Recommendation? Hunter/Skinner super steel selection

S

Skiller1nc

Joined
Jun 27, 2016
Messages
302
Ok so I know this has been asked 100 times, and I have read 100 posts but I can't make up my mind.

I want to make a run of hunting knives. Simple, drop point style 4-inch blade .125-.18 thick. I am used to doing kitchen knives and I have no experience with higher alloy steels. I mainly use w2, 1095, 26c3, aeb L, and 52100. I have a HT oven/foil/plates/etc and the capability to HT just about anything. I'm looking into steels like D2, Z wear, 3v, 10v, etc. I want a knife that will have high toughness and good edge retention to handle skinning and hunting tasks easily. However I don't want to get into steels so "super" that sharpening becomes too difficult, I want to find that balance. Anyone who has used or worked with these steel please lend some knowledge or advice.
 
A2 @62 has worked very well for the knives of this type I make. Many have gone to professional guides and outfitters and ya know you're getting it right when they order more.
 
Any of the lower carbide PM tool steels work well. I have used M4 on many butchering jobs in the field and is is a favorite, good wear resistance but still fairly easy to sharpen on a small EZE-LAP pocket stone.

10v in my opinion is beyond easy field maintenance.

CPM Cruwear/Zwear are also a favorite.

I have found that for field butchering I like a hardness of 61rc and above as the increase in yeild strength is very helpful in decreasing rolled edges with bone contact.
 
Cpm3v has a great balance of super toughness and edge retention. Sharpens up without too much hassle as well.
 
I’ve never made a knife out of it but had a knife made with cpm s90v. Everyone told me how hard it would be to sharpen. It wasn’t. It would take a razor edge and keep it through months of hard use. It was also tough as nails. I lost that knife about a two years ago and I still haven’t gotten over it.
 
I make my skinners out of either M390 or S35VN, hardened to Rc 60. Either one will take and hold a very good edge, and, despite what you hear, neither is hard to sharpen, as long as you use a diamond stone.
Tim
 
In partial to steels around the s30v retention level in the field. Elmax is another I like. Can do a couple of animals with only a quick lick on the strop but still easy to touch up.

As much as I love a good carbon steel knife, for my multi day wilderness hunts I much prefer stainless. One less thing to fuss with.
 
I have had excellent results with CPM-S30VN. So far it has been well received by customers, too. It is as close as I have found to the perfect all-around stainless steel for modern knifemaking. In carbon steel, I have found 26C3 to be very good all-around. There are many other steels, but these work well for me. The main point is I can learn these steels and get the absolute most from proper methods and HT programming. If I used 20 kinds of steel, I would have to use 20 kinds of HT programs. It also allows buying your steel in a larger quantity to get the best price and shipping cost. Another plus is all the suppliers carry them.


As moderator I see dozens of threads with the same type title, "What is the best steel ....". The answer can be simple ... or complicated.
1) Complicated - You can use Huge ASM books and/or Larrin's wonderful book of charts and graphs* and decide which steel is technically the "best steel" for a specific task/knife. This will mean a different "Best" steel for most every knife you make.

2) Simple - What you really should be looking at is what steels do the BEST for me in all of the categories. There are steels that have good edge retention, good wear resistance, good corrosion resistance, good re-sharpenability, and good price. These are the steels you see most often mentioned in recommendations.
Will they be the BEST at every of these attributes - NO.
Will they be the BEST choice to do well at all these attributes collectively - YES.

*I am going to give an unsolicited plug for Larrin's book here. I have well over $1000 worth of metallurgy books (Don't tell my wife!). The one I now use for knifemaking HT and other decisions is Larrin's book. With all respect to Verhoeven and the other great guys, Larrin understands modern knifemaking far better. His graphs and charts are superb. If that isn't your thing, just flip to the back and look up VERY accurate KNIFEMAKING HT data. Larrin has condensed all the info and experience of his testing and other knifemakers into simple one paragraph instructions. Had this book been around 25 years ago, I would have saved enough for a HT oven in books I don't really need (OK, I sort of need them, but the average maker doesn't).
 
