For the money, a few years back, nothing could beat the Sanrenmu Land series of pocket knives. Decent steel, ball bearing pivots, just very high quality for the money. I bought a bunch of them. They are nearly indestructable.
My first thought too- D2 is too hard for hard use. Like my fixed blade ka-Bar Becker necker, made in 1095. Not the best steel obviously, but it has some give to it. Tough edged steel like D2 just has not lateral (?) strength to be bending and prying with. You want something that’s bend not snap.
What about this:
D2 is fine steel, about 12% Cr so often called “almost stainless” steel, at that much Cr it’s expected to be less strong than real Carbon-steels but it’s still pretty good compared with most stainless-steels. In fact I’m thinking of buying a D2 outdoor-knife, have my eye on the Real Steel Bushcraft III convex.
I have one Chinese D2 budget knife, a HX Outdoors ZD-031. The steel on that one is excellent but these knives were not the cheapest back then, I have no way to confirm real D2 and it does seems a bit to much stainless but it is simply very good steel. I just wanted to try one of those China-fantastic’s so bought this one to play with: too thick and heavy for my liking so I rarely use it, it is shaving-sharp and flips and falls shut super smooth thou.
Lower hardness can be helpful if more toughness is needed. Going softer on D2 might gain a little toughness but also trades away a lot of the edge retention that makes it an attractive steel in the first place. Based on just a few tests I’ve seen from other QSP knives, they run their D2 around 58-59 HRC. Another potential issue could be the purity or consistency of the Chinese D2. We know from LTK’s XRF testing that the composition can vary on Chinese D2.
The German K110 should be better in that respect. The bad reputation on Chinese D2 has given Petrified Fish, Bestech, and a few other brands that usually use it a reason to start importing K110. Either way, the toughness is still only around 5ft/lb at 60HRC. I’d rather avoid these issues in the first place and use a steel like 14C28N. Aside from being much more stainless, 14C28N has roughly six times the toughness at similar hardness!
BTW, if you don’t mind messing up your knives then you can do a mustard test for D2. The steels used by unscrupulous companies to substitute for D2 are usually 3Cr13, 5Cr15, or 8Cr13Mov. All of those steels are notably more stainless. After thoroughly cleaning with isopropyl alcohol, you can put a blob of yellow mustard on the blade for an hour and see what happens. I recently tested this on satin finishes at around 68 degrees Fahrenheit . At just over an hour, Walmart’s Organic Yellow Mustard left a permanent gray mark in the shape of the blob on D2 but wiped away pretty cleanly from 8Cr13Mov.
If there are any sword guys out there , Vipon has some coupons for swords on Amazon.
I wanna see how people EDC their swords. 
I use the bread you can buy for a long sub sandwich . You can order 3 to 6 foot lengths from most bakeries.
For a slim knife like a bayonet, regular French bread works fine . A loaf of Italian is perfect for Bowie knives.
And you always have a snack handy if you EDC in bread
Bwana I like your style!
“I wanna see how people EDC their swords.”
Bought quite a few over the last few years, without a hitch; however I’ve bought nothing since brexit and would be worried about BF, since they’re confiscating (perfectly legal) CO2 air pistol imports, claiming they’re imitation firearms (they’re not imitation firearms, by law they’re real firearms, you just don’t need an FAC).
Very good friends.
I have finished my review of this impressive knife, if you want to take a look you have it in:
https://chinese-knives.blogspot.com/2021/05/review-with-armour-stones-wa-092bk.html
Bought about 10 knifes shipped into 4 and 6 knifes packages. All of them are small knifes about 12cm length and blade less than 5cm. Only one knife is 16.5cm and blade length 6.5cm.
The smallest knife is 9cm and blade 3.6cm but it locks. The cost taking into account exchange rate and shipping, will cost me £5.09 per knife.
Schrade knives $6 and up
with code WELCOME20.
free shipping, too. one example:
https://www.schrade.com/sale/?srule=price-low-to-high&start=0&sz=12
… and they biffed it. I just got an email saying they accidentally oversold a bunch of their clearance stuff. They are sorry and are giving out some one-shot coupon codes for 15% off.
