I got the last of this batch of 20CV Endura 2 weeks ago. This rabbit hole of knowing the matrix of the steel in your knives could be less bound together due to production batches of blades not being babied with exact temperatures and timing. I’m glad to say after nerding about this to people over time, I was able to stop in a local welders guild that had a Brinell hardness tester. My 20CV Averages at 633 Brinell which is roughly 60.4. I’m happy with that. The Endura isn’t the best geometry for 20CV anyways so I don’t want it chipping or snapping.
I caught part of your stream the other night, and here’s some MORE extremely useful content. Thank you, man! I hope ya keep it up, (you deserve many more subs, btw)!
I bought a while back the mini sheepdog in 10v, wanted to get the regular one but upon using and sharpening i was wondering if the 10v was ht well. Seems like what i felt was in line with your results, thank you for showing us your results on HRC!
Hold on...hold on go back to that Adamas. You regrinded the blade and it looks sick! Can you please tell me about that. I have one and would love to do that. Who does that sort of thing? Thanks. Great video
Really like these informative videos on hrc results, it really helps people to know what there buying. Also I bought a 10v sheepdog too and the factory edge went so quickly, then gave it 2 more edges and those didn't last much longer. So I knew it was 60 or below and sold it. I figured it wasn't going to be great but for the price I figured I'd try it, and sold it for what I paid. Crazy thing is it sharpened up really nice, almost to easy.
Of course, everything is subjective when it comes to sharpening, but 10v sharpens about as easy as possible when you account for that level of edge retention (and Vanadium). Certainly easier than almost every forum post about it could lead one to believe, especially if it's a nice thin grind.
The thing that needs an explanation IMHO is the result of cpm 20CV Endura when supposedly the same factory in Japan did a good job on K390 of the same knife. This means the same factory can do heat treatment in an inconsistent way depending on steel type even when the blade is essentially identical in that case Endura blade. So frustrating.
Thanks for the show, and for laying out your numbers. I love this! : - ) Let me add some bits . . . I've just not had much interest in Cruwear, so I have never tested what little of it I have. Only a couple Manix 2's with it, I think? That Sage 5 S30V has a pretty good number. That Kizer 10V is very disappointing. I almost bought one, but I usually stay away from non-full distal taper blades. So I didn't get one. That K390 Endura, is Spectacular! Wow, that's a keeper for life. Don't ever let that one go. I love K390! Production knives in 20CV, M390, 204P are disappointing 90+% of the time. This Endura is no different. All of my Rex 45 (Shaman and Manix 2's) are 1 to 2 points higher (66.6, to 67.4) than your PM 2. I love Rex 45! My hardest one, being the Knife Center Rosewood Shaman model. My St. Nick's knives in 4V (Shaman, Manix 2), and my Steingraber Shark. Run from 64.2 to 65.7. This Para 3 of yours, is very respectable. 4V is good stuff, and many of the Blade Sports competitors have moved over from M4, to use it. Though myself, and many others still prefer M4.
Not gonna lie was expecting the Rex 45 to do a little higher, but it should still performs excellent, same with the 4V but both are high enough so they will perform well
I can't remember who it was (possibly Pavel) but I saw a few tests where the edge retention difference between 10v at 65hrc and 59hrc was like sub 10%. The 10v class is by far my favorite class of steels (and also the one I have the most experience with) and I've had examples as low as 62 and as high as 66.8 and if none had been tested I'd probably have guessed they were all similar HRC. I'm definitely not trying to justify poor HT, but it's been my experience that 10v is one of the more forgiving ones, so that kizer would probably still make a great user.
This can very possibly be true, I haven't done a cut test on my 10v knives. But I do have a 10v knife at 65.5 and did buy the 10v sheepdog. Testing on cardboard isn't something I tried but I did notice the sheepdog edge not lasting nearly as long as my custom fixed blade in 10v and the sheepdog took way more edge damage throughout my use. Now I'm a construction worker and used both at work and this is what I noticed, so not actually controlled by any means. Just my experience
@@chriswebb3018 Oh I totally believe it's within kizers wheelhouse to mess up 10v, so I don't doubt your experience one bit. I can't find the Pavel videos I was thinking of (it may not have been him, but it was definitely one of the eastern European/Russian testers) but I did find that Larrin's results seem to coincide with the results I was thinking of. Again, not trying to dispute your experience at all.
