Magnacut performance

L

Logan2070

Joined
Aug 30, 2024
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I only have one knife in Magnacut, a Hogue Deka wharncliffe. Its only seen light use so it's hard to gauge it's performance vs something like S30V. I have only touched it up on the ceramic rod and a stop, get nice and sharp. What has your experience been with Magnacut so far?
 
Full disclosure: I really haven't been able to tell a huge difference. I only have one Magnacut blade, a SHF, and I honestly think it's probably a bit thick behind the edge for what it needs to be to get Magnacut levels of performance. So far, it has behaved like a premium steel in terms of not needing to be sharpened and holding a razors edge.

However, I'm not much of a steel snob. Cruwear is my favorite as of now, and I feel pretty much tickled pink with anything S35VN or above.
 
I'm not an expert on knife steels with D2 being the only knife steel I have tried. before I bought my first Magnacut a couple of months ago and I would guess the edge life close to twice of D2.
 
Bluntcut sent me a test knife he built with MagnaCut at 63.5 Rc, which is harder than I generally would want because there is more toughness at lower hardnesses. But Luong put on an amazing heat treat. And he ground the edge insanely fine so that problems with the steel would be quickly obvious.

What was quickly obvious is that MagnaCut, with Luong's great heat treat, is an awesome steel. The blade edge was ground to 0.009 inches BTE -- 9 thousandths behind the edge. Most production blades are closer to 0.030 inches BTE, so novice users don't damage the edge. The edge angle was about 10 degrees. It was so acute that it was difficult to measure either a laser protractor.

I ran the blade through an increasingly tough batch of tests, tests that have damaged S30V or Aus8 run much softer. There was no damage. The thin edge was awesome. Only through abusive tests could I induce some chipping.

This steel can be truly awesome.
 
I look forward to trying some out one day. I like AEB-L so far. I know it's not a super steel, but it is doing good for me. Magnacut is suppose to be a little better in edge holding and rust resistance. A little less in toughness.
 
Logan2070 said:
I only have one knife in Magnacut, a Hogue Deka wharncliffe. Its only seen light use so it's hard to gauge it's performance vs something like S30V. I have only touched it up on the ceramic rod and a stop, get nice and sharp. What has your experience been with Magnacut so far?
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Keep using it.
 
MC cuts and sharpens like S30V to me, which is why I like it. It holds an edge very well too. I don’t know anything else about them other than I really like using them and can’t tell any difference between a MC Sebenza and a S30 or S35 Sebenza when cutting.
 
nettle said:
I'm not an expert on knife steels with D2 being the only knife steel I have tried. before I bought my first Magnacut a couple of months ago and I would guess the edge life close to twice of D2.
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That's some bad D2 then.

Edit: I know D2 is a low end steel, but I've seen D2 knives holding a working edge close to S35VN... despite S35VN being tougher and way more stain resistant...
 
I have two knives with Magnacut, a Bradford Guardian 3 and a Buck Custom Shop 110. I found Magnacut to be amazingly easy to sharpen, takes a very fine edge and holds it as well or better than S35Vn, and is very tough. I tried both out by whittling some seasoned, knotty pine in my Officially Certified Metallurgical Test Lab (my garage) and experienced no chips or rolls.
 
I’ve been carrying and using the Buck 501 “the Larrin” for almost 2 years now and it’s my favorite. The hardness is supposed to be 63-64 hrc and at that hardness I haven’t had any chipping or rolling of the edge. Edge stability seems to be very good and takes a nice keen edge that lasts a good long time.

In comparison It behaves very similar to s35vn but is a little easier to sharpen, and edge holding is about the same as s35vn maybe a little better, the toughness seems to be better when cutting tough dirty materials and that seems to be where Magnacut really shines. I have some Buck s30v and 20cv that has better edge retention but I’ve had some instances of edge chipping when cutting dirty materials and coming in contact with metals and other hard stuff where the Magnacut has not shown any damage. The Buck 501 is a small 2.85 inch blade so it’s not a chopper so it hasn’t been tested that way but in cutting it performs very well. Ymmv
 
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