Review of Becker BK77 in S30V? Paging Mr. Stamp...

C

Cameron23

Joined
Jan 13, 2006
Messages
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This is a request for a review (even just a handling one) of the Becker Extreme BK77 in S30V. The knife is on the expensive side (~$250 street price. Heck man the Busse Hell Razor is only $287!!!), and I wonder how it stacks up against the Becker Combat Utility 7 (~$60), the Becker BK9 (~$70), the Ontario RAT7 or RAT7 in D2 (~$90-100), or even the Ontario RTAK (~$85).

Personally I would have loved to buy a Busse Basic or Swamp Rat Battle Rat, but those models are no longer being made. The Ratweiler is $180 so it is still in the running as well.

I also haven't seen anything on KABARs Long/Short Heavy Bowies. For the price (~$37-$45) they seem to good to be true...which makes me not trust them enough to even buy one.

The comparison knives for any of these would be the Cold Steel Trailmaster and Recon Scout models. Say what you will about the road CS has gone down lately (420 stainless...oh Lynn....) the Trailmaster/Recon Scout knives are nice yardsticks by which to judge other factory knives.

BTW, Cliff Stamp's work is much appreciated by myself and I'm sure countless others. So heres to you Cliff.

Thanks Much,

Cameron23
 
IMO, there are much better "Big Knife" steels than S30V, including 1095 and many other plain old high carbon steels. For $250 you could get a Ranger RD9 (my favorite big knife) and an RD7 too. I'm sure the Becker is a good knife, but I would spend my money elsewhere... Just my $.02. ;)
 
I have not used it, but have many blades in S30V, I would pick the 0170-6C version even if both were the same price. S30V simply doesn't have properties suitable for a knife of that general class.

-Cliff
 
Yes, this was an attempt to ride the hype for S30V as the ultimate, do-all super steel. Its superiority to many similar steels even in a smaller knife designed for slicing is dubious, and it's poorly suited for a big boy like this. They got the steel choice right the first time on the Becker line. There's a reason you don't hear much about the "extreme" versions.
 
Large blades tend to get blunted or damaged in general by deformation/fracture thus those are the properties you want in a steel. S30V is optomized for a completely different set of properties, specifically high wear slicing.

-Cliff
 
Thanks, Cliff.

You're talking about more than just whacking a few limbs for a shelter, aren't you? I would assume you are saying that a knife of the BK7/BK77 class needs to be able to survive a little abuse every now and then: accidental rock hits, maybe a nail, some prying, possibly a little digging or at least cutting in difficult areas (roots, etc.).

I just got a BK77 and really like it. My use is by far ordinary cutting and a little chopping, maybe some light brush whacking. In general my philosophy is to use the knife to make other tools for fieldcraft tasks like digging, prying, and brush whacking. But if the BK77 isn't even up to that, maybe I have an excuse for another knife :)

Scott
 
It can handle that without actually breaking in pieces, the concerns with gross failure are on much harder use. The main issue is that you don't actually get any benefit from all the carbides because the blunting is mainly deformation/fracture, even with light chopping, and the high carbide steels just decrease efficiency when you sharpen.

Take for example a small nice axe like the Bruks Wildlife, do some wood chopping, even careful and avoid thick knots, or cut them carefully, the edge will still eventually deform and fracture, mainly from fatigue. It will take awhile, maybe a 1000 chops or so, but eventually you will see the edge glint and you will want to remove all that worn steel because all the little cracks and bends serve as focus points for bigger damage.

Now if you took the same steel and filled it with lots of carbides, even if you managed to keep the steel from being brittle, which is unlikely, and you did the same work it would still deform and suffer fatigue based failure pretty much the same. However since the grindability is lower on this steel it takes longer to remove the same amount of weakened metal.

Now there are ways to work around this (micro-beveling) but still you are looking at much more expensive steel and not really getting any benefit and in fact it is actually inferior in several regards. Plus if you accidently whack into a spike, cut through a brush and hit a rock, etc., the difference is quite obvious.

-Cliff
 
I guess that is fine in my case. I bought the knife because I like it, basically an aesthetic purchase. It won't see very hard use.

I did take it out for a brush whacking session this evening. I did a little chopping on seasoned 1" fir branches. I chopped at 90 degree agles, chopped sharp points, and just generally whacked several feet of limbs into small pieces. After that I descended into the underbrush and did a little machete-style trail blazing for a half hour. No problems, and the blade was still pretty sharp when I was done.

The edge wasn't real clean out of the box. I mean, it was sharp, even, and straight, but it looked like it was done on a fairly coarse belt sander. I redid the edge at the same angle on my diamond bench stone before going out. I didn't want any unecessary roughness that might encourage chipping.

Scott
 
Yeah, a lot of knives have initial edges like that, even really high end ones and it will tend to be really chippy for chopping and general wood working. Those finishes are nice for slicing on soft media, but you don't really want them on wood cutters.

-Cliff
 
Hey Cliff,
Would a softer, lower carbon stainless (like 420) be appropriate for a hard use knife? Say, one of the larger Buck knives of 420HC?
 
Generally yes, look for stainless steels which are designed for similar properties as the tool steels which would be used, something like 12C27m for example. 420HC is indeed such an example.

-Cliff
 
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