Honestly I think most of Kizers knives are sitting right in the 60 range for HRC!! I say this because it would seem to me that they use a very standard heat treatment across the board for their knives. I had a Towser K in 154CM tested by a buddy of mine that owns a fabrication shop. He has a STARRETT benchtop model and it was somewhere in the range $4K-$5K. The tester uses a diamond to indent the surface of the steel and he uses it because a lot of the stuff he fabricates has to meet specifications for all kinds of criteria including HRC. The Towser K was sitting at 60.2. So after I did this test with the Towser K it sparked my interest even more with Kizer. So I took my Kizer Gemini and this particular one is the black linen micarta button lock model designed by Ray Laconico with a 4V blade and I tested it a couple weeks later. The results from the 4V were 61.6HRC. So with all this said I think Kizer is using a very encompassing heat treatment protocol and that is resulting in blade steel across their lineup being very similar in HRC. Now for the next part!! I think Kizer brings to market a very good deal for the actual money when it comes to their hardness. Most people are going to enjoy a knife in the 60 range of HRC as it will provide relatively good wear resistance and still be fairly easy sharpen. I tell people to use diamond stones when you start getting close to the 60 HRC realm. Keep the reality of this circumstance in perspective!! A blade steel at or beyond 60 HRC is actually very hard!! My buddy that owns the fabrication shop isn’t really a big knife guy and was telling me how surprised he was to see numbers like that on a standard pocket knife. I would say that about 99.9% of knife users are never going to realistically need a blade much harder than 60HRC. So it’s my opinion that for the money Kizer is a fairly decent option, often producing knives in the 60 or better HRC territory for a much lower price than several of its competitors!!
Interesting I’d say for the money or even the steel I’d use a different steel if hrc is kept lower, 10v is meant to be at harder Rockwells and really performs better there, I think S30v or even Something like a 3v do better at 60 than 10v
Really useful data here, thanks for this. Quite sad to see the kizer 10v results to be honest, but not necessarily surprising. Otherwise, spyderco doing pretty well on the other fronts. Keep it up man, looking forward to seeing the cut tests!
In my experience of s110 or s90v being chippy its only been 2 things. Either you gotta get a couple sharpenings into the blade to get past the belt ground edge, or it's to soft. The high vanadium stainless steels do way better around 60-62. I know it sounds backwards that harder is less chippy than softer s110v but that's my experience. My uncle has a machine shop where I am able to test my knives, and no I'm not certified incase Rick Hinderer is reading this.
I got the last of this batch of 20CV Endura 2 weeks ago. This rabbit hole of knowing the matrix of the steel in your knives could be less bound together due to production batches of blades not being babied with exact temperatures and timing. I’m glad to say after nerding about this to people over time, I was able to stop in a local welders guild that had a Brinell hardness tester. My 20CV Averages at 633 Brinell which is roughly 60.4. I’m happy with that. The Endura isn’t the best geometry for 20CV anyways so I don’t want it chipping or snapping.
I caught part of your stream the other night, and here’s some MORE extremely useful content. Thank you, man! I hope ya keep it up, (you deserve many more subs, btw)!
Thank you, try to provide as much information as possible, but all of this isn’t possible without Gerald from @outpost76
@@allthingsknives Ah yes, I’m subbed to his channel too. Tons of great info there as well.
thank You sir....great video
Glad you enjoyed
"Life it to short for soft steel",love it 😀 tee shirts maybe ?
Id definitely buy a shirt with that, and his logo on it
Oh yeah, when the channel gets a little larger for sure
I bought a while back the mini sheepdog in 10v, wanted to get the regular one but upon using and sharpening i was wondering if the 10v was ht well. Seems like what i felt was in line with your results, thank you for showing us your results on HRC!
Always trust the way a steel feels in use, experience will never lie
Hold on...hold on go back to that Adamas. You regrinded the blade and it looks sick! Can you please tell me about that. I have one and would love to do that. Who does that sort of thing? Thanks. Great video
Bgm knives
Really like these informative videos on hrc results, it really helps people to know what there buying. Also I bought a 10v sheepdog too and the factory edge went so quickly, then gave it 2 more edges and those didn't last much longer. So I knew it was 60 or below and sold it. I figured it wasn't going to be great but for the price I figured I'd try it, and sold it for what I paid. Crazy thing is it sharpened up really nice, almost to easy.
Of course, everything is subjective when it comes to sharpening, but 10v sharpens about as easy as possible when you account for that level of edge retention (and Vanadium).
Certainly easier than almost every forum post about it could lead one to believe, especially if it's a nice thin grind.
I’d say mine is performing a little better than that but still not where I’d like it to be.
The thing that needs an explanation IMHO is the result of cpm 20CV Endura when supposedly the same factory in Japan did a good job on K390 of the same knife. This means the same factory can do heat treatment in an inconsistent way depending on steel type even when the blade is essentially identical in that case Endura blade. So frustrating.
Most 20cv even golden stuff has a hard time being consistently heat treated M390 seems to do better in this aspect
I'm also curious what Spyderco's new s45vn comes in at.
Another good video! 👍
Thanks for the show, and for laying out your numbers. I love this!
: - )
Let me add some bits . . .
I've just not had much interest in Cruwear, so I have never tested what little of it I have. Only a couple Manix 2's with it, I think?
That Sage 5 S30V has a pretty good number.
That Kizer 10V is very disappointing. I almost bought one, but I usually stay away from non-full distal taper blades. So I didn't get one.
That K390 Endura, is Spectacular! Wow, that's a keeper for life. Don't ever let that one go. I love K390!
