M4 enough to speak on all of the differences of edge retention in real world usage versus their M2 which I have used more. Both my M2 and M4 blades perform really well and are great for cutting materials that tend to dull many other steels at a much quicker rate. But I do find CPM-M4 to be tough as hell, and for certain knives like the 810, I think that can be very beneficial depending upon the usage the knife sees.

With drill bits which is where M2 was common place for a long time, quite a few makers are moving away from M2 and moving towards steels with high amounts of cobalt or different HSSs with coatings like the TiNi to extend service life. I assume part of that is because steel makers are probably up-selling different steels.

As my knowledge is limited on steels, I generally use Crucible's lit to compare steels in conjunction with what I read here:


In terms of toughness, M4 seems to gain significantly more toughness with the CPM process than M2 does. And I think this is a possible reason we are seeing M4 more than M2 today given the popularity of knife steels made using CPM, and how M4 gains more than M2.
toughnesscpmvsconv.gif



And in general, the steel is tougher than many other common steels used on folders.
chooseimpacttough.gif



And wear resistance is very good.
carbidecontentwearv2.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top