How is the steel on the Ontario SP2?

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I'm strongly looking into purchasing the Ontario SP2 and had a question about its steel.

I understand that the current steel for this knife is 'regular' 1095 carbon steel. Not 1095 Cro Van steel like Kabar uses.

Is Ontarios 1095 very good? How does it compare to Kabar's 1095 Cro Van? More importantly, can you tell me how the steel on this particular model (SP2) performs?
 
I don't own any Ontario products but from what I've seen, these knives are incredible value for the money.
That's all I can add.
 
1095 CroVan is 1095 with small amounts of Vanadium, Chromium, Molybdenum, and Nickel. It is custom produced for KaBar by a steel company. They have to buy an entire melt (lot) of steel, thousands of pounds, at a time. Only KaBar uses 1095 CroVan.

1095 is produced by many mills and is a stock item. A knife company can buy as much or as little as they need.

So 1095 is what most companies use when they make knives using "carbon steel".

I've not seen performance specs, but my guess is that the 1095 Cro Van is a bit tougher than straight 1095. Alloy steels usually are.

I've not seen the Ontario hardness spec, but I've not read any complaints, either. Seems like they do a decent job with it.
 
Isn't 1095 CroVan is just another name for Sharon 0170-6 aka 50-100B? My understanding is that Kabar, Camillus, Marbles and Case used it in the past even after the Sharon patent ran out after they went bankrupt in 1988. It was also the original "CarbonV" that Cold Steel used and was also used by the original Blackjack.
 
jdm61 said:
Isn't 1095 CroVan is just another name for Sharon 0170-6 aka 50-100B? My understanding is that Kabar, Camillus, Marbles and Case used it in the past even after the Sharon patent ran out after they went bankrupt in 1988. It was also the original "CarbonV" that Cold Steel used and was also used by the original Blackjack.
Click to expand...

1095 Cro Van has the composition as Sharon 0170-6. But, since Sharon is no longer in business, the alloy now has to be procured as a custom order from a different mill. At this time, KaBar is the only one using it.

I have copies of two mill certs from Case CV dated 1957 and 1968. The compositions do not match that of 1095 Cro Van. And the Case certs were not from Sharon.

If you provide an official composition of 50-100B, I can tell you if it matches that of 1095 Cro Van.
 
Case is still selling their "CV' aka chrome-vanadium bladed folders from what their website says. According to what I have seen, 1770-6 was the Sharon designation and 50-100B is the AISI designation. I am not sure how available, if at all, 50-100B type is now outside of the manufactures that we have discussed. As for Case, I was talking about post 1988 steel, post Sharon bankruptcy. Supposedly, they and Camillus were getting theirs from the same mill run. I also read that when Sharon went under and the companies briefly couldn't get the stuff because the Sharon patent was still active, Cold Steel switched out to a version without the little kiss of nickel for Carbon V version 2.0. You are right about those old companies having the cash to buy their own smelts. I still have a fair bit of that very nice 1 inch NOS 1084 bar stock that came from the Schrade bankruptcy sale and as you probably know, 1084 was rather thin on the ground back then before Aldo started having it made. I wonder what happened to whatever stock Camillus might have had when they went under? Likewise, i wonder if their late OVB stuff like he Fisk series was made from that 50-100B type CV steel?
knarfeng said:
1095 Cro Van has the composition as Sharon 0170-6. But, since Sharon is no longer in business, the alloy now has to be procured as a custom order from a different mill. At this time, KaBar is the only one using it.

I have copies of two mill certs from Case CV dated 1957 and 1968. The compositions do not match that of 1095 Cro Van. And the Case certs were not from Sharon.

If you provide an official composition of 50-100B, I can tell you if it matches that of 1095 Cro Van.
Click to expand...
 
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Yes. Case is still selling CV blades. But they are not made from 0170-6C. They are made from another alloy, which Case has made to their own specification.

There is no AISI designation "50100B". It's just as much a custom name as 0170-6C.

There is an AISI designation 50100.
http://www.efunda.com/materials/all...ISI_5046H&show_prop=all&Page_Title=AISI 5046H
The only modifying element is Chromium. No Vanadium. No Moly. No nickel.

When you add "B"to the AISI designation that means the composition has been modified and is no longer a standard AISI composition. So when somebody says "50100B" they are saying it is similar to, but measurably different from AISI 50100. In this case, I would guess they are saying that it has the same Carbon and Chromium content as 50100 (which it does), but that there are other changes to it. The "B" does not indicate what those other changes are. So unless you happen to know the composition of 0170-6C, or "50100B"you can't buy it. KaBar still has the Sharon catalogs, so they know exactly what composition to order.

►Cold Steel "Carbon V" was originally 0170-6C, because the Cold steel Carbon V knives were made by KaBar.
►Carbon V started as 0170-6C when the knives were made by Ontario. But the alloy composition was changed and the Nickel was dropped from the composition. Unsure if the modified 0170-6 alloy had a name other than "Carbon V" when it was made at Ontario.
►When the Cold Steel Carbon V knives were made by Camillus they used the modified 0170-6 alloy. Camillus called that alloy 0170-6C. Camillus also used 0170-6C on some of their own knives.

I hang out some on the KaBar forum. You learn things. Especially when Tooj posts.
 
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