What's the "lowest" steel you use?

I like Victorinox steel a lot. It takes a great edge, and I find it extremely easy to resharpen. Not only in my SAKs, but my kitchen knives are Victorinox as well. I don't consider it a 'low' or 'poor' steel at all.

I like Buck's 420HC, and I am OK with Case's version of it (Tru-Sharp), though Case runs it noticeably softer than Buck does.

I have an old Kershaw Blackout in 440A that I used to use, and found it had pretty decent performance.

Jim
 
I am not too picky about steels, as long as they take a nice edge and are fairly easy to maintain - even if they require that they be maintained. I like the various carbon steels used in my Opinels, Aitor Castors and Svörd peasant knives. Nothing fancy. Just effective and make for great value blades. There is something that makes me happy about well made tools manufactured from traditional materials.
 
I don't know what steel Victorinox and Wenger use, but I don't hesitate to use their SAKs. Other than that, the lower end of stainless that I prefer would be AUS8 or 8Cr13Mov - I've had good results with those from decent brands like Ontario or Kershaw. 1095 is good to go with me, even 1084 or 1075 for large camp knives or machetes.

I don't understand why manufacturers like Kershaw or CRKT that should be concerned about their reputation even sell knives with 7Cr or 3Cr blades....?
 
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I’ve used 8cr13mov and 14c28n a lot at my old job. It’s a good steel, just doesn’t hold a working edge as long as my Elmax/s30/S35VN ZTs. Only difference is I have to sharpen the 8cr/14c28 every few weeks instead of every few months but that’s no problem with my KO worksharp.
 
I know that not every knife is aimed at every customer, but you'd think that even the average joe would notice that a knife was relatively poor at holding an edge. I guess if people buy it they will continue to make it.
 
I am fine with using "stainless"
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completely depends on the application though, I have no idea what utility blades are made from but they do their job at work just fine. A knife has to make sense to me, I wouldn't buy a so called high end folder that's above a certain price point with bottom of the barrel steel, on the other hand I have no qualms about buying a budget folder with a budget steel.
 
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I have two trappers. One is 420J2 (Buck), one is 7Cr17 (Old Timer). I use them when I want my knife to be pretty.
 
I have a 440A Rough Rider I just touched up. Aside from that, I'd say 440C / 8Cr is about my bare minimum knife steel. The Rough Rider gets a pass because... I like it.
 
I won't use any less than rostfrei or jarbenzenium, and the blade steel must also be folded and forged using ancient Japanese sword-making techniques and with heat treatment by Frank Richtig.

Anything less than that is useless to me for my purposes.
 
Chinese D2 (Whatever Steel Will uses) and 8cr, that stuff is at least easy to sharpen and has pretty good toughness.
 
Super steel or bust. I have used vg10, 420hc, "stainless" vitronox, Pakistan pot metal, etc. But while easy to sharpen I just don't like sharpening so often. I mean if I was a casual knife user sure that would be fine and growing up through the years it did fine. But I'm older and wiser from those experiences.

I prefer quality. And with quality comes premium steel and ht usually. I've had my fair share of shit knives and I'm done with that.
 
The lowest carbon steel I have used is A36. Not for every application, but it works for my uses.
 
For the great majority of the time, D2 and S30V will be the "lowest" steels that I use. Most of my knives are M4, S110V, things like that. I do have a Spyderco Manix 2 with 154CM in my garage and I use it occasionally to cut up boxes.
 
Quite surprising it looks like we have more people willing to use steels like 420hc and such than I thought with how often we talk about premium steels.
 
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