I use Cpm154 at 61rc with subzero treatment. I made one for a buddy that has cleaned 4 deer and 1 elk this year without sharpening. This is skinning snd quartering. That’s a full season or better for most folks without sharpening. How you use it and take care of it go a long way too. If you’re sending it out for heat treat then get whatever. If you are limited in that area get what you can properly heat treat.
 
Nathan, I really respect all of your work, tests, and transparency. May I ask why D2? I've been using it in kitchen knives lately, I like it also. But I decided to switch to 154CM (both PM and ingot) as it has the same carbide type and percentage, plus the ability of being stainless. The Catra testing Larrin has done shows D2 and CPM154 with roughly the same total cards cut at 60-61HRC. Both steels need a sub zero/cryo to get the best out of them, so I would think the best choice would be CPM154CM, simply because it is stainless.

If I may guess at your reply, even though D2 has the same carbide type and %, the carbides in D2 are larger, and give an edge more teeth for protein slicing, and with the right heat treatment, is almost stainless!!! :)
 
Maybe he’s saying the cpm D2.
My friend Tim Wright uses cpm d2 in his semi skinner.
 
samuraistuart said:
Nathan, I really respect all of your work, tests, and transparency. May I ask why D2? I've been using it in kitchen knives lately, I like it also. But I decided to switch to 154CM (both PM and ingot) as it has the same carbide type and percentage, plus the ability of being stainless. The Catra testing Larrin has done shows D2 and CPM154 with roughly the same total cards cut at 60-61HRC. Both steels need a sub zero/cryo to get the best out of them, so I would think the best choice would be CPM154CM, simply because it is stainless.

If I may guess at your reply, even though D2 has the same carbide type and %, the carbides in D2 are larger, and give an edge more teeth for protein slicing, and with the right heat treatment, is almost stainless!!! :)
Click to expand...

You all know that I love Larrin and I also see the value in CATRA cut testing, but my personal experience pursuing edge retention has shown me that the test pieces that do well in that kind of test (which is controlled sawing across abrasive stock) don't perfectly relate to edge retention in normal use. I imagine that as Larrin and I both get older and develop more exposure to various aspects of edge retention and steel performance that our views (which are already very similar) may further converge.

An alloy like D2 can have very difference characteristics depending on both its particular makeup and its heat treat. So, while it's entirely possible that cut tests that show mediocre edge retention in D2 compared to some of the fun new alloys like S30V (my favorite steel to pick on) may have been performed on sub-standard test pieces, I think it's also entirely possible that those samples were good representations of those alloys and the tests themselves are flawed. Or, if not flawed, at least only showing part of the picture and then being interpreted by people as absolute. This becomes obvious when you sit down with a good example of S30V and a good example of D2 and cut a variety of stuff using a variety of cutting techniques (controlling edge geometry and those techniques) and you see that D2 can run circles around S30V and many other "super steels" in normal use. This is D2 with a cutlery heat treat, not tool-and-die.

D2 doesn't have particularly good edge stability, but properly heat treated for knives it can be better than many super steels. And the large blobs of primary carbides and carbide forming alloys that get mushed out into disks aligned with the cutting edge during rolling that form your big carbides in the finished knife are large and less rounded than the PM steels so they are less likely to fall out of the cutting edge. Yes, they do represent stress risers that reduce toughness in a large piece of steel, but in practice they're relatively durable in a knife edge. I have tried American made conventional melt D2, PM D2 and sprayed D2 (PSF27) and for the use we're talking about here (hunter/skinner) I prefer regular old school cross rolled electroslag remelt D2 steel with an optimized heat treat. I have had better luck with it.