Production knives in 20CV, M390, 204P are disappointing 90+% of the time. This Endura is no different.
All of my Rex 45 (Shaman and Manix 2's) are 1 to 2 points higher (66.6, to 67.4) than your PM 2. I love Rex 45! My hardest one, being the Knife Center Rosewood Shaman model.
My St. Nick's knives in 4V (Shaman, Manix 2), and my Steingraber Shark. Run from 64.2 to 65.7. This Para 3 of yours, is very respectable. 4V is good stuff, and many of the Blade Sports competitors have moved over from M4, to use it. Though myself, and many others still prefer M4.
Not gonna lie was expecting the Rex 45 to do a little higher, but it should still performs excellent, same with the 4V but both are high enough so they will perform well
Spyderco’s seki k390 is an incredible value. I have an endela and delica wharncliffe and they both feel incredibly hard on stones.
I can't remember who it was (possibly Pavel) but I saw a few tests where the edge retention difference between 10v at 65hrc and 59hrc was like sub 10%.
The 10v class is by far my favorite class of steels (and also the one I have the most experience with) and I've had examples as low as 62 and as high as 66.8 and if none had been tested I'd probably have guessed they were all similar HRC.
I'm definitely not trying to justify poor HT, but it's been my experience that 10v is one of the more forgiving ones, so that kizer would probably still make a great user.
This can very possibly be true, I haven't done a cut test on my 10v knives. But I do have a 10v knife at 65.5 and did buy the 10v sheepdog. Testing on cardboard isn't something I tried but I did notice the sheepdog edge not lasting nearly as long as my custom fixed blade in 10v and the sheepdog took way more edge damage throughout my use. Now I'm a construction worker and used both at work and this is what I noticed, so not actually controlled by any means. Just my experience
@@chriswebb3018
Oh I totally believe it's within kizers wheelhouse to mess up 10v, so I don't doubt your experience one bit.
I can't find the Pavel videos I was thinking of (it may not have been him, but it was definitely one of the eastern European/Russian testers) but I did find that Larrin's results seem to coincide with the results I was thinking of. Again, not trying to dispute your experience at all.
This 10v basically performs like M4 which isn’t bad at all
Honestly I think most of Kizers knives are sitting right in the 60 range for HRC!! I say this because it would seem to me that they use a very standard heat treatment across the board for their knives. I had a Towser K in 154CM tested by a buddy of mine that owns a fabrication shop. He has a STARRETT benchtop model and it was somewhere in the range $4K-$5K. The tester uses a diamond to indent the surface of the steel and he uses it because a lot of the stuff he fabricates has to meet specifications for all kinds of criteria including HRC. The Towser K was sitting at 60.2. So after I did this test with the Towser K it sparked my interest even more with Kizer. So I took my Kizer Gemini and this particular one is the black linen micarta button lock model designed by Ray Laconico with a 4V blade and I tested it a couple weeks later. The results from the 4V were 61.6HRC. So with all this said I think Kizer is using a very encompassing heat treatment protocol and that is resulting in blade steel across their lineup being very similar in HRC. Now for the next part!! I think Kizer brings to market a very good deal for the actual money when it comes to their hardness. Most people are going to enjoy a knife in the 60 range of HRC as it will provide relatively good wear resistance and still be fairly easy sharpen. I tell people to use diamond stones when you start getting close to the 60 HRC realm. Keep the reality of this circumstance in perspective!! A blade steel at or beyond 60 HRC is actually very hard!! My buddy that owns the fabrication shop isn’t really a big knife guy and was telling me how surprised he was to see numbers like that on a standard pocket knife. I would say that about 99.9% of knife users are never going to realistically need a blade much harder than 60HRC. So it’s my opinion that for the money Kizer is a fairly decent option, often producing knives in the 60 or better HRC territory for a much lower price than several of its competitors!!
Interesting I’d say for the money or even the steel I’d use a different steel if hrc is kept lower, 10v is meant to be at harder Rockwells and really performs better there, I think S30v or even Something like a 3v do better at 60 than 10v
Really useful data here, thanks for this. Quite sad to see the kizer 10v results to be honest, but not necessarily surprising. Otherwise, spyderco doing pretty well on the other fronts. Keep it up man, looking forward to seeing the cut tests!
Are you going to cut test that m390 at 62.1?
Eventually
Ok i have a PM 2 with CPM S110V whats your guess on the HRC it already has a chip in the blade😒
In my experience of s110 or s90v being chippy its only been 2 things. Either you gotta get a couple sharpenings into the blade to get past the belt ground edge, or it's to soft. The high vanadium stainless steels do way better around 60-62. I know it sounds backwards that harder is less chippy than softer s110v but that's my experience. My uncle has a machine shop where I am able to test my knives, and no I'm not certified incase Rick Hinderer is reading this.
@@chriswebb3018 thanks chris i think my next PM2 will be in S45VN
They have a large range for the HRC on those most are over 60 though
@@allthingsknives thanks bro😁
That Chinese 10V is pathetic.