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#284756 - 06/12/17 04:55 AM Re: Which is the best steel for a cold steel srk? [Re: quick_joey_small]
Phaedrus Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 04/28/10
Posts: 3148
Loc: Big Sky Country
It's annoying that it's so hard to buy a Busse. I have just one right now, and from what I've ready they're not making any more knives for about a year. When they do they seem to produce very low numbers (the cynic in me thinks it's done to create scarcity to drive up the collector's value). Busse knives are very nice but I'm not sure how much of their legendary durability is due to their metallurgy and how much is due to their being 1/3" thick. Still I do lust after a FFBM!

Honestly I'm not a big Cold Steel fan but I do have twenty of them! blush The Pendleton Lite Hunter and the Kudu are both incredible bargains IMO. If you're patient you can get a Kudu from Amazon for $5 or less with free shipping! You can't get a functional knife worth having for much less, and that's half the price of the cheapest Mora.

My biggest complaint about the SRK is the sharpened clip point. It's great for stabbing, and I suppose digging, but it's lousy for batoning. Batoning is a contentious topic I realize; some folks love it and some think it's outright abuse. Me, I am a big proponent of it and won't own a knife that big that isn't good for splitting wood. The sharpened clip point really chews up batons and breaks them quickly. I would rather have a RAT7 or ESEE5/6 myself.

Lately I have been primarily using a JK Handmade knife for that. I will confess I'm not even sure what the name/model is as it belonged to my dad and passed to me after his death. It's kind of a Nesmuk-style blade and works very nicely.
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#284758 - 06/12/17 05:09 PM Re: Which is the best steel for a cold steel srk? [Re: Phaedrus]
haertig Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 03/13/05
Posts: 2322
Loc: Colorado
The SRK is a pretty big and hefty knife. I have lots of Cold Steel knives (some even larger than the SRK!), bought many many years ago. I never use any of them. I guess they would be good if I needed to penetrate a hippopotamus or something, but I just found no practical use for them. I think when I was young I must have imagined a rampaging hippo might make it to Colorado where I'd need to defend myself. My SRK (now given to my son) is so old it's made of what they used to call "Carbon V", which I think was their marketing term to mean, "Even WE don't know what's in it!"

I'm sure that Carbon V is far inferior to any of the steels you can now get an SRK made from, so my opinion would be that any of the steels mentioned would serve the purpose admirably, if you actually have a purpose for a hippo-stabber.

p.s. - Full disclosure: My experience with knives is from a civilian camper/hiker perspective. My thoughts might be different if I were military and having to dig up land mines from under a foot of sand with my knife.

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#288032 - 01/26/18 10:37 AM Re: Which is the best steel for a cold steel srk? [Re: quick_joey_small]
quick_joey_small Offline
Addict

Registered: 01/13/09
Posts: 571
Loc: UK
There's now a fourth option of steel for the SRK - San Mai:

http://www.coldsteel.com/products/new-products/2018-products/srk-san-mai.html

This is replacing the VG1 in the line up if you are buying direct from
Cold Steel.
There are still examples of VG1s available from other suppliers.
qjs


Edited by quick_joey_small (01/26/18 02:46 PM)

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#288064 - 01/27/18 07:54 PM Re: Which is the best steel for a cold steel srk? [Re: quick_joey_small]
hikermor Offline
Geezer in Chief
Geezer

Registered: 08/26/06
Posts: 7705
Loc: southern Cal
Interesting - same model knife available in different types of steel, at widely varying prices. Is there that much actual performance difference between the different steels? Is the increased price for different steels due to the cost of the raw steel or simply a "vanity charge"?

I would think a SRK in even the cheapest steel would see one through a bad ordeal or two, even though you might have to sharpen the blade in between episodes (Heavens, how awful!)
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