Sal: thanks for sharing your test results. I'm not surprised that the S90V is more wear resistant-it's got significantly more Vanadium, and, that's the result.
Cliff: My concern is generally not about blade breakage from bending-I don't make prybars. Rather, I want edges that hold up without deforming permanently (plastic deformation). A knife that will withstand permanent deformation is nice, but, not at the expense of an edge that behaves the same way, IMO. Whether an edge bends or chips, it's still got to be completely reground to function properly, no? In the field, I believe I'd rather work with a chipped edge than a severely rolled edge, unless I had lots of time to resharpen the rolled edge.
My big knives are all 1/4" stock, with a full thickness spine, so, without using a cheater bar, you probably can't get enough leverage to break/deform the blade anyway.
Failure from shock is not acceptable, which is why 3V is so attractive for big, camp knives. I have no test data on similar blades from S30V at this time, but, I believe that a blade with the correct geometry in S30V will perform fine in this regard. I don't advocate wailing on something with any knife-I believe most cutting tasks can be performed with only moderate force, even chopping/splitting, using, perhaps a few more hits. This is much safer/saner IMO. High impact hits, on the other hand, result in blade twisting on impact due to the user's inability to deal with the momentum-this is what trashes edges. If you need to wail, get an
axe, even a small one, so you can use two hands.
