Do super steels make any difference?
Well the results were very surprising.
Two years ago I was curious what would happen if I gifted a Spyderco Military model in CPM REX 45, 8% carbide volume, 67.0 HRC and low fracture toughness
to a non knife geek, heavy knife user.
He was an interesting test subject to explore this question because never in his life has he spent more than $50 on a pocket knife and does not care about blade steel so their was no bias from him.
His most used knives were Buck 420HC, I met him when I was a professional knife sharpener and his knives would blunt completely smooth very quickly so I could see objectively his knives were being heavily used and why he checked all the boxes for an excellent candidate to further explore a curiosity.
Well, the knife was put through complete hell, I was surprised it was in one piece, what was most shocking was that the edge retention was subjectively and objectively better than softer, tougher steels he had experienced.
Without asking leading questions he explicitly stated,
"Yeah that's the best knife I've ever had, just keeps cutting"
Most knives in his use blunted to +1000g on the BESS tester, the softer tougher steels had little resistance to deformity and the edge would smash down in use quickly, I was surprised to see the edge under 500g Bess after the first YEAR.
This knife was only sharpened once when I met him again at Shot Show 2022 in Las Vegas at the Spyderco booth, it was sharpened to 200g BESS with the Spyderco sharpmaker using the diamond rods and finished on the white ceramic.
Its been almost a whole year since it was sharpened and it was nicely maintaining a sub 500g BESS edge with heavy use. NOT +1000g BESS with other steels I've seen from him, so there is real world evidence that the increased cutting edge retention seen in controlled testing does cross over to the reality, the problem is that these steels are expensive and difficult to process, heat treat, and you can't use Grandpa's arkansas stones.
Edge tested 1" from heel
Edge tested 1" from tip
Translation of BESS to paper cutting sharpness
In his perception, if the knife is still physically cutting it is still sharp. What the "super steel" did was it did not blunt completely smooth at the edge and it could still physically cut without extreme force and slipping compared to a "tougher" steel that would have blunted smooth with lots of physical cutting.
Of course, there are flaws in this account I'm sharing since we don't have an accurate account of everything being cut and how. However it seems we have quite a paradox in the knife community if controlled testing is invalid because its not real world and anecdotal "testing" is not controlled enough to deliver anything useable but bias we are left with non stop exhausting, un productive arguing.
The biggest take away I feel for readers is that one should give things a try first hand and see if it works or doesn't work for their preferences and uses.
Not everything needs to be a "super duper turbo" steel either; a sharp knives will cut things, but I'm sure we can all agree there are times when its nice that one doesn't have to stop a touch up the edge in the middle of work.
I'm pretty sure the CPM REX 45s low toughness would be better seen if we duct taped it to a poll and tried to cut a concrete wall in half, but there are probably better and cheaper tools for demolition work.