PM steels certainly are tough, particularly when looked at from a macro scale. But their edge durability and edge retention in normal use aren't always spectacular. The reputation of D2 is marred by the poor performance of bad material (where is your D2 really made and with what?) and mediocre heat treats better suited to a forming die or mold, which makes good D2 a particularly under rated material. I don't use it much anymore because there aren't a lot of buyers for it, but I frequently prefer it for my own knives.

It's not unusual for hunters to be accustomed to stopping to sharpen their knives in use or using multiple knives to get through a difficult animal, because walmart knives. It's also not unusual for a good D2 skinner to process a dozen animals through a season (cutting abrasive hide and clacking bone) without needing any maintenance at all. There are plenty of good alloys for this but, having done a fair bit of it, I haven't found a better alloy for the application than plain D2.

Edit to add: I haven't tried Cruwear for this. I have tried 3V, 4V and M2 which are kind of related.
 
Last edited:
Nathan the Machinist said:
You all know that I love Larrin and I also see the value in CATRA cut testing, but my personal experience pursuing edge retention has shown me that the test pieces that do well in that kind of test (which is controlled sawing across abrasive stock) don't perfectly relate to edge retention in normal use. I imagine that as Larrin and I both get older and develop more exposure to various aspects of edge retention and steel performance that our views (which are already very similar) may further converge.

An alloy like D2 can have very difference characteristics depending on both its particular makeup and its heat treat. So, while it's entirely possible that cut tests that show mediocre edge retention in D2 compared to some of the fun new alloys like S30V (my favorite steel to pick on) may have been performed on sub-standard test pieces, I think it's also entirely possible that those samples were good representations of those alloys and the tests themselves are flawed. Or, if not flawed, at least only showing part of the picture and then being interpreted by people as absolute. This becomes obvious when you sit down with a good example of S30V and a good example of D2 and cut a variety of stuff using a variety of cutting techniques (controlling edge geometry and those techniques) and you see that D2 can run circles around S30V and many other "super steels" in normal use. This is D2 with a cutlery heat treat, not tool-and-die.

D2 doesn't have particularly good edge stability, but properly heat treated for knives it can be better than many super steels. And the large blobs of primary carbides and carbide forming alloys that get mushed out into disks aligned with the cutting edge during rolling that form your big carbides in the finished knife are large and less rounded than the PM steels so they are less likely to fall out of the cutting edge. Yes, they do represent stress risers that reduce toughness in a large piece of steel, but in practice they're relatively durable in a knife edge. I have tried American made conventional melt D2, PM D2 and sprayed D2 (PSF27) and for the use we're talking about here (hunter/skinner) I prefer regular old school cross rolled electroslag remelt D2 steel with an optimized heat treat. I have had better luck with it.

PM steels certainly are tough, particularly when looked at from a macro scale. But their edge durability and edge retention in normal use aren't always spectacular. The reputation of D2 is marred by the poor performance of bad material (where is your D2 really made and with what?) and mediocre heat treats better suited to a forming die or mold, which makes good D2 a particularly under rated material. I don't use it much anymore because there aren't a lot of buyers for it, but I frequently prefer it for my own knives.

It's not unusual for hunters to be accustomed to stopping to sharpen their knives in use or using multiple knives to get through a difficult animal, because walmart knives. It's also not unusual for a good D2 skinner to process a dozen animals through a season (cutting abrasive hide and clacking bone) without needing any maintenance at all. There are plenty of good alloys for this but, having done a fair bit of it, I haven't found a better alloy for the application than plain D2.

Edit to add: I haven't tried Cruwear for this. I have tried 3V, 4V and M2 which are kind of related.
Click to expand...

Alright Nathan you peaked my interest. While I love the PM tool steels for processing game, which I do a fair amount, I can see the potential for D2 as a higher wear resistant game processing knife that would be easier to sharpen for those that are vexed by vandium carbides.

