Where does 440-C stand?

shootist16

shootist16

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I have seen posts stating that 440-C is undesirable and others that say it is a decent steel (not to be confused with some of the newer wonder steels but very serviceable none the less). Which is the truth? Where does it stand?

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Dennis Bible

....Almost here, The Leading Edge....
http://www.theleadingedgeonline.com
 
It is an excellent, well established, cutlery stainless steel, that has been and continued to be used on some of the most expensive knives ever made. There is nothing wrong with it. The hype is currntly focused on other steels, but 440-C is still one of the best stainless steels available.
 
The response that anthony cheeseboro gave in this thread sums it up well. I am happy with many of my older 440C blades, they sure beat the hell out of the AUS series.
 
440C is an excellent steel, but bad raps about particular knives can be traced to very poor quality control in heat treating.
440C must be treated in an inert or vacuum furnace, NEVER exposed to free oxygen during the entire process. If it is, decarburization occurs and the effective carbon content is reduced. This makes the steel preform like the inferior 440A and B, which barely classify as tool steels.
Also, proper stress relief must occur, a definite presoak, allowing the stress risers and geometry to "relax."
It also benefits from a sub-zero quench, though it is debatable whether performance is increased to a noticable degree. (sub zero hardening was developed for machine tools that cut at hundreds of surface feet per second, unlikely in your hand tool)

440C when properly heat treated and tempered,is a tough, stainless, beautifully finished steel, and is desired by most collectors above other more "reactive" steels that may require maintenance. Blades made from this steel will be around hundreds of years after we are dust!

The only difficulty is engraving. It takes a determined individual to grave this high chromium beast, with innumerable sharpenings and planning for finishes when heat treat will follow. Etching may also be a problem due to the high chrome content.

There are other issues: cross sectional geometry, blade thickness and leverage tolerance, percussive locations and flexibility, but these topics could comprise a book!

I'm out of time...whew!

Jay

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Read, Study, Learn, Grow
-DO-
Jay
www.gilanet.com/JayFisher/index.htm
 
Another vote here for 440C. Outstanding...just overshadowed by the trendy steels currently getting press.

Ron
 
440C, grinds great, polishes nicely and, as mentioned, if heat treated propery, I prefer 60 Rc, makes a fine blade that should last a lifetime. Many a maker still standing on this old tried and true steel.

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Mondt Custom Knives
For the Word of God is...sharper than any two edged sword.
 
One word: good stuff if correctly treated.
Happy sharpening
smile.gif


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Ted
 
I generally avoid it. The problem is the high chrome content and highly variable quality. Chrome and its carbides are hard compared to your basic iron and iron carbides which are the primary constituents of a simple steel. The 440 alloys have up to 18% chrome so the characteristics of the chrome start dominating the behaviour of the steel. I have typically found 440C hard to sharpen to my razor-edge standards and hard to keep razor sharp.

Some of this comes from the high abrasion resistance of all that chrome. This would seem like a big potential benefit for edge holding, but not if I don't get the edge I want in the first place. The chrome seems to increase the tendency of the steel to form burrs--acts like some ductility increase. The other problem is that if the alloy is not pure enough and heat treated adequately the size of the chrome and chromium carbide grain is large. This tends to leave you with a blunter edge that is filled with carbides of only moderate hardness. These carbides round off and break out to wear down faster in use than you would expect for the difficulty of sharpenning.

The solution is as stated in some of the other postings. You need the 440C to be high quality and well processed. I would expect to be very disapointed by cheap 440C blades so I would not look for it from no-name economy makers. I would definitely look for makers who take great pride in their heat treatment. I would only buy 440C if it had been cryo treated. The issue is not abrasion resistance of the edge like it might be in a machine tool, rather it is the refinement of the grain structure of the edge. Cryo treatment is supposed to help reduce the size of the steels grain structure. This seems vital to me for a 440 alloy.

I prefer the AUS alloys. Yes they dull significantly faster, but they easily get shaving sharp. I particularly like AUS-10 which you don't see often. A step up in that direction is VG-10 which is a lot like AUS-10 and maybe tougher.
 
This is Lynn Dawson's reply to my request for info about her and uncle Barry's heat treatment?

"In answer to your e-mail, my heat treating method leaves a slightly softer
core in the back of the blade, which makes for a all around tougher knife. I
achieve about a 58-60 Rockwell on the "C" scale all the way through on the
hollow grind. The hardness is different on the back of the blade (the core)
than on the hollow grind, hence the name differential heat treat. My method
is especially effective with 1/4"and 3/16" steel. (And yes, it is the same
heat treat Barry has been using on his knives for 25 years now.) Heat
treating is really what determines the quality and durability of the blade,
the type of steel just tells you it's capabilities if the heat treat is done
correctly. Of course this is all assuming the grind is done right and the
edge angles are correct and have been honed properly. I like using 440 C
because it holds an excellent edge, is stain resistant, low maintenance, and
also being very tough and durable. All things considered it's an outstanding
cutlery steel, you notice it's the one everybody compares the new "super
steels" to. It seems every time you open a magazine you hear about the new
"Star" in the steel department and it's really used just to boost sales. A
quality knife can be made from any good steel if the work is done by a
skilled craftsman who understands what it is he is doing."
 
If they would reintroduce 440-C with a different catchy name like TF2-C or something people would rave about it with the CORRECT heat treat! I think it is about as good as properly heat treated ATS, and more corrosion resistant.
 
My Linder (Solingen) steel chart quotes 440C to be 59 +/- 1 RC so 58-60 sounds right.