Can I find on Ali or other site 5 inch fliper knife with solid lock sytem?
I got the same email, but replied wanting to “make a deal” with what they might actually have.
Turns out the knives I ordered weren’t available in the usual box but the plastic clamshell packages only, and I said I don’t care about that, I’ll take ’em, so they were ostensibly just shipped today.
So looks like all of mine are complete, woohoo!
They seem to have nice smooth action except the “stonewash” ones (no model number that I saw listed), which seem a bit “gritty” and tight.
They’re all shaving-sharp out of the box, though. Found that out the hard way. :confounded:
That’s what I get for reading emails on my mobile. :weary:
I went through the website looking for a comparable swap. So many of their knives are tip-down only. A bunch are assisted. Some were too heavy. Most were 8Cr13Mov… In a lot of ways, their catalog feels years out of date. The only thing that made any of these remotely interesting was the pricing on the clearance sale.
I’ll see if something works out. Otherwise, I’ll get my $6.99 or whatever back plus a coupon code that I’ll probably never use. BTW, how bad of a cut?
Wellp, I’m not really A Knife Guy so even outdated stuff works fine for me, if only that I don’t know any better. :laughing:
Like that go,comma branded PF clone that GB was selling for something like 7bux a pop. I got a few, expecting them to be “disposable” but I’m still banging on my first one that’s holding up great.
My small Sanremu with a thumb stud is nigh impossible (to me) to open one-handy, but the go,comma and most of the S&Ws with flipper-tabs open soooooo smoothly and nicely. Only the stonewash is tight enough to only open part-way.
But for the prices, hellyeah, I’ll take ’em!
Oy… :person_facepalming:
I only got one other AO, and it clicks into place almost gently, whereas the S&W snaps open with one Hell of a kick.
I was holding it gingerly with only fingertips, seeing how far it needs to go before the spring kicks in and opens it. Was wearing only shorts and flipflops (if only I were Ukrainian, that’d be enough safety gear for driving nails through 18650s, but I’m not).
Anyhoo, it kicks, I lose my grip and drop it, it hits tail-first on the floor and “bounces” somewhat, and gives me a little scratch by my instep. Or so I thought. “Whew, just a scratch…”, only a few seconds later it starts to bleed. And bleed. And bleed. Wtf, am I a closet hæmophiliac?? Nope, it didn’t just give me a scratch, but went straight-in a good ¼ inch or so, the whole tip.
Wellp, that’ll learn me…
The budget market has really come a long way in recent years. Check out brands like Civivi, Tangram, Ruike, CJRB, Harnds, Petrified Fish, etc. Sanrenmu still makes a bunch of tip-down only knives, combo edges, knives in junk steel, etc. However, they also make some amazing knives like the Land series in 12C27. AFAIK, they also make the Ruike and Real Steel knives. Also take a look at the difference between much older Ganzo stuff and their more recent FH line in D2. The S&W knives are clearly on the far side of the rift between where the market was and how far it has come.
Assisted actions have largely been phased out because great manual actions have gotten easier and cheaper to make. Now even sub-$20 counterfeits can be had with captured bearings and dialed-in detents. I seem to recall that cheap and mislabeled Go,Comma (which was made by Petrified Fish) having excellent manual action. Combined with legal issues in some places and mechanical issues such as needing to replace torsion bars in Speedsafe knives, the overall community has been trending away for a while now.
As far as steel, 8Cr13Mov is finally becoming a point of derision. It still rules the big box knife stores with offerings from Kershaw, CRKT, etc. However, enthusiasts can now get Acuto 440, 9Cr18Mov, AR-RPM9, D2, and Sandvik steels at competitive prices. All of those steels can cut circles around 8Cr13Mov and except for D2, all have better corrosion resistance. People walking into a big box store without researching these things online won’t know better. People reading forum posts like this one hopefully will. 