how good is 80CRV2 (L2) for a sword

T

thedirector93

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Dec 10, 2013
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so im thinking about making a sword from 80CRV2 (L2) steel and i was wondering if it would be a good steel. the sword was going to be 30in long and around 2.5 in. wide, and 3/16 in. thick. its gonna look a lot like the spartan sword from 300. i've heard this steel is similar to 5160 spring steel, some have said its even better, what are your opinions?
 
I am curious about this same thing for small full tang hatchets. I've been looking for something that takes impacts better than the O-1 I use now and saw this on Aldo's website the other night.
 
I'm about to be playing around with it. So far I've just forged on it for one heat. It's a bit stiffer under the hammer than 5160, but nothing like 1095.

Daniel Winkler recently announced that he will be moving most of the knives and axes in his Winkler II line over to it. And talking with Aldo Bruno about it, it should cover anything from small knives to tomahawks and big choppers and do well with a simple heat treatment.

I plan on doing big (16"-ish) and little blades with it, if testing goes as well as I anticipate.

So I would give a "go ahead and try it" vote.
 
I was going to mention that I had heard that Daniel Winkler was moving over to this steel, but James beat me to it. IIRC, that means that 80CrV2 will be replacing both 52100 and 5160 in the Winkler 2 lineup and neither of those steels are know for being delicate when heat treated properly.
 
Call Aldo at the NJSB,he has nothing but good things to say about 80 crv2.He even E-Mailed me a printable page of heatreat specs.
Eddie
 
Here's what Winkler said about it: "In an effort to continually improve the knives and axes we offer I am continually testing new steel grades and heat treatments. Over the past few months we have been testing a new steel from Aldo at New Jersey Steel Baron. 80CRV2 is a steel that has shown some of the best performance properties of any I have tested yet. Edge holding is up there with 52-100 the strength factor rivals 1084, and the shock resistance seems better than 5160. In this regard I have decided, over the next few months, to switch most of our knives and axes to the 80CRV2 steel. I will still use cpm154 for the SAR because people sometimes need a stainless steel knife. I will still use S7 or H-13 for the Rescue axe as extreme shock resistance is necessary for that model. And I am planning on adding a new knife design soon that will be cpm3v along with a new Weapon Retention Tool made from 1095. More on those soon.
Daniel"

So it won't be his exclusive alloy, but it's going to cover the majority of his line.
 
The REALLY fun part is that it is priced right in between 5160 and 52100. I loves me some CPM 3V, but it is pretty pricey and it is not so easy to pass on that cost when you are talking about something like a basic little bushcraft knife. I am anxious to see if it I can be had in thicker cross sections because it would likely be a good steel for something like a bushcraft axe.
 
jdm61 said:
The REALLY fun part is that it is priced right in between 5160 and 52100. I loves me some CPM 3V, but it is pretty pricey and it is not so easy to pass on that cost when you are talking about something like a basic little bushcraft knife. I am anxious to see if it I can be had in thicker cross sections because it would likely be a good steel for something like a bushcraft axe.
Click to expand...

I love 3V but I I think in big blades the cost just isn't worth it to the customer in most cases. Especially in big, hard use pieces that are going to in all likelihood be taking some edge damage during use like hawks and machetes. Using 3V almost doubles the cost of big blades for me between the price of the steel and the extra wear on belts.

That said, I will be making some machetes in 3V and a few hawks as well in the future. You really can't beat its performance.

I'll be testing some breaching hawks in 80crV2 at 58 and will report back on how they perform. Looks like a great steel that is priced well.
 
image.jpg
The top khuk was my second test blade out of 80CrV2. That's a 3/8" to 1/8" distal taper, differential hardened.
It works nicely, is tough, and gets very sharp quite easily.
 
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