I’ve had a lot of different steels from spyderco and S30V is still one of my all time favorites. It’s well balanced and spyderco does a great job on the heat treatment.
I liked the review, id like to see a review like this in elmax. I just got a shaman in elmax, I might try get a carbon blade to see how it is for me. The elmax is holding up good and strops good. thanks for the great videos
With some experience using it, I think that S30V is too often looked down upon or dismissed by a lot of people these days. It’s not the latest and greatest knife steel anymore, but S30V is still a solid performer; far more capable than most people actually need.
Properly heat treated s30v is as good anything else.. its all about the heat treat . A s30v is going to embarrass magnacut if the s30v is 60hrc and the magnacut is 58 hrc.. The manufacturerers got y'all paying 500 bucks for a peice of steel 3" long and the whole time it's heat treated to 59 Rockwell.. oh they'll say its 62 on the box. But the truth is it's soft . The heat treatment is time consuming and it's hard to do It right in batches . The more blades at a time the worse consistency..
Although I certainly do agree that heat treatment is more important than the steel used within reason, Magnacut will outperform S30v with an equal quality heat treatment. Whether it's worth the money or not is different question, but Magnacut is a very good stainless steel. It's one of the few "super" steels that isn't mostly just hype. Having said this, most modern steels will perform perfectly well if properly heat treated. You don't need fancy Magnacut or even S30v steel to get the job done. A properly heat treated blade made of 14C28N or even 1095 will perform perfectly well. If you really are on a tight budget then even scrap steel from ball bearings or leaf springs will get the job done so long as it's been forged and heat treated properly. It all comes down to price point and the proper treatment and usage of the steel. How much that extra bit of performance is worth is subjective and something the individual must decide for themselves. Personally, I think even budget tool steels make perfectly good EDC knives.
I hate s30v but can't stop using it because it is perfect on the osborne 940. Saw tooth is perfect but chips with mirror edge with any hard use. Luv/hate for me. Easy enough to sharpen also.
Your first mistake is mirror polishing s30v. It is not a steel Preforms very well with A mirror it does much better with the lower grid edge in the 320-800 range. S30v is not a chippy steel by nature so if you are getting chips it's one of two things... you are on your first or second edge and haven't gotten past the fatigued steel from the factory edge.. or you reprofiled it down at to low of an angle for the type cutting you do commonly with it. There is always the slight possibility that you got one with a heat treat that didnt take to spec as it does happen but that's pretty damn rare now days but there are some that get out. The thing that is confusing me with your statement that says "with saw tooth it's great but chips with mirror" so with a course edge it's great but with a high polish it chips? So long as the angle is the same edge finish will have very very little net effect on edge stability. If anything an extremely course toothy edge would have micro chipping before a high grit ultra fine edge would, due to the larger teeth being further away from the bulk of the steel/support at the apex vs the fine teeth that are well supported right at the apex. If it was just chipping I would say it's one of the two things I mentioned but with the remark of saw tooth it's perfect but chips with a mirror that holds no validation unless you dropped the edge down way down in between the toothy course edge and the mirror edge.. if that's the case than simply increase the edge angle back to where it was when you had edge stability and you should be set. It really gets under my skin when people hear someone say oh such and such steel is chippy and run around repeating that as gospel. Half the people saying xxx steel is chippy hasn't ever even used that steel and just repeating crap they hear. Now I'm not saying your doing that but I do find it odd with the no chippy with a course edge but chips with a mirror.. but that brings one to thought, how are you achieving that mirror? Are you using a ceramic stone to finish on? And of stropping on chromium oxide compound (like green wax based compound??) Because if you are that is indeed why your getting chipping/fractures with a polished edge and didn't with a course edge. S30v has a decent amount of vanadium carbide by volume and alumina/aluminum oxide (the abrasive that's in sintered ceramic stones and green wax abrasives like what would come with the work sharp precision adjust) is far to soft to cut the vanadium carbides. So the abrasive cuts the surrounding steel matrix but not the vanadium carbide and this leads to micro fractures around those carbides at the very apex. So if you are indeed getting your polish on with a ceramic/alumina plate that is exactly what's causing you to get fractures that you didn't get with a toothy course edge had that edge been finished on diamond or cbn.
I’ve had a lot of different steels from spyderco and S30V is still one of my all time favorites. It’s well balanced and spyderco does a great job on the heat treatment.
great video it was nice to meet you today and thanks
Thank you you as well
I like S30V, in my opinion it is solid steel in all segments
What about knives with raspberry jam for the blade material how would that do?.....
