Why do people knock 440c?

Its cheap, common and many other newer steels surpass it. Is it bad? not at all. But these days you are seeing cheaper and cheaper knives available every year with steels that have performance advantages over 440C. So while 440C isnt a horrible steel when you compare it to what can be had at a good price it will be viewed as inferior almost always. I also dont think it helps that many many low cost chinese knives are sold as having 440C blades. While its technically not a lie its also not really the truth. As far as i know there isnt a chinese steel manufacturer that actually calls its 440C equivalent 440C. The most popular chinese steel source is GB and they have many equivalents one of them being 9Cr18Mo. Is it 440C if its composition is identical to other steel manufacturers 440 steels? I dont think so. I think it should be called what the manufacturer calls it to avoid confusion. When i see a boker plus with 440C I have to ask who made the steel? Is it even really a true 440C equivalent. I think its a combination of all these issues that have just had people move on. It had its day in the premium knife market and in some older vintage knives its still desirable considering the lack of options they had back then.
 
From what I am gathering for those who have used it, its not a bad product then? My parents were both chefs, and Andre the Giant, Mr. Fuji and the WWF crew were regulars at our restaurant. I'm not a chef but I'm a pretty darn cook. That said I've used mainly carbon blades and vanadium steels from Global and Henckel. Love 'em. The past 6 years though, I've been using Cutco with 440C steel. Only because my wife sold them in college so she brought two sets of them in. I've found them to perform just as well in edge retention and cutting ability as the Global and Henckels. When I sharpen these knives they have that glassy feeling on the Smith's stones very similar to 154cm. I can feel the difference between those two steels and 8cr13 however between 154cm, 440C, S30 and VG10 I can barely feel a difference when I sharpen those knvies on stones as they perform more or less the same.

When buying pocket knives for fun though, I see every 30th post or so knocking 440C. Surely even the Chinese stuff has to have fixed their HT by now? That said what is the go to steel in the kitchen cutlery market for chefs if not carbon or 440C or Vanadium? I ask because after close to 8 years of use my Cutco chef knives have seen better days. I was noticing how much knife has been grinded off over the years. I have the option of sending it back to Cutco and getting the same model for half off or something like that which still seems overpriced to me as well...you know the story with Cutco or I could opt to go back to Global or Henckels. I've seen some beautiful Shuns by Kai but I feel they are out of my price range as a kitchen tool. Is it worth it to look at kitchen knives made of 440C people on the board have me paranoid of buying 440C even though I hated the Cutco handles, I very much enjoyed the cutting abilities of those knives over the years that had this steel.
 
Cutco is 440A isn't it? I like well done 440A better than 440C. It's tougher, finer grained and was the first stainless a lot of us used in the 60's and 70's. Then as now some knives had better quality heat treats and even steels. I recall stainless that had inclusions visible in it in a inexpensive Bowie from the 70's. I rarely see any American or European steels with that kind of junk in it now. 440A Kershaw and Ontario blades from just a few years back were clean, well heat treated knives. Yes, even Chinese steels have done fairly well in that respect lately. Japanese knives from the early 70's were not like what we see now.They were the cheap imports of the day. Pakistan still takes it as the worst steels I've ever had in knives though. I've yet to have a decent knife from Pakistan.
 
Yeah I'm not a big fan of Cutco either, but it has nothing to do with the steel. And yes, 440A isn't bad, either, so long as it's given a good heat treatment. Kershaw used to do some really brilliant work with it before they upgraded to Sandvik steels.
 
All this time I thought it was c. I literally have a complete set of cutco that I didn't pay for. If what I have is 440a I am very curious to try some chef knives made with c.

My carbon knives just need a little too much effort to keep dry.
 
my experience is stainless of most breeds doesnt compete with hi carbon in my price bracket ( $0- $50 )
 
Myal said:
my experience is stainless of most breeds doesnt compete with hi carbon in my price bracket ( $0- $50 )
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In that price range 420HC or 12C27 would be good ones to try. They often perform pretty similarly to carbon steels when properly treated. AUS-8 is good stuff as well.
 
I have some old Gerber kitchen knives in 440C and M2 (chrome plated). I also have some older knives in carbon steel and a relatively new Spyderco in VG10. The 440C always seemed to hold an edge about as well as the best of my Sabatiers in carbon steel, but not nearly as well as M2. This is no surprise. The Spyderco 6" chef's knife was outstanding in edge holding. Some of it was the VG10, but some of this is due to the thin blade and geometry.
I was satisfied with the 44C and still use the knives. I rarely use a carbon steel blade in the kitchen now. I pull out a carbon steel blade in 1095 if I want to break up lobster tails and split them. The Spyderco Yang seemed to go 3X as long between sharpenings as the old Gerbers in 440C, but again, a good part of this is the blade geometry.
 
cchu518 said:
In the cooking world it's one of the more respectable blade materials. Yet so many ppl poo poo on it.

I think it gets more of a bum rap than 8cr13 even. Discuss...
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Try Entrek knives. They do 440c right. I have used a USA Bravo 11 extensively and it works really well.
 
cchu518 said:
They make chef knives in Aus 8?
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For kitchen knives, the X55CrMo14 used by Victorinox/Forschner and Friedrich Dick (I think that Friedrich Dick does that steel best) would be a more common steel to throw into my prior list. My listing of AUS-8 was not directed at culinary knives in specific. :)
 
My son did the Cutco selling thing last summer to help pay for his college tuition. Way overpriced, but what I did notice is that they have good customer service. I saw some people turn in decades old Cutco knives and get new ones at no charge whatsoever! That is standing by your product. Still overpriced in my eyes, but if you can get a new set of knives for free, then why not?
 
I believe I recall the early Sog and even some of the Cold Steel folders were 440a and AUS6 ?

During the late 80's & mid 90's I was on ships, or on or near the marine salt water environment and the better knives we used were all 440C. They took and held a pretty good working edge. When ATS-34 & 154CM was introduced I remember liking it a great deal (still do) but observed the 440C offered better corrosion resistance.

As long as you cleaned and oiled your blades though it didn't really matter as far a corrosion but it was necessary in that environment.
 
It's not just a matter of being passe' or dated. I won't touch it simply because I don't trust the mills producing it these days. The last several feet of it I bought were riddled with inclusions and the infamous "orange peel" look and wouldn't hold an edge worth a hoot. The exact same goes for 154CM. That doesn't mean either alloy itself is bad, it just means the mill did a horrible job running it.

There's simply no reason for me to use them when so many other better, cleaner, tougher steels are available. If you like 440C and 154CM, you're going to love CPM-154. And if you like that, Elmax and CTS-XHP will really please you.

As for some of the older custom makers and manu's that literally have tons of it in stock from the old days when they really were some of the cleanest steels around, and have their HT dialed-in, they're likely to get great results.
 
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