How tough is Aus-8a

A

Angelus1781

Joined
Feb 22, 2003
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Just curious has to how tough this steel, given proper heat-treatment, and such. Would you pry with? Give it some abuse if you had to?
 
Only experiance i have had with it is in my CRKT M-18, it has proven itself a good steel IMO, it is easy to shrpen holds a decent edge and doent chip like most stainless steels i have used, tends to roll instead like most carbon steels. I have used my knife for various things all the way from every day cutting task to prying rusted hinges off of a door while a buddy was moving, have also used it to pry skids/pallets apart. I would say it is faily tough as stainless steels go, i have pried things with it i would not do with say BG-42. Hope that helps.
 
My AUS8 Cold Steel large Voyager has taken a lot of abuse w/o any problems. I've batoned it to split wood with a brick, dug holes, used it as a planting tool, jammed it's tanto point into wood and twisted, cut open tin cans, stabbed it into posts, etc. With the brick the spine got some dents and scratches that were easily buffed out with sandpaper. The edge will dull, but it never chipped. The edge can always be returned to razor sharpness in a reasonable amount of time. Under the hardest abuse, a sharpening job will last a few days.
 
I think that it depends a lot on hardness. I had a kitchen knife that I think was made of essentially AUS-8 at RC-60. It was also very thin. I broke the the last inch of the blade off trying to press it against a counter to straighten it. Most knife makers would harden it around 58 RC which would make it tougher.
 
I have a Cold Steel master hunter. which is a good practical knifethough I have never abused it . AUS8 is similar to 440B and both if not too high a hardness should bbe fairly tough . Did you ever think of buying a prybar ?
 
Angelus1781 :

Just curious has to how tough this steel, given proper heat-treatment, and such. Would you pry with? Give it some abuse if you had to?
Click to expand...

It is generally softer and thus prone to deforming rather than chipping which can be a good thing for extreme uses, as Jeff noted the hardness is critical. Ref :

http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/knives/deerhunters.html


For general heavy work however you really want a decent low alloy carbon steel.

-Cliff
 
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