Magnacut vs. other steel (split from Spyderco fanboy)

[blues]

What do you mean 'issues with the finish'? As in, it is very low grindability so time-consuming and expensive to finish? If so, that is one of the things Larrin has said was supposed to separate Magnacut from other Vanadium carbide steels. I've always been skeptical of this so it wouldn't surprise me.

I'm reluctant to speak for them from memory, so I'd do a search at bladeforums for their comments. I know that Josh had posted a question to Nate after some issues that he, (Nate), had with a batch of MagnaCut which resulted in the knives not being up to his standard. As I recall, it wasn't a matter of performance, but cosmetic...at least for the most part. The matter went up the chain to both Peters on the heat treat end, and Niagra on the steel itself.

There was some resolution, which I cannot discuss...but whatever was for public consumption might be found on the forums.

[Navin Johnson]

One must understand when comparing whatever between steels heat treat and geometry (grind) play a far bigger role than material. The vast majority of users in real world use likely couldn’t tell the difference between most of today’s “premium steels”. And with proper sharpening equipment, wouldn’t notice much difference in sharpening. (as a side note, I find the harder steels easier to sharpen as they tend to roll/burr less). Much like caliber or horsepower I think it’s mostly psychological. In controlled testing with controlled materials is where one steel will stand out over another.

The use of the tool is also fairly critical in deciding blade material. The fix blade has far different requirements than a folder. If you want to carry an extremely heavy folder on the premise, it might actually do fixed blade type work knock yourself out however a $15 Mora can do far more than almost any folder made of reasonable size.

There is no best steel in today’s world. There is only what works best for what you’re going to do with it. A utility knife can do, and is better for the vast majority of general cutting tasks that people do on a daily basis.

Also, to reiterate, none of the common premium steels are tough and other than H series almost none are dishwasher stainless.

[WDR]

I'm not knife steel snob, and I see the obsession with the various qualities, types, grades, hardness, etc as important to the designers, who should know what the end users are going to use the knife for. It's less important to me on the user side... as long as the knife works for my tasks.

For quite a few years I was really happy with a second hand Browing branded fixed blade hunting knife. It had a good shape for cleaning and skinning big game, sharpened easy enough in the field if needed, and I put it to good use for a long time. I got curious one day, hoping to find a replacement sheath, since I wore out the original, and while poking around I discovered it was a very basic 440C stainless steel. Point is... it wasn't fancy steel, but it worked very well. I stopped carrying it because it was heavy, with aluminum scales, then the rubberized coating on them started getting gummy/tacky.

I've been using Moras and Havalon knives that take the #60 scalpel baldes for easy cleaning, light weight, and being able to swap to a screaming sharp blade in a few seconds (on the Havalon).

[foxsimple]

The steel was developed by Dr. Larrin. He has a podcast where he explains the development. But the short version is he looked at previous powdered steel mixes and it looked like there was room for improvement. It took him quite a while to get crucible to agree to make it and even then there was a lot of concern that the real world steel wouldn’t match the simulations he had run.

The steel came out even better in performance than he had predicted. S30V, S35V, and S45V are all common premium steels that were incremental improvements on each other. Magnacut took what was good about the s30 series and improved it in almost every category. In particular the steel is nearly corrosion proof, at least to what is possible with stainless steels.

Other speciality steels can be higher in a single category, higher toughness, higher edge retention, or higher corrosion resistance (barely). But no other steel has a combination that is as high as magnacut in all three.

Will you see a huge difference in real world performance vs a different premium steel? Probably not. But it is very cool to have what appears to be about the pinnacle of all around performance in a stainless steel. Steel is obviously one of humans great inventions and it’s taken thousands of years to get to this point.

As a side note. S30v was developed in conjunction with Chris Reeve of Chris Reeve knives. They have switched all of their production over to magnacut.

[blues]

I'm not knife steel snob, and I see the obsession with the various qualities, types, grades, hardness, etc as important to the designers, who should know what the end users are going to use the knife for. It's less important to me on the user side... as long as the knife works for my tasks.

For quite a few years I was really happy with a second hand Browing branded fixed blade hunting knife. It had a good shape for cleaning and skinning big game, sharpened easy enough in the field if needed, and I put it to good use for a long time. I got curious one day, hoping to find a replacement sheath, since I wore out the original, and while poking around I discovered it was a very basic 440C stainless steel. Point is... it wasn't fancy steel, but it worked very well. I stopped carrying it because it was heavy, with aluminum scales, then the rubberized coating on them started getting gummy/tacky.

I've been using Moras and Havalon knives that take the #60 scalpel baldes for easy cleaning, light weight, and being able to swap to a screaming sharp blade in a few seconds (on the Havalon).

