So, I spent some time doing a short cutting test yesterday. First, though, a little more about myself.
I'm a pretty average guy when it comes to gear and putting it to use. I love the outdoors, hunting, fishing, and so on, but have very little time (young family, full time carreer), and am by no means a bushcrafter, outdoorsman. I like my gear and when I buy something, I prefer to buy high quality, without getting into the very upper end of things. I shoot a Dan Wesson 1911, for example. Very high quality, darn good price. To me, Survive! falls in that category. I hate, HATE! abusing anything. I tend to take care of my stuff because I really don't like breaking things. Maybe I tend toward babying things, so putting this knife to any sort of abuse just isn't in me.
The test consisted of a piece of 3/4" thick red oak. I spent some time cutting into one end, making shavings and chips. I also did a little bit of chopping in the middle of the board. This to me represents what would happen if you hit a knot in a typical stick or piece of wood. I tried to keep the cuts in the first 1/3 of the blade nearest the handle. I took 'hacking slice' kind of strokes, push cuts, and the blade definitely cut smoothly until it hit a thicker chunk left over from the previous cut. I also tried to twist the blade a little sideways out of the chops (poor technique, on purpose), just to side load the edge a little.
The edge started out shaving sharp. It still is. There might be the slightest hint of a few rolled spots, I can only see them with my camera zoomed in, not with the naked eye. I expected the edge to take on a little more damage than that. I also expected the coating to suffer a little damage at the edge that meets up to the sharpened microbevel. I cannot discern any flakes or chips to the coating. Probably my only comment would be to the condition of the coating. It is pretty scuffed/rubbed where I did the cutting. I used WD40, Hoppes solvent, scotch brite and even a "magic eraser" to try and polish it out. I would say the marks came out about 75%, but they are still there at the right angle. They are permanent. This is by no means commenting that this is not a high quality coating, just that my preference is for uncoated blades. You would see marks on bare steel, I'm sure, but that's just my preference.
So, being the general use sort of user, I am perfectly happy with this blade. I cannot compare this to another blade, or say if it is better or worse. I think the knife held up great! I would never treat a blade like this in the field on purpose. Even in the field, I tend to go easy on my gear. This was harder use than I would put it to, so I think it did great.
Now the pictures.
Before, and After pictures of the coating. Before is just how it was after cutting (not how it came out of the box!), After is after I tried to clean it.
I tried to get pictures before and after of the edge.
The edge out of the box was, as you can imagine, perfect. After cutting, there are the slightest marks along the edge, but I cannot discern any burrs or chips when dragging my thumbnail along the edge. It still pops hairs off my arm, which is good enough for me. Here is an after picture of the edge. This is zoomed in a ways, and shows more than you can actually see with the eye.
Any questions or comments, please fire away. If you've read this far, thanks!
This knife is a LOT easier to shave with vs the 5.1 
