I've literally used this $13 Trapper since the day it arrived....

cchu518

cchu518

Joined
Mar 6, 2013
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I've been using this $13 Rough Rider Mini Trapper for about 3 weeks now made of alleged 440A steel. When I first received it, I brought it home and I gave it a quick over on the fine stone and that was it. After three weeks of use cutting boxes, opening envelopes, fruit, rope, twine and just now, slicing a very ripe and delicious NJ farm peach I noticed that the dang main blade that I was using exclusively (the nail nick for it is in front) is still ridiculously sharp!

Normally with my modern 8CR13 knives I generally have to touch them up by now, but more importantly none of my folders sans the FFG Spydercos have even come close to slicing and cutting through non hard use stuff as easily as this cheapo knife with this super thin blade. And let's just face it, I don't really use knives hard, I have other tools for those situations.

Oh and the clip point blade that I thought I was going to hate, I only picked up this trapper version that I did because it had two blades and not three, I actually now love! I am still surprised by this turn of events every time.

So what gives, I don't get it... if I pick up a Buck, Boker, Case, GEC...am I getting anything even more than what I already have in terms of cutting prowess? Is non SS blades better in any way?

My two fave knives right now that I have been grabbing for are the Opinel #9 and the Rough Rider mini Trapper. I think I am still going to pick up a Ti framelock down the way but in terms of daily use I'm all over the previous two knives!

Does anyone know how popular traditionals are in the blade community vs moderns? I think getting into knives with so many fun and neat moderns out there its hard to ever boil down the truth of one's real knife usage and average daily EDC chores to that of just needing a really thin stupendously sharp and often times small slipjoint. If I hadn't tried it, I would still be poo- poo-ing about them right now...

I'm going to stick to what I have, but I would like to know about the other brands in case there is a steal of a deal on the fleabay for something used and my there are tons of steal of a deals for traditionals out there, poor little knives that need to be rescued and put back into use!
 
Welcome to the club! You're learning from experience something that we've all come to appreciate: the thin blades of traditional knives cut WAY better than the thick sharpened-prybar blades on most modern knives. Even with a "lesser" steel like 440A, your little Rough Rider will out-slice an Emerson made of 154CM or S30V any day of the week.

As for popularity, well... hang around here a little more and you'll see how many of us love these knives! :D

Check out Queen, Case, Great Eastern Cutlery for more.
 
About 6 years ago I bought my first Rough rider knife as a sample to see what they were about. I still have that stockman and it still gets used often. I cut heavy leather with it for over a year, leaning on the sheeps foot blade. The knife is still in perfect condition. No other brand of knife has ever come as sharp as a RR knife and I have bought 100s. According to Bernard Levine 440a can be heat treated to within 1 point on the rockwell scale of 440c. I did a cutting competition between three Case knives vs three RRs, all with factory edges. Only the two matching pen blades were equal, in all other cases the RR outcut the Case blades. It will be very interesting to see their carbon steel line when they finally get it out.

Best regards

Robin
 
Is there a cutting difference between carbon and ss. All of my Chinese cleavers must be carbon as they all have a patina to them which I mistook as corrosion which wouldn't come off all these years. Lol
 
Its that radioactive scrap steel the Chinese use to make those blades...stays sharp for a half-life! :p
 
From all reports, Rough Rider makes some pretty decent knives for the money. A lot of knife enthusiasts go into great depth on analyzing and comparing steels and their suitability for the job. For some this is just part of the hobby, for others who really give their blades a workout it may be a critical part of their knife choices.

However, for many casual users (including me), I bet that our cutting needs are well met by almost any decent steel. I don't know how many apples it would take to dull a stainless steel blade unless I was using a granite counter for a cutting board. I've dulled more knives by using too much pressure stropping than I ever have by cutting things. :)
 
cchu518 said:
Is there a cutting difference between carbon and ss.
Click to expand...
. Carbon steels typically have a "finer" edge than stainless because the carbon in stainless steels bonds with other elements to form carbides. However, in practice, there really isn't all that much of a difference in typical usage. The main noticeable difference is that a carbon steel will be easier to sharpen than a stainless steel of the same hardness, generally speaking.
 
You can spend more money but you wont get a better vales than the RRs for the $$$. The other brands make beautiful stuff but for just plain EDC users a $15 RR will cut as well if not better than the other brands at $40+
 
Hey if you like what you've got then that makes your life MUCH simpler. I personally don't like to have "too many" of something. Whether it's guns or knives or whatever, if I don't use it regularly or I have tools which "overlap" each other's purpose/applications, then I tend to not keep them for long and "simplify" things by cutting down to the basics. As I get older I find myself doing this more and more.