The late Harold "Kit" Carson was a dear friend of mine and always stood up, in the 90's, for 440C which by then was being passed over for "younger, prettier girls". That said, when he built my first custom knife for me, he used what was then called CPM 420V...now known as S90V. So while he was content to continue with D2, 440C, and the occasional carbon steel, he was interested in the various qualities of newer steels and their nuances.

I love Mora blades and have a bunch of them all around the house. All of 'em in carbon steel. I "might" have one or two in stainless. Nothing not to like about them in my opinion. I also have a bunch of custom knives from 52100...and not just because Ed Fowler kept it popular.

It's all good. I sent a bunch of my knives home with Jerry Halfrich to Texas after he visited us, and had him test out a bunch of steels which he liked to do. He loved the performance of 52100 due to its fine grain structure. It was a custom knife made by Rick Dunkerley which I picked up second hand years ago.

There's a whole lot of great knives by makers who know how to get the most out of a steel, heat treat and edge geometry. And there's a whole bunch of stinkers too...from folks who don't. Knives don't have to be expensive to be terrific.

[TOTS]

@blues ‘s boy batoning through steel chains with his 3V!!! He seems to have found the heat treatment he likes for Magnacut too!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rY8IFivjcGA

[blues]

@blues ‘s boy batoning through steel chains with his 3V!!! He seems to have found the heat treatment he likes for Magnacut too!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rY8IFivjcGA

Well, I will admit that Nathan and I are friends and chat on the phone or via text, (though I've not met him in person), I think he may draw the line at being called my boy. LOL.

That notwithstanding, he has had issues, as I mentioned, with the cosmetic finishing of MagnaCut. Don't think it was the performance, but as I recall, some superficial pitting on a pattern that was very thin to begin with and didn't allow enough "meat" to surface grind away...at least not to his satisfaction and what he demands from the work he offers for sale.

More about it on his sub-forum. I am not in a position to act as his spokesperson as he has forgotten more today than the total extent of my knowledge on the subject.

[TOTS]

Well, I will admit that Nathan and I are friends and chat on the phone or via text, (though I've not met him in person), I think he may draw the line at being called my boy. LOL.

That notwithstanding, he has had issues, as I mentioned, with the cosmetic finishing of MagnaCut. Don't think it was the performance, but as I recall, some superficial pitting on a pattern that was very thin to begin with and didn't allow enough "meat" to surface grind away...at least not to his satisfaction and what he demands from the work he offers for sale.

More about it on his sub-forum. I am not in a position to act as his spokesperson as he has forgotten more today than the total extent of my knowledge on the subject.

Just internet frippery!!

Regardless, I was impressed in that, while most companies tell you not to baton with a knife, he’s over there chopping through bolts and chains. Impressed.

[RealSelf]

Regardless, I was impressed in that, while most companies tell you not to baton with a knife, he’s over there chopping through bolts and chains. Impressed.

It's mostly geometry, which unfortunately makes his 'knives' nowhere near what I'd call a knife personally. They are closer to being a chisel in many ways at the geometry they run at over 15 degrees per side and a meaty thickness behind that edge. A lot of people are impressed and it's understandable but the real question is what are they designed to do? Are they designed to be efficient working tools? I guess you could say that if you're going to chop and baton very hard stuff.

If you're going to do more normal 'knife stuff' then it's grossly overbuilt and the penalty is it's going to suffer many downsides to a more efficient tool. It will be harder to sharpen for the average user, require more in the way of sharpening tools, be harder to repair when it does take damage (in general, being thicker combined with a very hard carbide matrix in the steel). It's also going to have far generally less cutting ability (ie. more force required to cut) and lower edge retention of the higher edge angle.

As a tactical knife this may not matter and the steel (3V) he often prefers may be just fine if you're knowledgeable enough to handle those challenges. Otherwise, something like 1095 from ESEE is going to be far preferable for most people and WAY more inexpensive to purchase. The argument against 1095 is so tired, why would I want a knife made of lawnmower blade steel? Well, once you understand the rough life those things suffer being beat on and not breaking then you see it's well suited.

[blues]

I'm going to bow out here so that it doesn't appear I have a dog in this fight or need to defend CPK, or any knife maker for that matter, as I have many friends across the industry both here and internationally.

I don't know how many CPKs you own, or have handled, but your dismissal of them doesn't have the ring of truth to it in my experience nor that of many other experienced knife users. (I've only been carrying knives since 1957 or so.)

None of the CPKs which I own are "chisel-like" in performance , especially not the DEK 3 which is ground very thin for excellent slicing performance, while still retaining durability. (I will agree that many of the patterns are (purposely) overbuilt while retaining excellent ability for the field use they were designed for.)

(By the way, Jeff Randall is a friend of mine of many years, and we've spent many hours together both in FL when he visited, as well as at the Blade Show over the years. I own several of his blades, so I can back up what I say.)

That's all I got.