Quote:
Originally Posted by Dean2
So after two years of using the Crotts semi Skinner, in the vaunted D2 steel with proprietary heat treating, I thought I would provide my thoughts. Very nicely built knife, very pretty to look at, comfortable in the hand, light and easy to maneuver. It however does NOT live up to its reputation for being an edge so long lasting you can do more than one animal without touching it up. Maybe 2 deer, but on moose, if you split the hide and hair, you are going to need to touch it up before you start working on the meat and skinning. Elk it holds up a bit better but their hide and hair are not as hard on an edge as Moose.
I also find the short blade a bit of a handicap on larger animals, works fine on deer, but moose could use a little longer cutting edge. The Buck 110 is just enough longer to make the difference, but to be fair I have used a 110 as my primary hunting knife for nearly 50 years.
Below is a picture of a Buck 110 made with S30V beside the Crotts. The one in the picture is for show as my wife gave it to me for our 35th wedding anniversary in 2017, we hit the 40 year mark in 2022, but I have an identical knife without the engraving I hunt with. We did a bull moose using these two blades. The Buck did the majority of the work, including splitting hide and hair as well as separating sockets and cutting cartilage. I intentionally did not touch up either knife during the process of breaking down that moose. The Buck was noticeably sharper at the end of the job than the Crotts was. When you consider that you can get a Buck 110 in S30V for about a quarter of the Crotts, seems like a much better deal to me.
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Thanks for the report, Dean! Much appreciated. Crazy that it has been two years!
Can’t say it is all that surprising in regard to the edge retention. There is no magic about D2, regardless of the heat treatment, like any other steel. Funny that I just wrote about it a few days before your post. You can’t cheat chemistry and physics (ie, mix of elements to provide certain physical properties). Again, if by some magic, someone managed to turn D2 into S30V, in this example, S30V wouldn’t cost 3-4 times the price of D2 (or whatever the coefficient is). S30V is superior to D2 in every aspect. Unless ease of sharpening is also considered to be a factor, then D2 wins - just because the better a steel holds the edge, the harder it is to sharpen it (generally and broadly speaking). So one needs to consider what their priorities are. An average knife purchased from the store is likely to give up edge sooner than a custom knife made from D2 though. This is also true for likely most store bought and custom made knives made from the same steel, which I also talked about in that other post.
It really is about priorities though. Starting with if a guy wants to spend money on such a knife in the first place, lol. Because really, one can do just fine with an average (or less) store-bought knife, as we all did, I am sure. Frankly, this is just fun and a cool hobby, which I was out of (haha), and is relatively inexpensive unless you start collecting/hoarding because then it can get out of hand quickly.
As for priorities…. If one values being able to touch up a blade quickly in the field, likely an average steel or even below average is a great choice. That, of course, would come at the cost of edge retention because the two are basically the same thing working the opposite way, generally speaking - one action wears out the edge, while the other restores it, so there is got to be the same amount of work put each way, generally speaking. Note that I keep saying “generally speaking” because there will be differences in efforts required to sharpen steels with similar properties, depending on their chemical compositions and, I guess, “grain structure”; of course abrasives used affect the sharpening process as well. But all things being equal, that statement holds true: you have to put more work into bringing a sharp edge to a knife that holds it better. At the same time, you can buy a knife of significantly improved toughness if you do not care how long your knife holds an edge (relatively speaking, of course, because everyone cares about edge retention to some degree - it is a knife, after all). The best thing to do would probably be picking a well balanced steel that can hold a decent edge, but is also plenty tough and, preferably, stain resistant or stainless. If we are talking about custom knives, steel availability should also be considered, as well as ability of the maker to work with that steel. The latter seems trivial, but it is crucially important because, heat treatment aside, some steels are very hard to grind without overheating, for example, some require more than your average belts, it has to be cost effective, etc. For “regular” store-bought knives, options are more limited, so you make do with what’s available, but one still can make a better choice at any given price point if the purpose of the knife is strictly defined and the steel that it is made from is identifiable (which isn’t always the case, especially for the lower priced knives). To note here, better choice is not a given even when the required properties are well defined simply due to various heat treatment of production knives, overheated edges, etc, but it happens and it cannot be avoided; even highest priced production knives can have these issues.
The “well balanced” is purely determined by the task: chopping wood vs cutting cardboard vs field dressing an animal all require that balance to be different. MagnaCut is one of the most balanced steels for the tasks that all-around knives are generally used for. It is not a magic steel either however. For example, Dean’s S30V blade is still
likely to hold the edge longer while performing the same tasks. Unless those tasks put enough stress on the blade when Dean’s blade would fail and MagnaCut would still keep working. So why is MagnaCut is a great choice? Again, let’s talk about priories. First thing here is to determine what the knife is going to be used for. Is it an all around type knife? Is it a knife that will be used purely to field dress an animal? Is it going to go camping with you as well, where you may get bored by the fire one evening and start carving or shaving a stick/log? Maybe you are going to have it in your vehicle or pocket for every day use to poke around, snap some heavy duty zip ties, cut cardboard that may have some staples in it (not recommended for any knife, lol)? So that should affect the choice of steel. Again, most people do pretty well with basically any knife they buy; when it breaks or whatever, they buy another one.
