Steel Questions

[knarfeng]

In a different thread I was asking about steel, years of production and so forth.

My question now is how does ''Buck'' 440C compare to their 425 and 420 with regard to abrasion resistance, toughness and lateral strength.

I quoted Buck because each manufacturer seems to get different results with their particular heat treat.

Thanks in advance.

I have tested Buck 440C against 420HC, though not yet against 425M in side by side manila rope cutting tests.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=641279

The 440C had significantly better edge retention than 420HC. The ranking went this way:
440C was 1/2 step below 154CM or ATS 34
AUS 8 was a full step below 440C
420HC was a step below AUS8.

 

[peppercorn]

knarfeng,

That was an excellent, if not time consuming, post on your part.
Thank you for directing me to it.

It is interesting to see how these other steels compare to 440C in a defined test such as yours.

 

[David Martin]

I agree w/ Knarf . I as well have conducted test on sisal rope and found thats about the way it runs . But when testing one must test until the edge becomes dull other wise is too subjective . It looks like this to me and that to another .
Then I've also, followed these tests up with real world tests getting my hands dirty and the results support the more labratory findings of my earlier figures posted . So, 440C has very good edge retention and toughness just thin the edge down so it will cut/perform and its right up there in the top group . Yes, its a larger grain steel but many others are as well and its not noticable until you get to the finer grain steels . ie. the CPM steels and Sandvik . Even then those must be finer ground to take advantage of that characteristic so you could still end up near the equal in the tests . Bill's post had a good point, with heat treat and the best edge at sharpening . I would add correct edge geometery, the entire grind of the blade must be correct to maximize the whole package . I've seen this many times demish the potential of a super steel and subsequent super knife to ordinary just because the edge geometery was too thick . DM