s30v

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josh48315

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i'm having a hard time finding a good tough outdoor/survival knife made with s30v. most of the s30vs are folding knives or are small blades. why don't any companies have their regular medium and large sized fixed blades made with s30v?
 
I might be way off base here, but from what I've read around here, S30V can, at times, have chipping issues. Thus, as medium/large sized knife, it could often chip during uses for such knives: chopping, batoning, etc.

That might be the main reason it isn't used for larger knives.

Please someone, correct me if I'm way off base here.
 
josh48315 said:
i'm having a hard time finding a good tough outdoor/survival knife made with s30v. most of the s30vs are folding knives or are small blades. why don't any companies have their regular medium and large sized fixed blades made with s30v?
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I'm not sure about what your definition of a "survival knife" is. But it sounds like you mean something like a "KaBar Marine Corp Fighting Knife" with 7 inch blade. S30V does not do well in large knives. By large I mean over 6" blade.

S30V is optimized for edge retension. It is hard. With that hardness comes a degree of brittleness or lack of toughness. It's a properties tradeoff thing. An increase in one property comes at the price of a decrease in another. Rule of thumb that is, in general, true.

Large blades are more normally used for chopping branches, etc. For such work you want a steel that will be tougher than S30V. Typically, you want a carbon steel rather than stainless. If you did get a stainless blade, you would want one with a lower carbon content, something like 440A or 440B. Such steel would not have as good an edge retension as S30V, but it would withstand impact better.

You want edge retension in a skinner or fine cutting blade. That is going to be a 2"-5" blade. Larger blades than that are too large to make fine cuts because you can't adequately control them. S30V is perfect for skinners.

Knarf
 
I don't know what to make of the chipping claims. It's not that I doubt people have chipped them, but I'm not sure the image of S30V being a "fragile" steel (as is increasingly the opinion) is accurate.

There are a lot of hard-use knives made of the stuff.

I kind of hate to mention it, but there was a guy on here a while ago (Noss4 or Nosh4 or something) that was beating up knives pretty good on tape. He did his thing to a Strider in S30V. I don't think you could watch that rather long and somewhat whacky little You-tube movie and come away thinking there's anything fragile about S30V. I mean they were chopping concrete and punching holes in steel and such. Really severe abuse.
Why some guys have their edges chipping on paper, as some have said, makes me think there's something going on in HT or heat-affected zones in laser cutting or something. (???)


Edit: In case you have some spare time and a decent share of patience, and care to see a piece of S30V being abused, here's that video:
http://www.knifetests.com/page7.html
 
I would look into the CPM-3V blades of Fehrmanknives.com. They have great edge retention, but they're also pretty tough. They're also ergonomical and feel good in the hand and come VERY SHARP! I've been to their factory and handled their knives as my best friend's uncles make them...

Good knives...

P.S. As knarfeng suggests... I wouldn't use S30V in large blades either.
 
Striders use S30V anfd they come in all sizes. They are tough and would fit nicely for your purposes Im sure but If you're not a fan of their style then there's Becker that has a model BK-77 that uses S30V. There's also Relentless Knives that uses S30V. I don't own any of their stuff but they have gotten very good reviews from users.

Those are first ones that come to mind. Hope you find what you're looking for.
 
I suppose some of you think that Chris Reeve' s Green Beret survival knife is brittle and totally unsuited for the job ! Give me a break !! There are those who haven't heat treated their blades properly ,then you get brittle and other problems !!
 
mete said:
I suppose some of you think that Chris Reeve' s Green Beret survival knife is brittle and totally unsuited for the job !
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Yeah, I have used it. It is, the steel is a completely absurd choice for that type of knife.

-Cliff
 
It seems to me that statements such as "Steel X tends to chip" or "Steel Y tends to roll' are simplistic and just silly, without consideration of the materials to be cut, intended cutting method and available steel characteristics.

The major considerations for any cutting task would seem to be:
- What is the nature of the material to be cut?
- How is the material to be cut (sliced, hacked, batoned).
- What steel has characteristics best suited for materials and cutting method?
- What edge angle is optimum for those parameters?

