.....?
Yes
May be a little harder to sharpen but a lot go people like s30v.
May be a little harder to sharpen but a lot go people like s30v.
Depends on who makes it and how they heat-treat it.
S30V is good to go!
I've got a Buck with the s30v.
It gets sharp enough to scrape out a few hairs... it losses the edge quickly but doesn't seem to get much duller.
It gets sharp enough to scrape out a few hairs... it losses the edge quickly but doesn't seem to get much duller.
I really like the knives I have in s30v. Both of mine were heat treated to 60HRC and are sharpened to a 15%. They hold that edge better than my ats-34 and 154cm knives. My dad borrowed one and liked it enough that I'm not planning on seeing it again until after hunting season.
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I want to get this for my dad
http://www.knivesshipfree.com/bench...ep-country-hunter-orange-santoprene-gut-hook/
Does benchmade make a decent knife?
http://www.knivesshipfree.com/bench...ep-country-hunter-orange-santoprene-gut-hook/
Does benchmade make a decent knife?
That's actually a great knife. They make a lot of knives in the hunt series with some cooler looking fake wood (I can't remember what it's called) or G10 as well as the Orange or Black Santoprene (which isn't bad either).
I don't generally like a gut hook on a fixed blade, but if your dad does, then that's a really nice knife with an awesome Kydex sheath. Benchmade runs the heat-treat on their S30V a bit softer than some of the other makers (like ZT or Spyderco), but that's not necessarily a bad thing (especially when using them hard - like skinning/gutting/butchering out large game animals and occasionally bumping into something harder and not having to worry about edge-chips).
Benchmade's life-sharp service is good if your dad isn't into sharpening knives. If he is, then if he puts a fairly obtuse primary bevel and a good micro-bevel on it, it will stay sharp for a pretty long time.
One of the big things that makes S30V so wear resistant is all the vanadium carbides. Even heating it to the low end at 58HRC it will still perform very well, and will be easier to sharpen. Benchmade does a great job on their heat treatment which means things like grain size and carbide distribution are going to be optimal.
S30V does tend to wear from a razor edge to a "working edge" rather quickly though - the working edge will typically last for quite a long time and you can usually strop it back to razor-sharp with little effort but in all the knives I've owned, I've found that the softer the Rockwell hardness, the quicker it loses that razor edge.
Compared to 154CM / VG10, it's still a longer overall edge-retention, but when you get to any number of fancier steels out there, it starts to show quickly (chop up some Pico De Gaio against a cutting board for a while and you really notice when the tomatoes aren't so easy to slice anymore but your knife is still sharp enough to cut stuff with it's working edge - D2, ELMAX, or CTS-XHP will outlast S30V in that initial razor sharp edge-retention).
I personally prefer the softer S30V / S35VN to the harder stuff as I've had edge-chips in S30V knives before and it's kind of a pain to get them out (usually takes a couple of sharpenings because I don't like removing that much metal unless I have to). I'd rather get a roll or bend in the edge and be able to get it out than have the extra few cuts of edge-retention to be honest.
You can make the inital razor-edge-retention last a bit longer with edge-geometry and a secondary bevel (or even a tertiary if you've got the skills/tools). I take my S30V edges out as wide as I can (I've got to look in my sharpening notebook, but I think my PM2 is at 19 degrees per side with a secondary micro-bevel at 21 per side).
Here's Ankerson's famous manila rope cutting test for how specific knives with various heat-treatment did (Note the S30V at 60 Rockwell in category 5 where as the S30V in 58.5 ends up down in Category 7):
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...based-on-Edge-Retention-cutting-5-8-quot-rope
Compared to 154CM / VG10, it's still a longer overall edge-retention, but when you get to any number of fancier steels out there, it starts to show quickly (chop up some Pico De Gaio against a cutting board for a while and you really notice when the tomatoes aren't so easy to slice anymore but your knife is still sharp enough to cut stuff with it's working edge - D2, ELMAX, or CTS-XHP will outlast S30V in that initial razor sharp edge-retention).
I personally prefer the softer S30V / S35VN to the harder stuff as I've had edge-chips in S30V knives before and it's kind of a pain to get them out (usually takes a couple of sharpenings because I don't like removing that much metal unless I have to). I'd rather get a roll or bend in the edge and be able to get it out than have the extra few cuts of edge-retention to be honest.
You can make the inital razor-edge-retention last a bit longer with edge-geometry and a secondary bevel (or even a tertiary if you've got the skills/tools). I take my S30V edges out as wide as I can (I've got to look in my sharpening notebook, but I think my PM2 is at 19 degrees per side with a secondary micro-bevel at 21 per side).
Here's Ankerson's famous manila rope cutting test for how specific knives with various heat-treatment did (Note the S30V at 60 Rockwell in category 5 where as the S30V in 58.5 ends up down in Category 7):
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...based-on-Edge-Retention-cutting-5-8-quot-rope
