I cant Decide on which one. All the knives I currently Own are Stainless Which makes me wanna lean to the 1095 in the CSK plus the fact I Love my Rants Grip which is the same as the CSK.

The SRK is Aus-8 Which i hear good things about and cheaper plus I can easily purchase it from a local store.

Noooo Clue tough choice for me, any ideas?

I have an older SRK factory second in Carbon V, which DS is now the proud owner of. Love the handle, I plan to copy that handle design when I get around to re-handling a marine combat knife, although I plan to do it with a brass or nickel half guard and micarta handle scales. FWIW and YMMV.

Wow! It looks like Benchmade copied the SRK in just about every detail, except blade material. My preference is for carbon steel over stainless steel blades. But I also prefer originals over copies (even though I think Benchmade is a little higher end than Cold Steel, Cold Steel did design this knife first!) However, when you think about it, NOBODY has really designed a "new" knife for centuries. They are all only minor variations on items from the Middle Ages (they didn't have folders in the Middle Ages, so I guess that part is "new").

I have never had any knife rust or have problems due to blade material, so for me, I don't see much advantage to stainless. But then I don't run my knives through water and then put them away wet either. If you were in a survival situation you might not be able to take perfect care of your knife, so stainless might be of benefit there. I like the carbon steel knives for use as strikers for ferro rods. Stainless does not work well for that. And I like carbon steel for its ease in sharpening.

I have an SRK, years old. From back when they used "Carbon V" steel, that non-descript who-knows-what-it-really-is steel. It is a fine knife. I seldom use it. I find a 3-1/2 to 4" blade more generally useful. But the bigger knives certainly have their uses too. Just not so much for me.

If the ethical issues of buying a knife that was apparently copied extensively from someone else don't bother you, I'd go with the Benchmade.

Very few Knife designs are original and the same can be said for gun designs. Benchmades CSK Has its own personality That separates it more then enough from the SRK for me for it to not be a big deal.

By The way Fallknivens S1 is identical as well Tho I cant pinpoint dates.

Yes, I believe I said that with my reference to the Middle Ages. As long as Benchmade is not claiming that they are offering a new design, I'm perfectly OK with buying from them too. That's why the last words in my post were "I'd go with the Benchmade."

As a semi-related counterpoint, since you mentioned firearms above, I would never buy a Ruger LCP nor any new Ruger gun (I would buy used however). Ruger *did* claim that they designed this from the ground up. However, if you hold up the parts diagram over one for a KelTec P3AT you will see it's a direct copy. Even the part NUMBERS are the same for most of the parts. And Ruger had to recall the LCP for the exact same updates that KelTec did for their P3AT. Sorry Ruger, you blatantly lied. Had you not lied, and simply offered the pistol for what it is, a copy, without claiming that you designed it from scratch, I might have considered your company for purchase of a new product. But now I will only buy your products on the used market, so as to deny you any further profit because of your unethical behavior. You make good products (any copy good ones too). KelTec chose not to patent the P3AT so you are free to copy it. But you can't claim that the copies are your own design.

The Ruger example is an ethical breech that would make me not purchase from them. As far as I know, Benchmade did not make this same ethical breech. Unless they are claiming this is a new Benchmade design. I have no evidence for or against that, so I don't know.

my old Carbon V SRK resides in my GHB for lack of a job...in the 90's I thought I needed a sharpened pry bar, and got one so I wouldn't have to get the #1 Randall out of the gun safe...later my knife addiction became very expensive when I met Mr Chris Reeve, and got a couple of his excellent products... my EDC folder is either a Benchmade or Sebenza

since my outdoors is typically on the Gulf of Mexico, my go to knife is an older #10 Randall 5" salt fisherman...or a #4 Grohmann

I have a good friend that is a Blue Ridge Knives wholesaler.....

I've had several SRKs, both the older ones in Carbon V and the newer ones (including one NIB that I got a year or two ago). Overall I think they're okay knives, but if you've ever seen one X-rayed (or w/o the handle) you'll find the area where the tang portion meets the blade portion is a very sharp 90 degree angle. This drastically weakens the knife as compared to the ones where that junction is more radiused, as Swamp Rat/Scrap Yard knives are made. That said, I used one of mine pretty hard on and off for 20 years or so with no problems. Were I to buy new ones again I'd be inclined to dry the Benchmade, although I would now choose a Busse-kin or an ESEE over either of them.

Not an engineer, but most of the semi-autos have some elements that look a lot like John Browning's work, and most of the wheel guns look like Colonel Colt's. All marketing language seems to be a lie at some level, Looking for ethical behavior from gun manufacturers or ad writers will be a tough search.

And when a manufacturer does design something new, they wind up with a funny-looking gun, like Calico and Chiappa .