Very nice knives i like them , stay safe
I liked the review, id like to see a review like this in elmax. I just got a shaman in elmax, I might try get a carbon blade to see how it is for me. The elmax is holding up good and strops good. thanks for the great videos
They need to make an XL Osborne version
That would be interesting
Can you do a vid on 154cm?
BEST S30V REVIEW... VG-10 NEXT😬
This will probably excite you I have a whole playlist on my channel called steel reviews
With some experience using it, I think that S30V is too often looked down upon or dismissed by a lot of people these days.
It’s not the latest and greatest knife steel anymore, but S30V is still a solid performer; far more capable than most people actually need.
Properly heat treated s30v is as good anything else.. its all about the heat treat . A s30v is going to embarrass magnacut if the s30v is 60hrc and the magnacut is 58 hrc..
The manufacturerers got y'all paying 500 bucks for a peice of steel 3" long and the whole time it's heat treated to 59 Rockwell.. oh they'll say its 62 on the box. But the truth is it's soft .
The heat treatment is time consuming and it's hard to do It right in batches . The more blades at a time the worse consistency..
And I found the internet steel expert in the comments! Tisk tisk
Although I certainly do agree that heat treatment is more important than the steel used within reason, Magnacut will outperform S30v with an equal quality heat treatment. Whether it's worth the money or not is different question, but Magnacut is a very good stainless steel. It's one of the few "super" steels that isn't mostly just hype.
Having said this, most modern steels will perform perfectly well if properly heat treated. You don't need fancy Magnacut or even S30v steel to get the job done. A properly heat treated blade made of 14C28N or even 1095 will perform perfectly well. If you really are on a tight budget then even scrap steel from ball bearings or leaf springs will get the job done so long as it's been forged and heat treated properly.
It all comes down to price point and the proper treatment and usage of the steel. How much that extra bit of performance is worth is subjective and something the individual must decide for themselves. Personally, I think even budget tool steels make perfectly good EDC knives.
I hate s30v but can't stop using it because it is perfect on the osborne 940. Saw tooth is perfect but chips with mirror edge with any hard use. Luv/hate for me. Easy enough to sharpen also.
You might like S45vn more it’s S30 2.0 everything is better, but just enough to notice a slight difference in sharpening it reminds me of 154cm
Perhaps your angle is too low. Example: try 25 degree instead of say 18-20 or 30 instead of 20
Your first mistake is mirror polishing s30v. It is not a steel Preforms very well with A mirror it does much better with the lower grid edge in the 320-800 range. S30v is not a chippy steel by nature so if you are getting chips it's one of two things... you are on your first or second edge and haven't gotten past the fatigued steel from the factory edge.. or you reprofiled it down at to low of an angle for the type cutting you do commonly with it. There is always the slight possibility that you got one with a heat treat that didnt take to spec as it does happen but that's pretty damn rare now days but there are some that get out. The thing that is confusing me with your statement that says "with saw tooth it's great but chips with mirror" so with a course edge it's great but with a high polish it chips? So long as the angle is the same edge finish will have very very little net effect on edge stability. If anything an extremely course toothy edge would have micro chipping before a high grit ultra fine edge would, due to the larger teeth being further away from the bulk of the steel/support at the apex vs the fine teeth that are well supported right at the apex. If it was just chipping I would say it's one of the two things I mentioned but with the remark of saw tooth it's perfect but chips with a mirror that holds no validation unless you dropped the edge down way down in between the toothy course edge and the mirror edge.. if that's the case than simply increase the edge angle back to where it was when you had edge stability and you should be set. It really gets under my skin when people hear someone say oh such and such steel is chippy and run around repeating that as gospel. Half the people saying xxx steel is chippy hasn't ever even used that steel and just repeating crap they hear. Now I'm not saying your doing that but I do find it odd with the no chippy with a course edge but chips with a mirror.. but that brings one to thought, how are you achieving that mirror? Are you using a ceramic stone to finish on? And of stropping on chromium oxide compound (like green wax based compound??) Because if you are that is indeed why your getting chipping/fractures with a polished edge and didn't with a course edge. S30v has a decent amount of vanadium carbide by volume and alumina/aluminum oxide (the abrasive that's in sintered ceramic stones and green wax abrasives like what would come with the work sharp precision adjust) is far to soft to cut the vanadium carbides. So the abrasive cuts the surrounding steel matrix but not the vanadium carbide and this leads to micro fractures around those carbides at the very apex. So if you are indeed getting your polish on with a ceramic/alumina plate that is exactly what's causing you to get fractures that you didn't get with a toothy course edge had that edge been finished on diamond or cbn.