So why MagnaCut? MagnaCut is very tough for stainless steel, but it also has a respectable edge retention provided its toughness. The edge retention is somewhere between D2 and S30V, but can be increased by increasing the hardness. Even at the highest hardness, it is still tougher than either of the aforementioned steels, as well as most others, but should have edge retention equivalent to or higher than an average S30V blade. Provided its stainless properties, it is a no brainer choice over D2 and most other non-stainless steels, exceptions apply and are talked about below. MagnaCut is also a better choice than most other stainless steels for the very same reasons; and, really, not many other steels have significantly better edge retention than MagnaCut without sacrificing toughness significantly. I also, however, at some point discussed in this thread (or I think I did) that edge retention and toughness are not mutually exclusive and the edge retention can be greatly affected by the toughness of the blade. For example, if your edge chips, the theoretical edge retention is completely irrelevant. Therefore, MagnaCut is really a great choice for a an all around knife.
Here is another and more specific example of priorities and how my thought process went. I was going to have a knife made in MagnaCut (I think I said that two years ago now in this thread that if I were to have a knife made, it would be from that steel). I contacted Dan Crotts about making a semi skinner and he didn’t use MaganCut back then. I said I’d wait and so I did. I saw him dropping a knife on one of the websites made of MagnaCut and reached out to him again. Long story short, communication was very difficult with late replies and then he stopped replying altogether (that was like after two or so emails, lol). So I went on my own search for someone who would make me the knife in MagnaCut. I had a few guys on my mind right away. I also know that not many makers would simply copy someone else’s design, but I wanted to improve some things anyway (or so I think, lol). I made a sketch and reached out to a guy from Texas, named Stuart Davenport, who said he will make the knife for me based on my sketch. The steel of choice was MaganCut, of course, and so it was agreed. I then started thinking though… and here is where it led me, lol.
What is the most important property (and balance of properties) of a hunting knife used purely for field dressing various game because that is what I wanted? To me, it is clearly edge retention, provided there is sufficient toughness to the steel. At the same time, that steel doesn’t have to be overly tough. However, I wanted the knife to be a real slicer as well with perfect edge geometry and grind. That eliminated the “super steels” like S90V, S110V, etc because I wouldn’t trust any of them to keep such a delicate edge from chipping and shattering. While stainless steel would be ideal, I couldn’t think of anything better than MagnaCut for my purpose. Yet, stainless wasn’t necessarily a priority high on the list. So I went to tool steels. CPM 15V and Z-Max would be at risk of having the same issue as the steels already mentioned while “theoretical” edge retention would be superior. Long story short, CPM 10V ended up being the steel of choice: one of the highest edge retention properties, tough enough for the task (tougher than D2 and S30V, to keep the same example going), and some stain resistance (similar to D2, but D2 gets a slight edge here). What I wanted ended up being hard to find though, but with the help of some fellas on another forum, a bar with the desired thickness was located and purchased by the maker. The upper limit of the desired thickness was 0.1” and the bar I found was 0.093” (the lower limit was set at 0.06”), so it is pretty thin stuff. Stuart offered to make me a knife from K390 that he already had with the same thickness, but once 10V was found the choice was set at that. I also considered Vanadis 8 just because it is a bit tougher yet, but gives up some edge retention in return, of course, but that is a unicorn of the steel anyway and I could not locate a bar anywhere (looked in the US and Europe as well, which would probably make it price prohibitive anyway).
So the bar was found. Stuart worked with me through this entire dilemma, lol, and provided lots of input into the decision making. His suggestion was also CPM 10V over MagnaCut, which is what his personal hunting knife is made of as well. At this point, the design changed because initially I wanted a hollow grind, but I thought full flat grind would be more appropriate due to the thickness of the blade. Stuart agreed with that as well. His grinds are super slick, so I knew the edge geometry would still be on point (hence the choice of the maker). He surely didn’t disappoint bringing the edge to a mere 0.004” before sharpening. Essentially, it would cut before even bringing an apex. To quote him, after I laughed hearing 0.004”, “it will shave if I put a strop to it” (not the exact quote, but something along the lines, just laughing).
I think this is getting to be quite long now, but yeah, there was quite a bit of thought put into this whole thing. I also asked for jimping, but Stuart rounded the spine as well and that brought that extra notch to the comfort level.
Handle choice was another dilemma for me. I knew I wanted micarta and went back and forth with the choices. The final product carries Westinghouse micarta scales with red G10 liners. These are secured in place via epoxy, as well as stainless steel corby bolts, so those scales are there to stay no matter what, pretty much.
The last thin to note, I guess, is that the blade was heat treated in house to 65HRC and went through cryo and triple temper. Stuart is on top of the game in heat treatment department, so there is nothing there that I can even come close to suggesting because I am completely out of my element here beyond the basics, lol. We only agreed on the desired hardness to aim for and he executed that perfectly.
It was sharpened by Stuart to 15 degrees per side (he also asked me to what grid I wanted it to be sharpened to, to which I replied 600 is just fine, but he went a little further playing around, so the hair pops when the knife comes out sheath without touching it, lol).
Having written all this, I realize now that I cannot take any pictures in good light at the moment, lol. So these will have to do.
Came with a letter, a band aid, which I thought was funny, and his business card:
Last thing I just thought of (reading Dean’s and Coil’s posts in regard to edge retention), I can skin and quarter (and partially debone) elk with the Outdoor Edge Swingblade, which is made of AUS-8 steel, I believe, and while it won’t shave after, I can still comfortably do at least another deer with the same knife without touch ups -> it will still be sharp enough. So it all probably comes down to how we do things as well. Having said that, this knife clearly wasn’t something I needed because I did just fine with what I already had. But here we are… I expect this one to last a few animals before needing a touch up. Even at 15 degrees per side.
Needless to say, dealing with Stuart was a complete pleasure and I would recommend him to anyone. I am glad I reached out to him. The first email sent was on Sept 9. The knife arrived today. You probably got the gist that there was a lot of back and forth in between that, can’t say didn’t result in any moving forward because it did and very much so, but
a lot of decisions were made in between that didn’t involve the actual work on the blade.
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