What is "425 modified stainless"?

I test them at work in the metallurgical lab. I'll have to go look up the hardness tester brand. It is kept in calibration (Calibration is required by Nadcap and others. We are Nadcap certified). I am aware of the ±1 tolerance for hardness measurement. I intended my statement of the 301 hardness only to show that Buck claims a nominal hardness of 58 and the knife I measured meets their spec.

I'm sorry, which alloy are you talking about?
(Since Spyderco uses neither 425M nor 420HC, I am not certain I would expect them to be an authority on the composition of either. Neither 425M nor 420HC is a standard alloy, so either can vary in composition depending on who makes it. If we really want to know what Buck used, perhaps one of the Buck folks would care to pull up an old data sheet out of their files (assuming they have not been 5S'ed.)

No matter what the composition, I think you already stated the performance which was the real question that the OP wanted to get at. And I think your assessment, (that it is good stuff) is a reasonable assessment of the performance. The only reason that I entered into the conversation at all was because no one had stated a composition. If you do not agree with the composition stated by my sources, I cannot help that. They are published sources. One of them a steel producer, the other a well known steel metallurgist.

I'm outa here.
 
The lab has a Wilson Series 2000.

The test requires top and bottom of the test sample to be parallel to one another and flat with respect to the tester. On the 301 their are two such areas. I chose the tang. On most stockmans that is not an option because the tang has to be annealed so the blades can be bent to fit properly. All the 301 blades are straight, so there is no requirement to anneal the tangs. I consider this to be genius on the part of Buck.

In comparison, when I tested the tang of my Camillus-Buck 303, the reading was in the 40's. But, because of their traditional design, the Camillus blades have to be bent, so the tangs have to be annealed. So you get a lowball reading that does not reflect the hardness of the cutting edge. Moreover, the Camillus blades taper all the way from the top to the bottom, so there is no place to measure on a Camillus Buck 303 or 301 and get a valid measurement. This means that I know neither the alloy nor the hardness of my faithful 303, although I suspect Camillus used 440A.
 
Actually if my memory serves correctly Buck started using 420HC in 1992...my old Buck 301 Stockman (plus symbol-1991) is definitely 425M.425M is 0.40-0.54% in carbon and ranges drastically at 0.60-1.00% in molybdenum. It's very close in most cases to 440A and is roll-of-the-dice if it excels 440A in performance or not.Not only taking into account Buck's precision on heat treatment going against the 0.65-0.75% in carbon and the variable Rockwell hardness of Schrade USA's 440A (57-59rc).But the molybdenum content in 425M has such as a wide gap it literally depends on the batch.425M will take a little bit longer than 420HC on a stone but still brings back a pretty fine edge. Buck does a good job with 420HC but I smiled on their taste in steel when they used 425M...definitely a coarse materials steel. Even though(for unknown reasons) 425M isn't used anymore there's a few options of other steels like it-4116 Krupp steel and N680.
 
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