How Many Steels in 112

So looks like a tidy little collection of a dozen knives will handle the steels. That’s not bad, I won’t even have to start sneaking things past the wife for that. Now if I could just get a drop point in all of them…
 
ChiefTJS don't hold your breath on DP 112's.. One of life's big mysterys (to me anyway ) is why Buck has limited availability of drop point 112 blades.. since 1973. When I started collecting them in 2007 I searched very hard for ANY DP 112 and found very few. Never did find or hear about a Damascus and if a S30V DP or any super steel popped up it was a happy day! I believe it was reserved just for SFO's for many years..To this day it has never been available in any version of Bucks Custom shop.. That has to be a conscious decision from on high. Oh well...
 
I will count myself very lucky indeed to have my S30V drop point 112. I agree that it should be a custom shop offering.
 
Will be more difficult now that S30V is officially phased out @ Buck.
 
BG-42 was a factory blade replacement program in 2002.. Never on Bucks website but basically thru the Forum here. About 100 blades with about 5 with the Old English script tang stamp. BG-42 was etched on the back of the tang. We can thank Joe Houser for this variation! About 20 were on new 112's directly from the factory with the rest sent in by Customers. I have seen just one Bucklite that was sent in by a customer. Factory cost was $35.00 and Buck kept the old blade. A few loose blades are known. It's a real 'Grail' 112 and are seldom offered. I looked for over a decade but got lucky enough to find a factory built NIB in brass ebony with finger groves..
 
bucksway said:
BG-42 was a factory blade replacement program in 2002.. Never on Bucks website but basically thru the Forum here. About 100 blades with about 5 with the Old English script tang stamp. BG-42 was etched on the back of the tang. We can thank Joe Houser for this variation! About 20 were on new 112's directly from the factory with the rest sent in by Customers. I have seen just one Bucklite that was sent in by a customer. Factory cost was $35.00 and Buck kept the old blade. A few loose blades are known. It's a real 'Grail' 112 and are seldom offered. I looked for over a decade but got lucky enough to find a factory built NIB in brass ebony with finger groves..
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That’s great info - thank you!
 
bucksway said:
BG-42 was a factory blade replacement program in 2002.. Never on Bucks website but basically thru the Forum here. About 100 blades with about 5 with the Old English script tang stamp. BG-42 was etched on the back of the tang. We can thank Joe Houser for this variation! About 20 were on new 112's directly from the factory with the rest sent in by Customers. I have seen just one Bucklite that was sent in by a customer. Factory cost was $35.00 and Buck kept the old blade. A few loose blades are known. It's a real 'Grail' 112 and are seldom offered. I looked for over a decade but got lucky enough to find a factory built NIB in brass ebony with finger groves..
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I had a then-current vintage Buck 110 with a factory BG-42 blade swap from toward the end of when they did that. I used the heck out of that thing and wasn't kind to it with my sharpening (a little too frequent and a little too aggressive). I did not consider that someday getting about BG-42 blade swap would no longer be possible.
 
My custom shop 112 has S30V.

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This thread peeked my interest and went digging. We did produce a 112 blade in 154CM back in 2007 that was for the custom shop. Looks like we only made 160 of them. These are all of the steel we have part numbers for clip points 440C, 425M, 420HC, S30V, S35VN, S45VN, Magnacut, D2, 5160, Damascus, BG-42 and 154CM. For drop points S45VN, S35VN, 420HC, S30V, CPM-154, 5160 and Damascus. I hope that helps.
 
Buck Knives Inc. said:
This thread peeked my interest and went digging. We did produce a 112 blade in 154CM back in 2007 that was for the custom shop. Looks like we only made 160 of them. These are all of the steel we have part numbers for clip points 440C, 425M, 420HC, S30V, S35VN, S45VN, Magnacut, D2, 5160, Damascus, BG-42 and 154CM. For drop points S45VN, S35VN, 420HC, S30V, CPM-154, 5160 and Damascus. I hope that helps.
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Thank you! Yes, it helps… and hurts. I can add 154CM to my search list. LOL!
 