My question to you is you mention a cutlery specific heat treat, I am assuming by this you mean a prequench with cryo and low temper?
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
You all know that I love Larrin and I also see the value in CATRA cut testing, but my personal experience pursuing edge retention has shown me that the test pieces that do well in that kind of test (which is controlled sawing across abrasive stock) don't perfectly relate to edge retention in normal use. I imagine that as Larrin and I both get older and develop more exposure to various aspects of edge retention and steel performance that our views (which are already very similar) may further converge.

An alloy like D2 can have very difference characteristics depending on both its particular makeup and its heat treat. So, while it's entirely possible that cut tests that show mediocre edge retention in D2 compared to some of the fun new alloys like S30V (my favorite steel to pick on) may have been performed on sub-standard test pieces, I think it's also entirely possible that those samples were good representations of those alloys and the tests themselves are flawed. Or, if not flawed, at least only showing part of the picture and then being interpreted by people as absolute. This becomes obvious when you sit down with a good example of S30V and a good example of D2 and cut a variety of stuff using a variety of cutting techniques (controlling edge geometry and those techniques) and you see that D2 can run circles around S30V and many other "super steels" in normal use. This is D2 with a cutlery heat treat, not tool-and-die.

D2 doesn't have particularly good edge stability, but properly heat treated for knives it can be better than many super steels. And the large blobs of primary carbides and carbide forming alloys that get mushed out into disks aligned with the cutting edge during rolling that form your big carbides in the finished knife are large and less rounded than the PM steels so they are less likely to fall out of the cutting edge. Yes, they do represent stress risers that reduce toughness in a large piece of steel, but in practice they're relatively durable in a knife edge. I have tried American made conventional melt D2, PM D2 and sprayed D2 (PSF27) and for the use we're talking about here (hunter/skinner) I prefer regular old school cross rolled electroslag remelt D2 steel with an optimized heat treat. I have had better luck with it.

PM steels certainly are tough, particularly when looked at from a macro scale. But their edge durability and edge retention in normal use aren't always spectacular. The reputation of D2 is marred by the poor performance of bad material (where is your D2 really made and with what?) and mediocre heat treats better suited to a forming die or mold, which makes good D2 a particularly under rated material. I don't use it much anymore because there aren't a lot of buyers for it, but I frequently prefer it for my own knives.

It's not unusual for hunters to be accustomed to stopping to sharpen their knives in use or using multiple knives to get through a difficult animal, because walmart knives. It's also not unusual for a good D2 skinner to process a dozen animals through a season (cutting abrasive hide and clacking bone) without needing any maintenance at all. There are plenty of good alloys for this but, having done a fair bit of it, I haven't found a better alloy for the application than plain D2.

Edit to add: I haven't tried Cruwear for this. I have tried 3V, 4V and M2 which are kind of related.
Click to expand...
Who sells the electroslag-remelt D2?

Hoss
 
DevinT said:
Who sells the electroslag-remelt D2?

Hoss
Click to expand...

I may have misspoke. I think I didn't use the right terminology there. I said "elecroslag remelt" when I think I should have said "vacuum arc remelt". If my memory serves me, the Precision Marshall Steel D2 I used to use was advertised as "superior cleanliness vacuum arc remelt". I think it was a pretty good steel. Of course Precision Marshall doesn't actually make steel, they process it. I think they're rolling (cross rolling), shearing, grinding and packaging it. I don't know much about their "Aristocrat" material today. They don't make it and I expect it's subject to change. I've been ordering American made Crucible D2 through NSM. I've used the conventional melt and the PM versions of it and I prefer the conventional melt for knives.

A local steel supplier here in the Charlotte area (SB specialty) has an assortment of ESR materials. I don't see D2 on their site but they've told me they can get materials not listed, you might ask them. We did a run in the PSF27 D2, which I don't see listed anymore, but it was listed with their ESR materials, though I don't how they make it.

Short answer, I don't actually know where to get ESR D2. However there are a number of suppliers of quality American made conventional melt D2 steel that would be a good fit for a skinner
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top