Overlooking any of those parameters can lead to a failed cutting experience, regardless of steel chosen.

For example, it seems obvious that no steel with an edge angle of 20 degrees included is suited for hacking into a hardwood or a pine knot, regardless of steel selection. Such a steel is simply not available from Spyderco, Busse or any other knife maker. Unobtainium is still unavailable.

Yet simplistic statements persist that S30V, VG10, BG42 or other blades are prone to edge-chipping, with no amplification of the circumstances.

The information for matching steel and edge characteristics is out there and easy to find in FAQs and user-reviews. With just a little reading it's easy to deduce why steels such as S30V, VG10, BG42 are popular in EDC folders and other steels are used by makers such as Busse. It's also easy to deduce that edge angles need to be matched for combinations of steel, the materials to be cut and the cutting method.

Hope this helps!
 
gud4u said:
It seems to me that statements such as "Steel X tends to chip" or "Steel Y tends to roll' are simplistic and just silly, without consideration of the materials to be cut, intended cutting method and available steel characteristics.
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All steels will deform and fracture under the right circumstances, however steels do have vastly different behavior. A steel like 12C27M vs ZDP-189 for example, it isn't unreasonable to talk about one steel rolling vs the other chipping because that will happen in the majority of cases. This is really no different than talking about high wear or high corrosion resistance.

-Cliff
 
Simonich Knives uses S30V in their mid-tech line. I have a couple of their knives and I've been pretty happy with them. You'd have to take a look at their website to see if they have something you'd be interested in.
 
I've been reading about edge chipping with S30V for some time now, and I'm not sure that it matches what I've seen. Of course, I'm not the expert that some others are, but here's what I've noticed with my Native III.

I got one of the Wal-Mart specials and tried it out on some cardboard. Looking at the edge, I noticed some shiny spots on the edge. I'd read about chipping, so I got one of those pocket microscopes to look more closely. Under magnification, I saw what appeared like micron sized silver-colored balls embedded in the edge. I sliced some more cardboard and looked again. This time there was a small pit where the ball was, and it looked like a chip.

I next gave the edge a few swipes on the Sharpmaker and the pits (and the appearance of chipping) disapperared. Since then I've used the the Native a lot and haven't seen a re-appearance of that 'chipping' effect.

As I said, I'm not the expert, but it seems as if some material was embedded into the edge, either a grains or crystals in the metal or abrasive grit from manufacturing, the the initial cuts would break loose. Once that is removed, there isn't the problem any longer.

Thoughts anyone?
 
I think that's the chipping people are talking about. I had one of the 440V native that did that for about 2 weeks, sharpening took care of all but one little chip that took much longer to get out. But it's gone never the less.
 
You might want to check out Trident's line of heavy duty, S30V fixed blades of various lengths.
 
mete said:
I suppose some of you think that Chris Reeve' s Green Beret survival knife is brittle and totally unsuited for the job ! Give me a break !! There are those who haven't heat treated their blades properly ,then you get brittle and other problems !!
Click to expand...

Mete, have you noticed that the blade hardness on the Green Beret is listed as by CRK website as "55-57" while that of the Sebenza and the inyoni is "58-59"?
http://www.chrisreeve.com/greenberet.htm

http://www.chrisreeve.com/sebenza.htm


I'm not sure I see the benefit of using S30V, but only hardening it to 55-57. I mean, sure it makes it tougher, but couldn't you get the same properties using a less expensive steel, fully hardened, rather than S30V but not fully hardened?

Add: and doesn't this show that CRK does not feel that S30V fully hardened is not really suitable for a 7" blade?
 
First there is no guarantee that having it softer actually makes it tougher. The toughness dependance on hardness is usually highly nonlinear.

Second, the reason they have stated in the past for the lower hardness on S30V and A2 is ease of field sharpening on rocks and such. This is nonsense by the way.

-Cliff
 
There is no need to make it softer to make it possible to resharpen in the field. I have sharpened many very hard and high carbide blades on rocks. This is a case of design by CAD vs actual R&D.

-Cliff
 
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