I posted this in the Sunday Picture Show today, but wanted to put it here also, for completeness.

My accidental collection of 112’s, focusing on the traditional, non-powder metallurgy steels, turned into an on-purpose quest recently with the purchase of two BG-42’s!

Six steels, three woods, one Micarta, and over 50 years between their dates of manufacture by a family that has been making knives since before the Wright Brothers flew an airplane or Harley Davidson sold a motorcycle.

Left to right: two 440C, two BG-42, 5160, D2, 425Mod, 420HC.

A HUGE thank you to Greg [IMG alt="MT_Pokt"]https://www.bladeforums.com/data/avatars/s/385/385701.jpg?1503886808[/IMG] MT_Pokt for selling me the BG-42’s!! I promise to take great care of them.

I suppose now I’ll be keeping my eyes out for a 154-CM, Damascus, and maybe a chip flint, even though technically I already have 420HC covered. And I heard that WBC did a few custom 1095 112’s. One can dream, can’t he? :)

IMG_4791.jpeg
 
Culprit99- Curious why you don't want the powder metallurgy steels? Perceived weaknesses, hard to sharpen?
 
ChiefTJS said:
Culprit99- Curious why you don't want the powder metallurgy steels? Perceived weaknesses, hard to sharpen?
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Mostly because I’m just obstinate. LOL!

I love old and traditional things. I tried a couple of new-fangled powder metallurgy steels over the past 5-10 years, and wasn’t impressed. They didn’t offer any advantage over traditional steels for my needs. I don’t mind stropping or taking a couple of swipes on a stone between deer or hogs. I’ll use the knife in my pocket or on my belt to pry staples out of wood, cut drywall, scrape dried mud and grass out of mower drive pulleys, etc. I found the new steels, especially S30V, rather chippy. I also found that nothing sharpened up as well for me as Buck hollow ground traditional steels. The new powder metallurgy steels I tried had larger grains and vanadium carbides and therefore needed more thickness behind the edge or thicker bevel angles than I was used to, and just didn’t get as sharp as I was used to - and yes, that was with all the proper diamond stones, compounds, rods, etc.

I recently bought a used Range Elite so that I can give Magnacut a fair shake. I also don’t prefer aluminum scales. I tried it for a couple weeks, gave up and swapped the Magnacut blade into the plastic body of a Range Pro so I can continue giving it a try.

The 112 has become my favorite folder over the last several years so when I accidentally started collecting the steels, what I had to start with were the traditional ones. I haven’t really been a collector - just a guy who likes and uses knives - so I didn’t want knives in a steel I wouldn’t use. But now that I have intentionally added a few real collectibles in the BG-42 knives that I will never use, maybe I’ll branch out into collecting the modern steel 112’s - but that’s more time and money than I want to put in this at the moment. As it is, it’ll take me some deliberate doing to finish the traditional steels. One step at a time, I suppose. :)
 
Thanks for a well written explanation. I'm finding my way through a minefield of steels and in truth, the hardest work I ever put knives through was long before these super steels were invented.
 
Back about 20-25 years ago there was a Outdoorsman whoes logo/brand was a outlined black cowboy hat..CRS strikes hard folks.. Buck did a run of Ecolite 112's for him and the steel was some kind of odd Swedish 12S7 maybe ??? I had a regular 112 that was rebladed with that black coated blade and logo. I believe there was 4 or 5 different models mostly inexpensive. The steel was definitely not Bucks ' normal' steel..
 
bucksway said:
Back about 20-25 years ago there was a Outdoorsman whoes logo/brand was a outlined black cowboy hat..CRS strikes hard folks.. Buck did a run of Ecolite 112's for him and the steel was some kind of odd Swedish 12S7 maybe ??? I had a regular 112 that was rebladed with that black coated blade and logo. I believe there was 4 or 5 different models mostly inexpensive. The steel was definitely not Bucks ' normal' steel..
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I believe you’re thinking of 12C27 made by the Swedish company Sandvik. They used it in at least some of the Ergo Hunters. I never knew there were 112 Ecolites in it. Cool!
 
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