If you like your folder, that's awesome - carry it and use it with pride! :)
 
cchu518 said:
Is there a cutting difference between carbon and ss. All of my Chinese cleavers must be carbon as they all have a patina to them which I mistook as corrosion which wouldn't come off all these years. Lol
Click to expand...

A patina IS corrosion...just in a form that seals the surface, and helps prevent further corrosion. ;)
 
Rough Riders are pretty good for their price, but for some reason, these chinese blades are always widely sharpened, making it harder to make a finer blade on it. It's not impossible to get it sharp, but it seems as though it can't really get a fine edge like I can with a Case, or even other brands like pre 2007 Camillus or Old Timer knives. Maybe I just have more patience for American made knives.

Of course, that's not to say that Rough Rider doesn't have really cool knives, or that they're not good. There are some very pretty knives from them, made a lot prettier with the low price tag. They're just kinda sharpened weird.
 
I have a RR mini trapper that has the checkered bone covers and I like it quite a bit. In fact, because it is less expensive than other brands, I would use it for things I might not use a Case for. Not that the Case wouldn't do the job as well, but because if I messed it up, then it'd be more money to replace it (with another Case). Anyway, the RR is a perfectly good production knife, adequately finished, plenty sharp and very cost effective.

Ed J
 
RR makes a very respectable product, given their price, which is more than reasonable IMO. I've got a ton of them, and really can't find just a whole lot of negative things to say in regards to quality control. I have a full sized trapper that I've abused a great deal, and have come to the conclusion that the steel, whether it be 8CR13MOV, or true 440A is quite serviceable, and in my experience within the same league, as say Case's 420 Tru-Sharp.
 
I find RR steel to be pretty comparable to Case TruSharp if maybe a tad softer (it feels softer on the stone) but sharpens up nicely and holds the edge pretty darn well.
 
akadave2 said:
Its that radioactive scrap steel the Chinese use to make those blades...stays sharp for a half-life! :p
Click to expand...

Haha that must be it! That said not much so with Case but I have been seeing buck 3xx series and schrades in excellent user condition going for a song.

I need to do more research about the models and eras of each knife but it seems they can be won at auction for about 20 bucks sometimes. I think I have what someone called a half congress on my mind right now. No real need for something to replace this RR but I think the congress pattern would be fun to put in the rotation or a peanut even.

The peanut size seems really useful to just have on your person all the time.

My want for another ti framelock wanes by the second lookimg at these patterns though as slipjoints would get everyday use and I can have it on my office desk without anytime blinking about it.

The kicker for me was slicing into that ripe summer peach without any of the juices getting all over the place. I had already cut up a few boxes the night before for recycling and no issues.

While I wouldn't categorize boxes as hard use it usually dulls most of my blades quicker. This has been the case with vg10, 154 cm, two of the crmovs, a 420 seki city paring knife, s30.

No scientific backing but I'm thinking its not the steel but the thin blade profile does anyone know if this could be true definitively if a thin blade could feasibly hold its edge longer or is that just not scientifically logical? Out of all the knives that I've tried I think the mini grip with 154 cm generally held its edge longest with certainty as I sharpened the grip the least. The rr has had pretty good edge retention and very very good slicing capability so far!
 
You can get answers to each of your questions that will land all over the map. That's no hyperbole. You can and will get every answer imaginable if you post that question in the right place. The folks around here are less hyperbolic and excitable than most though, so you've been treated to the more charitable end of the answer spectrum. :)

As to the thin blade? You've personally discovered one of the true strong suits of a traditional knife. Used in many of the 'one knife only' or 'survival' scenarios you would roll an edge of that geometry and steel in a split second. But for the 99+% of things we normal folks use a knife for? It is a great combo.

It is very hard to judge personal takes on quality. And it is not something I spend a lot of time on. It is a surefire way to make folks angry. No one wants to hear some yahoo on the internet preaching about how their dog/truck/knife/gun/etc is of inferior stock. A lot of the price it seems to me is the quantity of mechanization that one is willing to accept and the tolerances on that mechanization. A lot more is in the raw materials used. What constitutes value to you may be different than what does for me.

So what more do you get with a Buck, Boker, Case or GEC? Depending on your idea of value and how you use it the answer might very well be nothing at all. Or it might be everything.

Will
 
You don't have to buy imports to get good cheap blades. There are boxes of these for 5-10 dollars at any gun show.
 
I like to think of my traditionals as "scalpels". My one hand knives as cutters and those slabs of grinder jocky fixed blades like Esee, etc as sharpened pry-bars
 
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