The only steels where the existing blade designs are problematic for some, are the ones that are well known to be the most brittle, such as Maxamet and S110V.
The standard production and less expensive S30V would be a better choice for scoring drywall.
Maxamet is much harder and is more abrasion resistant and especially well suited to cutting hard and abrasive materials. A well-designed Maxamet blade (that doesn't break at the plunge grind, when tip cutting) would easily outperform a S30v blade and be highly desirable for people scoring drywall.
Spyderco cant be expected to redesign their knives every time certian segments of the market demand these types of high wear resistance steels.
Spyderco can and has redesigned knives for different steels (H-1) and have their CQI (continuous quality improvement) process in place to make design changes, as needed. Spyderco has plenty of existing knife designs that do not have sharp plunge grinds and other unnecessary stress risers. As stated earlier, it's not that hard to do and is a common best practice in the industry. What segment of the market demands high-wear resistance steels? I suspect the main market is the craftsmen and trade workers that are cutting hard, abrasive materials (like the OP). These are people that are probably going to want to cut with the tip of the knife and apply some lateral force on the blade. I get that there are some cardboard cutters who like to nerd out on how much cardboard they can cut without ever applying lateral stress to the blades, but that is a very small market.
Spyderco goes farther than any company on the planet to make sure that independent and credible people (Larrin) have steel samples so they can accurately report on the properties of the different steels so people have a clear understanding of what they're buying.
While I do believe it would be a best practice to include a clear warning in the box, Spyderco is under no obligation to replace the knife even though no such warning is included. They have put the information out there.
Spyderco has disclosed absolutely nothing useful about Maxamet. Here is exactly what Spyderco's website says about the knife:
The Manix™ 2 Lightweight Maxamet® combines the lightweight construction of our award-winning Manix 2 Lightweight with a blade crafted from Carpenter® steel's Micro-Melt® Maxamet alloy. Maxamet is an extremely hard high-speed powdered tool steel possessing properties that transcend conventional high-speed tool steels and approach those of cemented carbides - the ultra-hard materials used to machine other steels. When Carpenter developed this amazing alloy for the rollers in their steel mills, they sent samples to various companies in the knife industry to evaluate as a blade material. Although many tried, Spyderco was one of only a handful of companies to successfully develop the specialized methods necessary to machine, heat treat, and grind this demanding material to yield reliable, high-performance knife blades.
This knife's full-flat-ground, leaf-shaped blade takes full advantage of Maxamet's properties, offering a superior combination of strength, low-friction cutting performance, and point utility.
This statement is clearly misleading, even if it is not false. Providing samples of steel (that have not been heat treated by Spyderco) to Larrin is in no way providing adequate disclosure. The vast majority of people that buy Maxamet knives probably aren't experts on steel or reading Larrin's articles. Larrin does his own heat treatment, which is not done to Spyderco's procedures. Larrin produces limited charpy-v-notch test data, which gives some indication of relative toughness between steels, but in no way can be used to determine whether a Manix 2 Maxamet blade will fail for any particular application.
If you know the maximum lateral force that can be applied to the tip, without breaking the blade, please do tell everyone. If you know the maximum lateral force that can be applied without causing fatigue crack growth, please do tell everyone. If the knife maker doesn't disclose this information, it is reasonable for a knife buyer to assume that the blade will not snap, when used for cutting.
I think most people share the opinion that the OP made a reasonable assumption, based on the information that was available to him.
