Top contenders of the toughest steel?

sodak said:
I'm pretty sure that Casull uses 4140 for their revolvers. I'm not sure being proof tested to 90K psi qualifies for knife toughness though. :D

I've done lots of non-scientific chopping, and in my collection, CPM 3V is on top, and INFI is second to it, both in toughness and edge holding. Toughness is fairly close, 3V's edge holding is noticeably better. Both are very good, however. I would be comfortable with either steel if I needed toughness.

Has anyone send an INFI knife off for testing? It would be interesting to see how it stacks up in a lab.
Click to expand...

I've got a couple Busse's, a NMFBM Custom Shop version with Snakeskin and a ASH-1 LE. For the prices I paid I'm really not interested in sending anything anywhere to be destruction tested, likely neither is anyone else... kind of a catch22 in that respect.

Would be cool though if you could get a sample bar of INFI directly from BUSSE for testing. Something non-machined. But that's not likely to happen, why should he. He sells tons of his magic steel without any concrete numbers, tests, or scientific data. So why bother? (I'm not getting down on Busse, I'm just saying.)

At the end of the day does it really matter anyway? Other than to win the "my steel is better than your steel" argument, like that's even possible.

Any of the steels mentioned in this post when properly heat treated and used will provide a lifetime of good service. The rest is personal preference, style, "4th type of cool" and so on....

The fun comes in the speculation of misuse, abuse and overall stupid spec speculation.... "Say I dropped my knife off a cliff, and it fell into the rotor of a helicopter, would it survive?" LOL....

They all cut paper, wood and rope.

They all provide utility.

Many are never even used.

- Hal Zucati
 
Here are the guidelines for determining relative toughness in knife steels. This is not heat treatment independent, but presumes some sort of sensible, repeatable heat treatment in the usual ranges for the steel.

As carbide volume goes down, toughness goes up. Shouldn't be too surprising. The amount of brittle carbide is being reduced. Let's take D2, 1095, L6, and A2 as examples. D2 and A2 have higher carbide volume than 1095 and L6 respectively. Thus, they would be expected to have lower toughness.

As carbon content goes down, toughness goes up. Again, using D2, 1095, A2, and L6 as examples, D2 and A2 have more carbon than 1095 and L6. So here we have both factors pointing toward L6 and 1095 being tougher. The same goes for 5160 and O1. O1 has more carbon and more carbide volume. I'd be a little leery of any source that says O1 is tougher than 5160. However, there are more factors, but they get into heat treatment and such, and get pretty complicated.

So, if your goal is a tough steel above other properties, choose a steel with just enough carbon to reach the desired hardness, and be sure it has enough carbide to meet the desired wear resistance. Why one would desire one hardness or wear resistance level over another is the more complicated question. I personally have little use for wear resistance above 1055 in a rough use chopper. When I use them, they don't just go dull by wear. The get damaged more frequently than they just wear dull, so that tends to govern when I sharpen them. I don't want to have to grind a lot of damage out of a D2 blade after chopping dirty wood that has been wet then dried several times over the last year. My CS Barong machete has done this all afternoon and still shave, but it always has some small dings or other such edge issues. I don't even remove all of them most of the time, unless I'm having some fun cutting bottles or something.
 
halzucati,
Awesome Crucible article. Accurate information on what goes into steels, presented well and easy to understand. Wonder how many knives the author has made.
 
FFK said:
halzucati,
Awesome Crucible article. Accurate information on what goes into steels, presented well and easy to understand. Wonder how many knives the author has made.
Click to expand...

I thought so as well, its one of the articles I used for my steel selection choice.
The author is the kind of person I'd like to sit down and have coffee with.... :)

- Hal Zucati
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top