ka bars 1095 cro van vs 5160

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battboy

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Feb 21, 2011
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How does Ka bars 1095 cro van and HT compare to 5160 in strength and toughness? thanks
 
5160 is tougher. 1095 CrV can be stronger, but it depends on how it was treated. Relative hardness is a decent indicator, so the harder one is stronger.
 
ukknifer said:
What do you guys mean by strength as apposed to toughness? Edge retention?
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That would be compression strength, depends on finial HRC hardness, but then it's not likely to see either above 60 HRC in production blades, more in the 55-58 range due to the typical knives the steels are used in.
 
me2 said:
5160 is tougher. 1095 CrV can be stronger, but it depends on how it was treated. Relative hardness is a decent indicator, so the harder one is stronger.
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Strength is strength - both tensile and yield strength. The amount of force you need apply to break or bend blade.
Toughness is fracture/impact resistance.
 
All that ^^^ being said. I have some of both. I have batoned them both until my arm was dead. No issues. I doubt you will have any issues with either one either. 1095 Cro Van is a handfull of goodness, as is 5160.
 
ukknifer said:
What do you guys mean by strength as apposed to toughness? Edge retention?
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This is going to sound a little corny but the way I think of toughness and strength is this.....

When superman is sticking his chess out and it is being shot by bullets it shows how tough he is, it has nothing to do with how strong he is. He is tough because he can with stand a bullet.

When he picks up a building it shows how strong he is. You do not have to be tough to be strong and you dont have to be strong to be tough.

I may be wrong about this but in general to me tough is if your edge will keep an edge or chip and strength is if your blade will flex or break.

As to 1095 cro-van or 5160, both are good and if the knife is well made both steels will do you good. You also need to think about at what hardness on the rockwell c scale are these knives/steels at and for what reason.
 
With the typical knives they are used in one wants the edge to roll rather than chip out, I have personally seen more than a few K-Bars that ended up with serrated blades due to very bad chipping over the years, but they ran the 1095 on the harder side back then, not sure about now.
 
Me too, but that was just plain 1095. I have never seen this with the 1095 Cro Van that they use in the BK&T/KaBar's.
 
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