Spyderco Military Sprint Run CTS-XHP - Performance Review

Ankerson

Ankerson

Knife and Computer Geek
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Nov 2, 2002
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This is a performance review tested in cutting rope, cardboard and wood. The knife was sharpened to 30 degress inclusive with the 400 grit Congress Sil Carbide stone then stropped on my Sil Carbide loaded strop. This gives the best overall edge balance for edge retention and cutting efficiency from my testing. The Congress stone can be substituted with the 600 Grit EP stone or a Fine Grit Norton Sil Carbide Stone as long as the edge is stropped on Sil Carbide after.

The knife was sharpened as laid out above and the edge wasn't touched up durning the testing process at all.

The Process:

Rope - Made 90 slicing cuts on 5/8" Manila rope.
Cardboard - Cut up the cardboard shown in the photos below.
Wood - Whittled wood taking thin and thick slices to check edge stability.


Rope:

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Cardboard:

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Wood:

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Conclusion:


CTS-XHP performed very well, it develops a toothy edge very quickly and stays sharp enough to continue to cut for a very long time. It's comparable to ZDP-189 in the way the edge transformed into that toothy working edge. After all the testing the blade would still slice through printer paper easy. I do think that the hardness could be bumped up slightly to make the edge stronger as it did get a few flat spots during the process.
 
Thanks for the review. For the every day person, I love this steel. Spyderco's factory edge was awesome, and it was easy to touch up after working outside just by stropping on bare leather.
 
Thanks for the Review, too many recent Sprint run purchases to get this one, I'll have to wait fr 110V version :)
 
Ankerson said:
ELMAX will beat it at 60 RC+, tougher, holds an edge longer ect.
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not saying that's not true but they are very close in wear resiistance. The owner of bark river calls it a stainless a2 so it is very tough, maybe not as tough as elmax as I remember you stating it is close to 3v and I believe that as I know you know more about steel then me. All that said, I much prefer xhp over elmax. I don't know if its the grind or what but xhp for me holds that's fresh off the stone edge longer and I like the way it cuts better. It could be the kershaw/zt grinds that could be leaving me with this feeling as I often feel they leave a little bit to be desiredin that department vs the ffg manix and military. I dunno though cause I still love the xhp on my xm
 
spydusse said:
not saying that's not true but they are very close in wear resiistance. The owner of bark river calls it a stainless a2 so it is very tough, maybe not as tough as elmax as I remember you stating it is close to 3v and I believe that as I know you know more about steel then me. All that said, I much prefer xhp over elmax. I don't know if its the grind or what but xhp for me holds that's fresh off the stone edge longer and I like the way it cuts better. It could be the kershaw/zt grinds that could be leaving me with this feeling as I often feel they leave a little bit to be desiredin that department vs the ffg manix and military. I dunno though cause I still love the xhp on my xm
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It's likely the different blade grinds, those ZT knives aren't exactly the best cutters...

I have them in the same group as they are, production knives, but my Demko in ELMAX at 60.5-61 HRC does make a large, very noticable difference, and it's as thin as a Military behind the edge or slightly thinner, not even getting into Phil Wilson's knives at 62 HRC.

I didn't rank the Demko in ELMAX, waiting for a production knife at the same hardness or higher, the knife in ELMAX that I did rank was a ZT 551 at 60 HRC.
 
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