Gerber's 7Cr17MoV Stainless Steel...underrated?

It's an old thread but this steel still sees a fair amount of use. Like 440A, it was once celebrated for its corrosion resistance in budget-friendly diving, camping, and survival knives.

I'd gladly take it over 5Cr15Mov or the 3Cr13Mov being used by Walmart's Ozark Trail and Kershaw's bottom-tier budget line. In theory, 8Cr13Mov will hold a better edge but in my experience, the variability of heat treatment, blade geometry, etc. is going to make the difference between 7Cr17Mov and 8Cr13Mov. The problem I have with all of these steels is that there are too many better budget options today.

Either 9Cr18Mov or Acuto 440 should be better for the same sorts of things. The former seems especially sensitive to heat treatment (etc.) as the difference between a Schrade and a Civivi can be night and day. That's the rub though. Now we have choices like the $42 Civivi line and the $20-40 Tangram knives. If you're looking for a regular EDC knife, the cost difference becomes negligible and the quality difference is astronomical.
 
knarfeng said:
7Cr17MoV is roughly equivalent to 440A in composition. Performance is highly dependent on the final hardness after heat treat and on the geometry of the blade.

Hardened to a 55, it's about equal to the performance of the steel in Victorinox blades
Hardened to a 58, it would be pretty fair stuff, much like the Schrade knives of the 60's through the early 90's. Schrade's standard stainless was 440A hardened to a 58.
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Frotier76 said:
For the past 9 years I've been a maintenance man at a hotel.At the time I was looking for a very comfortable and textured knife that was a smaller (but durable) alternative to my daily carry knife and bought a Gerber Presto 3.0.Now at the time I heard all this sort of propaganda about 'Gerber Mystery Steel' online and went with it anyways as this knife came in 7Cr17MoV (china equivalent to 440A).I still carry and use this knife to this day as my work knife.

In my opinion Gerber's steel isn't bad at all.Granted it's not top shelf stuff but I'm convinced 420HC is more noticeable to roll it's edge on dense materials than this stuff...stripping wire for example.The 7Cr17MoV seems to take a few more passes to sharpen but seems to come back as sharp as 420HC,so it's equally as serviceable as a camping and hunting steel.So I can't help but ask-why the negativity on Gerber's steel?

Now some might say the 'mystery' of the steel was when Gerber simply called it 'High Carbon Stainless' and no one knew what it was unless you asked them because they don't really market their common steel offering.Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the old USA knife manufacturers do the same thing?As I recall we just gave stainless steel a marketing name,stamp 'stainless' or a symbol on the blade tang,and no one knew what it was unless you asked a dealer or contacted the manufacturer.
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I own a lot of mid to higher end knives and also many budget knives. My daily carry is almost always a budget model. Currently, I carry a Gerber Flatiron in 7cR daily and it holds up just fine to opening boxes/ cutting cardboard. I also have it in D2 which is definitely better but I still have no issue with the 7cR.
 
The only thing I can say, and one of the main reasons that they get alot of negative reviews on here, is that I feel the quality on the budget chinese knives is hit or miss. I own a bunch of chinese made knives like the new Old Timers, Imperial, Smith @ Wesson, Gerber, Kershaw, etc. Some are awesome in my opinion and some are trash. I am not sure if it is inconsistencies in the materials or heat treatment, but some do fairly well and others will not take an edge. I have had some stockmans that have one blade is awesome and a different blade on the same knife is garbage. It is kind of a crap shoot as to what you will get.
 
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