Good knives to try new steels

[ocnLogan]

Ok, I've been in this forum for a while now, and have been wondering this for almost this whole time.

I'm on a super tight budget at all times (married grad student ), but I also have been wondering about all of these fancy steels that I keep reading about.

Basically, my question is this: What blades are good values/examples of certain blade steels?

For instance, say I wanted to see what all of the fuss was about ZDP 189, what is the best blade to pick up to give it a try (on a budget)? Off of the top of my head, I would say the Delica4.

What about CPM154, S30v, S90v, M390, etc (and anything else I'm missing). Fixed or folder, it doesn't matter .

I'm not planning on picking up anything anytime soon, but would like a list of ones that fellow forum-ites think are good examples/good values to pick up in the future when I get a real job that pays real money . That, and I haven't seen any other thread like this, so it should be interesting.

 

[Tsujigiri]

S30V=Buck Vantage Pro
CPM-M4=Spyderco Gayle Bradley
ZDP-189=Spyderco Delica 4
ELMAX=Kershaw Speedform 2
S90V=Müller MSP

 

[Random Dan]

Elmax = Spyderco Mule
S90V = Spyderco Mule
M4 = Spyderco Mule
Super Blue = Spyderco Mule
M390 = Spyderco Mule
ZDP-189 = Spyderco Mule
Cruwear = Spyderco Mule

 

[brets-ftw]

Elmax = Spyderco Mule
S90V = Spyderco Mule
M4 = Spyderco Mule
Super Blue = Spyderco Mule
M390 = Spyderco Mule
ZDP-189 = Spyderco Mule
Cruwear = Spyderco Mule

this gave me a good chuckle. honestly though the mule is the most inexpensive all-round for these steels, and the blade geometry makes for great slicers so the main focus will be on the testing of the steel vs edge angle & geo/steel

 

[res1cue]

CPM m4 - contego. Got mine in BK recently, and it is quite the knife!

 

[ocnLogan]

Elmax = Spyderco Mule
S90V = Spyderco Mule
M4 = Spyderco Mule
Super Blue = Spyderco Mule
M390 = Spyderco Mule
ZDP-189 = Spyderco Mule
Cruwear = Spyderco Mule

DOH!

You're right of course, but I was wondering what other good blades were out there. Especially because not all of those are available right now (as far as I know, they do one or two a year right? then they're gone).

And I should edit the OP, but my wondering has also bled over to the carbon steels. Like... L6, SR101, 01, 3V, etc.

Thanks for the help guys .

 

[brets-ftw]

DOH!

You're right of course, but I was wondering what other good blades were out there. Especially because not all of those are available right now (as far as I know, they do one or two a year right? then they're gone).

And I should edit the OP, but my wondering has also bled over to the carbon steels. Like... L6, SR101, 01, 3V, etc.

Thanks for the help guys .

True, your gunna have to hunt down the older Mule teams as they are sprint runs (part of the reason the s90v mule's ran out so quickly. not often do you see that steel in a knife less then $100)


for carbon steels like those:

Svord does an amazing HT on L6, and are also the cheapest, so check out the Svord peasant, there are also lots of threads on modding them, here is an example that i still carry today

SR101 is a proprietary steel by Busse I believe but it in essence is a modified 52-100 ball bearing steel which was fairly popular back in the day, many custom knife makers use it but its not too common in production, there was a spydie mule in that though.

01 is pretty much everywhere, Enzo makes their knives out of it and it holds up quite well, its like 440c in that it can range from decent to amazing all on the HT

3V, I dont recall any production knives in it, mostly custom, though if it helps s30v was based on 3v

 

[Dan57]

I'll echo the Spyderco MULE Team and Svord Peasant recommendations. I'll also add that SR-101 isn't actually used by Busse; they use INFI. SR-101 is used in Swamp Rat and Scrapyard knives, the cheapest of which (I think) is the Scrapyard Scrapivore. Also, Bark River makes a few knives in 3V. They're not cheap, but anything else in 3V is gonna cost you a whole lot more.

 

[shunsui]

Spyderco Mule Team 12 (Cruwear), 13 (Elmax), and 9 (Cobalt Special) are currently available at Spyderco's website.

Spyderco also makes several nice knives in ZDP-189, H1, S30V, S35VN, and CPM-154. You can look up models by steel at their company website. Click the Catalog tab at the top of their home page and then the Blade Steel tab.

There's also a Benchmade special model 710 in M390 that's a decent deal. Google is your friend.

 

[Gunsnknives]

Ah...don't forget Super Blue steel! You can find that in either Mule form or a Caly 3.5. I would like to have gotten one of those, but so many knives to try....

Good luck saving money.

 

[mmike1357]

If you think you can test it out enough in a smaller blade the Spyderco Dragonfly in 189-ZDP is twenty bucks less than a Delica. I am trying to collect the different steels too, thats what I chose for a 189-ZDP. I am in your shoes as well, except I'm getting married and in law school not grad school.

 

[HardTripper]

I was dying to try S30V so I picked up a Spyderco Manix 2 XL and I love the steel and the knife. Funny story, I paid for 1 and got 2 so I traded one of them for a ZT 0350 so now I have two examples of S30V.