True, Hal. I like folks who eschew the Kershaw Leek with its "fragile tip" for a hard use knife.
I have used Leeks hard for years and not broken a tip. However, I have abused one and ended up snapping the tip off.
Using a tool hard for it's intended use and abusing a tool are two completely different animals.
I agree with this sentiment.
I might get flamed for this; though, I don't really care. I think as a community we really should be a lot more specific with our language.
In this case (and in many internet arguments of "What's the toughest?"), I think the word you're looking for is "durability." Since in the knifespeak, toughness already has a very specific meaning and is a quantifiable/measurable trait of a particular material.
Durability is a much broader term and, at least IMO, it encompasses a broader scope of meaning to include quantifiable characteristics such as toughness, ductility, tensile strength, etc.
Probably the Benchmade since they run a lower hardness.
For your question specifically,
D
Danke42
pretty much answered it and there's no further need for discussion.
Since you're question is the "toughness" of a specific steel, the lower hardness generally yields higher toughness (and vice versa). This is confirmed through Charpy testing and there's quite a few places that will give you adequate numbers to go off of, including the testing done by resident metallurgist Larrin Thomas.
As far as which knife is more durable and less likely to have components break,
C
c7m2p3
pretty much nails it.
The saber grind of the Griptilian (unless you're looking at the hollowgrind 550) preserves more of the stock thickness of the steel and has more "meat," so to speak. The sliding-bar style lock also has a larger contact surface compared to the compression lock, so technically, that lock would have more area to dissipate energy. That and BHQ did a lock strength test with various locks and the sliding-bar style lock yielded a higher number compared to the compression lock.
