Proper heat treatment (which includes cryo if the steel needs it) will always maximize a steel's potential, but it doesn't turn it into a different steel. Ray does 440C as well as anybody I've ever tried and a good deal better than most, but it's still 440C at the end of the day. I'm not saying he was lying, I'm saying that he probably never experimented with O-1 enough to figure out how to maximize its potential. If he was using the old accepted "proper" hardness for O-1 that Randall has stuck with for more than half a century (and many older custom makers absolutely did), I'm not surprised by his results. Compared to O-1 at 55HRC, I'm sure his 58 HRC 440C walked all over it. But with the trend towards much harder knives in recent years--spawned largely by the increasing quality and availability of ceramic and diamond sharpeners--the old perceptions of the performance characteristics of old blade steels are very dated and largely incorrect.
According to Randall, their stainless blades (440B) hold an edge better than their O-1 blades, but in my experience, neither choice in a Randall holds its edge for very long at all compared to most modern knives at similar geometry, as Randalls are beautiful and constructed very well but are just too darned soft. A case of holding on to the way that they've always done things whether it's the best choice or not. Ruana, by contrast, has just as long and proud a heritage, and yet has changed its blade hardness choices to suit the times---modern Ruanas run noticeably harder than those of yesteryear, and hold their edges better because of it. And, though its counter-intuitive, many of the high-carbon tool steels actually enjoy a toughness spike when they climb out of the mid 50s, meaning they're actually less prone to damage at higher hardness.
Anyway, on a more pertinent note, I suddenly realized that I actually DO have a Merc---I'd completely forgotten about it as I bought it from a knife store that was closing a year or so ago and just tossed it (in its box) in the closet along with some other stuff. Pulled out the handy-dandy scale, and it comes in at 15.5 oz, so it's very close to the Silhoette.
