Steel Confusion!!!!

[Buzzbait]

I just have to get this off of my chest. I’ve been here on BladeForums for about five months now, and have watched a whole lot of threads about blade steel. People talk about how one steel performs so much better than another, and I’m rather confused. I’ve been purchasing a lot of Buck knives lately, which I believe all use 420HC. 420HC really seems to have a reputation around here as being a rather lackluster steel compared to others like ATS-34, 154CM, 440V, and even AUS8.

The problem is that I absolutely love the performance of these Bucks!!!! My father-in-law and I absolutely beat the snot out of my Buck Big Sky last weekend, and it just laughed in our faces. It came scary sharp, and left the woods scary sharp. We hacked down branches and small trees, shaved pounds of bark, cut up kindling, and cleaned fish. The Big Sky didn’t even notice that we even used it. It just kept smiling, waiting to be taken from its sheath. The same goes for my Buck Cadet pocketknife. The Cadet has whittled god-only-knows how much cherry and birch.

So what’s the problem with 420HC? Is it just particularly well suited to the outdoors and woodcutting, and the super-steels are more of an “indoor use steel”? While I have to admit that my BG-42 blades are beyond belief, I really haven’t been blown away by many of the other fancy steels. Is Buck’s blade geometry that good that they don’t need a better steel for excellent performance?

I guess I’m totally confused. I actually prefer 420HC over most of the highly hyped steels. Am I missing something?

 

[callahwj]

420 HC has great corrosion resistance, and is easy to sharpen, and there's nothing wrong with it. The area it's lacking in is edge holding. It's simply softer than other steels. This makes it easier to sharpen, but you need to sharpen more often. With any steel, you will have a tradeoff between hardness and toughness. The best steels are compromises between the two, in my opinion. I prefer edge holding, since I don't mind spending a long time getting a good edge to begin with. At times, I can be steel snob, though

 

[guy g]

Buzzbait, I just ran a thread BTTT on the Buck forum about their CATRA results. I could'nt get the charts to come up, but the text should help out. The bottom line is that after 25-30 cycles there is only about a 2-3 mm difference incut depth between 420hc, ats 34 ,bg42.callahwj gives an excellent analysis on this.I always enjoy reading better worded posts.
guy