xt-15-N Steel question

[Maarten]

Does anyone have XT-15-N Steel Blades and what do you think of its quality?
Just out of curiosity?
At this site you will see the steel chart table; its in german the first colum is Carbon (C) and the last is Nitrogen (N) translated in english the rest shows itself. http://www.boker.de/index2.php
I have a Hk 01 droppoint Heckler and Koch made by boker with this steel.
I like the blade but not the rest of the knive.

What steel it is comparable with ? VG-10, S30V or less ???

:jerkit:

 

[JD Spydo]

I don't currently have any blades made with that steel. But I have had 3 of Boker's knives that had that steel. I personally had fairly good luck with X-15 TN stainless. It's claim to fame is it's corrosion resistant properties. However it holds an edge pretty decently too. I would compare it to AUS-8 or O-1 as far as past performance that I have had with blade steels.

It's certainly not the best blade steel out there but it is far from being the worst. I used my Boker Gemini Badger to take snorkling with me on the Gulf Coast in Florida. All the time I spent snorkling I never experienced any salt water corrosion at all.

I also find it interesting that Benchmade who has a popular diving knife model 100SH2O that when they first started making them they used H-1 blade steel at first and after they produced it a couple of years they switched to X-15 TN. I had heard that it was a cost cutting move but I also heard that Benchmade thought that X-15 TN held a better edge than H-1. I don't know for sure on that one. But all in all it's not that bad of steel at all. Trust me I've had much, much worse. Hope that helps

 

[Larrin]

I believe it's fairly similar to the steel Cronidur 30 that I was researching a while back. The steel has high toughness, very small carbide and grain size, excellent corrosion resistance (much greater than 440C, that's why they use it for dive knives), good potential for hardness, but wear resistance isn't that great. It's probably a step up from H1 for wear resistance, but not to the point of AUS-8 at the same hardness. If it's at 58-60 Rc it's probably adequate.