I've owned 12 Busse, use all of them, and more, and held many many more. I own one Swamprat.
INFI is not magical. It won't make you rich. Won't make you famous. It won't get you ladies, and won't regrow your lost hair.
INFI is a fantastic steel for high impact, torque, and resisting edge damage.
I have made accidental contact with stone and concrete while chopping with quite a few steels. Infi shrugs the damage off better than any thing else I have used.
It is a good combination of toughness, rust resistance, and edge retention.
Infi is not the top steel for abrasion resistance. From the standpoint of sheer edge retention in fibrous material, or cardboard etc, there are other super steels, higher hardness, etc that will cut for far longer, as long as you are not smacking hard objects like bone, concrete, bits of staple, etc.
INFI typically rolls in my experience, from hard contact with stone. This allows you to steel it back in place, rather than having to sharpen past chips. I have actual experience with this. I accidentally chopped a small stone in half on my chopping block. It was stuck to the bottom of the wood I was chopping. I heard a strange "ping" sound and looked and found I had chopped this small stone in half. The edge was lightly rolled (not near as much as expected). It took only a few minutes with a smooth round screw driver to re-align the edge. I only had to do a few strokes on a diamond stone to return that spot to hair popping sharp.
I have had that experience over and over with my Infi choppers, and with my infi slicers (including hard steel contact, ceramic contact, etc, and being able to steel the edge back into tip top shape while not having to remove any steel.
I have had the opposite experience with other steels, where I had to sharpen and remove steel to get past small chips in the edge.
Infi is also very rust resistant.
I have been swimming many times with out removing the knives and never had any rust. Canoeing as well, where I am wet all day. The worst "corrosion" I have ever had with bare/stripped or satin infi is a small smudge of red on the logo on a BAD. I touched it with my thumb and it was gone. (Comp finish, with out the decarb layer removed is one exception to this).
Infi also has super lateral strength. You can pry with thin infi without breaking it. I have done it (though It was more "experimental" than necessary!).
Ad to that the fact that Busse has fantastic customer service, with a super warranty, and it is a great mix.
Also, Busse does not have one or two or 5 models. The numbers of models they have released over the years must be in the hundreds, if not thousands?
They have released a ton of thick sturdy models, but have also released thinner, high hardness models. (these are great).
I think that they need to run their knives a point or two harder in most models, as I am more than happy to get a bit more edge retention, and stability in thin slicers, and less prone to use them for prying, or other "hard use" tasks.
I owned and used the BAD (higher hardness, thinner model), and love it. I also had a CABS which was nice and thin, but the regular harness. It was a fantastic design, and in that size, I would opt for the higher harness too.
Also, Busse, Scrapyard, Swamprat family knives, no matter what steel they are using, you can be sure that they are getting every little bit of performance out of that steel. They really have special heat treat dialed in for every steel. Whether it it is a shock steel, tool steel, high speed steel, or what have you.
There is a reason that people love what ever steel the Busse family knives use, Elmax, D2, A2 (much older models), Sr101 (which is Swamprat and Scrapyard's version of 52100 ball bearing steel), SR77 (modified jack hammer steel).
Most of the knives they make, from any of the three companies, you really can trust you life to. You can cut a car in half with many of their models, and the knife is still going to be "knife shaped" after the ordeal.
Ive seen cars, logging chains, steel boxes, concrete, hard wood (I have done the hard wood dismantling my self, where I was concerned about the force and lateral stress on the knife I was subjecting it to).
Go watch Noss destruction tests on Infi, and see for your self.
That all said, Busse does often release knives that are not thin enough behind the edge with good enough edge geometry for my tastes. They do listen, and release models that are thinner, for those of us that clamor for them (this is not without risk for them, because many buyers are complete knuckleheads. They see a .32 beast of a knife cutting steel, and concrete and surviving lateral blows in a vice with a sledge hammer, and they think their thin, acutely pointed, INFI knife will do the same.)
I use my knives. But don't have to use them for living, or survival. I camp, and canoe, but am not a hard core out door survivalist.
I am also not limiting my self to Busse family knives.
have sold off infi to buy customs. There are too many great steels, and makers out there to limit my self to just Busse (and family knives).
Also, INFI has other steels that I think give it a real run for it's money. Some are better in edge retention, and strength being run thinner, and at higher hardness. But they are also more expensive, and usually custom made knives.
