How hard is Kershaws AUS-8A

C

Cyblade

Joined
Aug 16, 2001
Messages
1,221
I'm looking at getting kershaws echo hunter and was wondering how hard they heat treat it. If it's as soft as crkt does thiers I dont want it as I'd spend more time sharpening it than using it.
 
Cyblade, the Echo is hardened to 56-58 HRC. Info can be found here on Kershaw's website. I've had one for 2 and a half years and have only needed to sharpen it twice. This knife has been used on about 2 dozen campouts and also used in my kitchen quite a bit. As you can probably tell, I really like the knife.:)

Heber
 
This brings up a good point.

I know I have trouble trying to judge a knife when it's made from foreign steel. I do know some of the common ones, like Crucible's 154-CM is the same as Hitachi's ATS-34. However, when Extrema Ratio came out, they were made of a steel I had never heard of. The quality was excellent, so by inductive reasoning, the steel must be good, as well, but how do you compare?

This recently happened when a knife became available in some shuffling. The knife was made of AUS-8.

About all I knew was that AUS-8 was better than AUS-6. But I have also seen suffixes like AUS-6A and AUS-6M. For some of these steels I can run to my brother-in-law who is a metalurgist in Milwaukee. Sometimes even he needs time to research items.

About all I know from scuttlebutt is that AUS-8 is 'like about 440C.'

That's well and good. I know there's listings of the components used in steels, but I am not a metalurgist; if one steel has more vanadium in it than another, is it better for use as a knife? I know from experience that sharpening S60V was a pain and S90V made it easier, although I don't know why?

I know we're supposed to be 'knuts' and understand this stuff, but some of it baffles me. It can happen, some of my friends who are gear-heads keep confusing the terms 'blower' and 'super charger.'

I wish I had a simple desk reference.
 
Originally posted by The Tourist
I wish I had a simple desk reference.
Click to expand...

Yeah, kinda like a PDR for knife steels. When I first became interested in knives (not all that long ago), I conducted a variety of google searches for knife steels. In most cases, I located a chart listing the components of steel, which is a good resource, but not all that informative to a newbie. I longed for a chart listing steels by their hardness, edge holding ability, quality, steels compared to one another, etc. I know much of this would be subjective, but those in the know can typically spout the general-isms off the top of their head i.e., S30V is the super steel of today, ats-34 and 154-cm are pretty much the same thing and were the super steels of yesterday, d2 is used in most tool and die shops, etc., blah, blah, blah.

I wish I had a simple desk reference :)

HEY MY 100TH POST!!!
 
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