I don't favor ATS-34 either for many of the same reasons, but it is a more tightly controlled alloy than 440C. If I needed toughness I would pick 440C over ATS-34. I usually don't need heavy toughness so I would look at the ATS-34 first.

But above all else I would look for a quality maker for either of these. A Rob Simonich blade of 440C would stand a lot taller in my eyes than an ATS-34 from Benchmade.
 
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Jeff Clark:
But above all else I would look for a quality maker for either of these. A Rob Simonich blade of 440C would stand a lot taller in my eyes than an ATS-34 from Benchmade.</font>
Click to expand...


Excellent point.


------------------
Dennis Bible

....Almost here, The Leading Edge....
http://www.theleadingedgeonline.com
 
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Jeff Clark:
I generally avoid it. The problem is the high chrome content and highly variable quality. Chrome and its carbides are hard compared to your basic iron and iron carbides which are the primary constituents of a simple steel. The 440 alloys have up to 18% chrome so the characteristics of the chrome start dominating the behaviour of the steel. I have typically found 440C hard to sharpen to my razor-edge standards and hard to keep razor sharp.

Some of this comes from the high abrasion resistance of all that chrome. This would seem like a big potential benefit for edge holding, but not if I don't get the edge I want in the first place. The chrome seems to increase the tendency of the steel to form burrs--acts like some ductility increase. The other problem is that if the alloy is not pure enough and heat treated adequately the size of the chrome and chromium carbide grain is large. This tends to leave you with a blunter edge that is filled with carbides of only moderate hardness. These carbides round off and break out to wear down faster in use than you would expect for the difficulty of sharpenning.

The solution is as stated in some of the other postings. You need the 440C to be high quality and well processed. I would expect to be very disapointed by cheap 440C blades so I would not look for it from no-name economy makers. I would definitely look for makers who take great pride in their heat treatment. I would only buy 440C if it had been cryo treated. The issue is not abrasion resistance of the edge like it might be in a machine tool, rather it is the refinement of the grain structure of the edge. Cryo treatment is supposed to help reduce the size of the steels grain structure. This seems vital to me for a 440 alloy.

I prefer the AUS alloys. Yes they dull significantly faster, but they easily get shaving sharp. I particularly like AUS-10 which you don't see often. A step up in that direction is VG-10 which is a lot like AUS-10 and maybe tougher.
</font>
Click to expand...


Darn you Jeff, you said just about everything
I wanted to say - only sooner. 440C is tough, sometimes too tough to get a decent edge on in the first place. I have an old Buck 110 (probably my favorite and most used knife) but what a bitch to sharpen!
 
Yeah, I think it was back in 1965 when I got my first Buck 110. It took a good edge and held it a long time, but it was a lot of work to get it sharp. It was never one of my sharper knives. I'm quite happy with my current 420HC 110. (Of course I'm much happier with my Master Series Squire made with BG42).
 
Ahhh, yes, the ultimate conversation.... Can I have a knife that holds an edge forever, yet only takes a minute to sharpen?

How many of us have heard that? It takes some patience to teach others that wear is wear, and the more resistant to wear an edge is, the more difficult it is to sharpen.
Some clients like O-1 for that reason. It's incredibly easy to sharpen, and gets razor keen with just a few strokes. They can sit around the campfire with a tin cup of Jack and tend to their edges like foreplay. Others don't want to have to tote along a stone in their pack to baby an insolent edge...they plan to field dress three elk before manana noon... the debate continues.

My father once asked me to sharpen his WW2 Kabar, made from D2. It took hours on a stone and lots of verbal abuse from moi. But the knife probably won't need to be sharpened for another forty years (thank God). BTW, it's the cromium carbide crystalline structure in D2 that makes it so desireable.
Hey, you can put a razor edge on a piece of aluminum but what can you do with it?
And take a month and sharpen a piece of solid carbide, just don't drop it...ever.
Keep smiling.

------------------
Read, Study, Learn, Grow
-DO-
Jay
www.gilanet.com/JayFisher/index.htm
 
I love 440C It's a little better than AUS 10 in my opinion, and they're roughly equivalent. Is it better than 154CM, CPM 440 V and others? I don't know, but it was used by custom makers for years before the steel question was complicated by these new arivals. I just ordered a BM 550 in this steel and I'm eagerly awaiting it...



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William Callahan

"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without
hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd
never expect it."
-Jack Handey

I'm one of those wierdos who likes Zytel.
 
I have some 440C knives that look great and perform amazingly well. Work by George Tichbourn and John Freeman and an older Lightfoot immediately come to mind. I wonder how many people could really tell the difference between 440C and sexier "stainless" steels in a double blind test just by looking at and using them [there may be more obvious differences in the grinding and finishing etc., but I wouldn't presume to say anything about that]. As a user and admirer of knives, IMHO, 440C, if done well in a good knife, is very good indeed. But I don't think it has the cache and sales appeal of ATS 34, for example. I think some people sort of think of 440C as the old standard and want something "better" and much of the industry, including some custom makers, sell newer or more exotic as better without specific data justifying the claim or the price difference.
Then again, personally, for performance I'll take a high carbon steel, [except maybe if stainless 3V proves as good as hoped], for corrosion resistance I'll take stellite or talonite and for a compromise I'd prefer BG 42, or a coated high carbon. But if I see a really nice knive, like a Tichbourne or a Freeman, or one by another first rate maker, with a reliable heat treat, and it's 440C, I'd be happy with it.
 
I like it! And I am a steel snob.

------------------
Wayne.
"To strive to seek to find and not to yield"
Tennyson
Ranger motto

A few useful details on UK laws and some nice reviews!
http://members.aol.com/knivesuk/
Certified steel snob!
 
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