Benchmade 551 S30V vs. Spyderco Para 2 S45VN: Chipping vs. Tip Strenght

Z

Zenturio

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Aug 7, 2017
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Hello together,

I need your help please. Yesterday I went to my local knife shops and can not decide which knife to get. I owned several BM 551 but always ended up selling or gifting them to friends. I also owned a Paramilitary 2, 10 years ago.

So I like both knives a lot, they are quite similar in terms of weight, comfortable handle design, blade lenght and ease of use.

Both models I tried to examine yesterday are perfectly executed. Nice grinds, no blade play in any directions, so that makrs it even harder to decide.

I have one concern about every model. For the BM 551 I am afraid that the edge behaves chippy. I experienced a brittle edge on my last Presidio CF Elite with S30V, even after 4 sharpenings and rather light use. It would drive me insane if that particular BM 551 S30V would behave that way. I would smash it against the concrete floor I guess...

The Paramilitary 2 seems to have better cutting geometry, but the tip meets very fine with an accute edge bevel (which are good things actually). I do not abuse my knives at all, but I do hard cutting like full weight wood carving and cutting thick plastic tubes (which includes stabbing into the material before starting the cut). The particular model I saw yesterday uses S45VN steel which should be minimal tougher than S30V, but I do not think that is significant for tip breaking behaviour talking about the same knife.

What do you think is the thing more likely to happen? Chippy S30V from Benchmade or a broken tip of S45VN Spyderco Paramilitary (no abuse, but hard use)?

Both models are pleasant to me.

Thank you very much!
BR Oliver
 
I prefer the PM2, tip strength is not an issue for me. If the tip breaks I modify it and continue on. Chipping however, I am either sharpening serrations or over sharpening the knife wearing it away at a much faster rate.
 
S45VN slightly tougher than S30V.

That being said, I've broken the tip on my S30V Pm2 before lol, prying open a can of beer. At that moment, I don't think being S45VN would've helped it survive the beer can.

Anyway, the pm2 has a much more acute edge (Spyderco does about 17degrees I think) and tip than the grip, so for toughness the grip is probably going to win. I used to have a 940 that had a very brittle edge, but after about a year and numerous touchups the edge got less chippy.

Hope this helps. How about a Super Freek in M4? I've never had M4 chip on me you can still find that knife at a reasonable price. My friend gifted me a couple of grips in 154CM which are noticeably tougher than the newer S30V ones.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Super Freek looks good, but I stiffened my mind only on those two models at the moment.

I watched tons of videos, where neither tip breakage nor brittleness was an issue, but I am not sure if that is enough inlut for me to decide ;)

I have never broken any tip of a knife ever (I owned and used tons...). And the only brittle edge I have ever experienced happened with a BM Presidio in S30V.

Overall strenght winner would be the 551, PM2 is also quite tough. So hard to decide...
 
The Grip's blade is 0.115 inches thick. The Para 2's in 0.145 inches. I presume those measurements are taken at the thickest locations on the blades.

If you can handle the knives, you could measure the blade thickness near the tip yourself. Or maybe some forum member with some spare time can do it for you.
 
Get the Spyderco. You'll be glad you did.

If you feel inclined to pry, scrape, open bottles, or any of those sorts of things; you could always explore the growing world of titanium pry bars. Even just a little guy on a key ring can be surprisingly handy.
 
Hello all,

thanks for your input.

A Paramilitary 2 Tanto is not available at my local shops or other European dealers atm.

I read and watched more threads and videos about those topics, but unfortunately without clearer view 😅

I guess Benchmade did nothing new about HT and/or edge grinding, which could have reduced edge brittleness since the past months. I am not sure what to do at all, despite I lime these two models a lot.

Maybe more input to come, thank you in advance!

BR Oliver
 
I like some spydercos but not the PM2. The Grip will have better HT and be more useful in general
 
DMG said:
I have owned the PM2 and a Grip at the same time and found the PM2 HT to be disappointing.
Click to expand...

How many times did you sharpen each? Remember that factory edges are notorious and pretty much never give a true indication of heat treatment. Only once you've sharpened down to fresh steel (with methods that don't generate a bunch of heat) will you be getting a true indication. Also note that the effects of factory grinding and how deep they run can vary significantly between knives from the same factories.
 
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