Ritter blade performance difference with M4 or S30v?

Joe58

Joe58

Joined
Nov 11, 2002
Messages
1,969
Seeing the other mini Ritter thread promoted me to wonder if those of you with a Ritter with both blade steels have noticed any performance issues between the two?

One steel hold an edge longer? Easier to sharpen? Takes a better edge? Etc.,

I've a couple with S30, but am just curious if it'd be worth upgrading to M4. Being just an average user, I'd likely guess not really.
 
Personally, if it's just an office blade for opening envelopes, you won't notice much difference..
But my knives get a good workout on a daily basis, and I find the s30v tends to chip quite easily..

M4 ritters are pretty hard to find, but if you would like to upgrade to a higher end steel, switch to the m390 ritters. The best part,! M390 is the current production steel for the ritters! And they are still available!!

But definitely grab a m4 if the opportunity arises!! Truly a heck of a knife!!
 
A-love05 said:
Personally, if it's just an office blade for opening envelopes, you won't notice much difference..
But my knives get a good workout on a daily basis, and I find the s30v tends to chip quite easily..

M4 ritters are pretty hard to find, but if you would like to upgrade to a higher end steel, switch to the m390 ritters. The best part,! M390 is the current production steel for the ritters! And they are still available!!

But definitely grab a m4 if the opportunity arises!! Truly a heck of a knife!!
Click to expand...

Some people even have M2's lol :D
 
I have not been particularly impressed by the CPM-M4 Ritter blades. I like the M2 and M390 blades better for overall performance. There have been a few reports of problems with the M390 blades here, however. It's not at all clear whether those were just one-off problems or not. I tend to assume they were because if all of the blades were problematic, this forum would be choked with threads on soft M390. I'd say the current production M390 Ritters are a great value.
 
I like steel that takes a patina.

I've had s30v that was pretty chippy (not BKC).

From my view m4 is a big step up. The stuff is not chippy at 25ish° inclusive @ 64hrc. Maintains very well with a ChromOx strop. Edge retention is at least as good as the s30v I've used... What's not to love?
 
I can't really tell the difference in slicing every day things; mail etc. between S30V and M4. I don't have problems with BKC's S30V chipping either. In either case, once the blades are used and 'broken in' by a few sharpening sessions they perform well (as expected).
 
I've seen other threads about their S30 blades chipping, as mentioned, mine has never chipped either. But I'm not a real hard user most of the time.

Actually, I made an error in my initial post and meant to say M390 since BM seems to be moving towards that steel.

But the M4 responses were interesting as well. I do like the fact that BM isn't afraid to experiment with various blade steels and give buyers options. Not all makers do this.
 
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