Is Magnacut The Knife Steel Of The Future - Steel Snobs

The Steel Snobs Series is for people who want simple to understand information on knife steels and their properties, DISCLAIMER: this is just my interpretation of the information widely available to everyone, I highly suggest doing your own research and if youd like to learn more about Dr Larrin Thomas there is no better resource than his website

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[TopDog]

All I have ever heard about Magnacut, is its a miracle steel invented by a mad genius. Outstanding video, great information. Spyderco has said they plan on more knives in Magnacut.

[luisnouel]

I have Hogue Deka and MKM Eclipse, both in Magnacut. I reprofiled both to 17 deg from 20 deg, using Worksharp Professional. The Eclipse was so easy to do it, but the Deka took a lot of elbow . Once at 17 they had more or less the same edge retention and both reached the original edge after stropping

[richardrivard]

I have a gen 2 deka in Magnacut it is becoming my favorite steel I do not think it is overrated so far for me it lives up to the hype

[lymedog]

That’s why I like 14c28n… tough, corrosion resistant and decent edge retention, but it won’t break the bank!

[billclancy]

As a knife maker, Magnacut is one of my favorites. It's not the best in any particular way, but certainly one of the most balanced. It is kind of pricy, but all in all a great steel. Again like all steels it needs to be heat treated properly. I shoot for 63 HRC.

[paulvictor]

Tactile Bexar. My dream knife. Not only the perfect steel and hardness, but their blade thickness is perfect.

[Barney_Greenway]

Seems my comment about Boker didn't make it, if it's double, never mind: Their TRPPR in MagnaCut was described to be 63 HRC, when I bought it off their site. Don't know about other models, but at least their stuff out of Solingen, Germany seems to be at high Rockwell. Prepare for the Chaves Mini Redencion Auto in MagnaCut later this year! 🤘

[dlrmon]

The theory and initial testing of the product has proven to work great. Now we just need to to get especially Crucible, the manufacturers and heat treatment facilities up to speed before it gets a bad name...There still working through many issues mostly due to Crucible’s inconsistent production methods. I believe Magnacut is suffering from a premature rollout to meet demand...

[tkar]

I have a handful of magnacut knives and my crk sebenza (DOB May 2023) is far beyond boker, giant mouse, kershaw and hogue. Gets sharper, stays sharper and rarely suffers from any edge damage through use like rolls and chips.

[MrDarrylR]

The merit of toughness isn't just in "chopping down trees", its in permitting knife makers to use slicier edge geometry that's thinner both in stock and behind the edge, and knife sharpeners to reprofile to more acute edge angles before chipping becomes an issue in whatever use case, which increases edge retention while reducing cutting effort.

It's worth noting, on Pete (of Cedric & Ada's) tests, in apples to apples comparisons with 17 dps on his KME sharpener, MagnaCut knives get 628 avg cuts through sisal rope, S90V gets 440 cuts. This of course could be down to mnfr heat treats and random selection of knives.

And Pete's and my favorite steel, K390, gets 940 average cuts. Spyderco, the only production knife co using K390, treats its Seki K390 knives at ~65 HRC, but also key is the geometry. My Stretch 2 averages 0.018" behind the edge with a caliper, better than the typical 0.022-0.025" BTE for comparably sized PM2s or Endelas. And my Dragonfly 2 wharncliffe averages 0.011" BTE, really slicey on a par with Opinels or Japanese 'laser' chef's knives.

[scottburns]

Blade shape and geometry is definitely way more important than what steel you have. The soft as hell Victorinox steel on my Cadet cuts like a laser and is quick and easy to keep it that way. I’ll take a knife with a lesser steel but better handle and blade shape every day.

[Sleepy_spartan]

I’ve had a few knives in magnacut, but never kept them long enough to really give a detailed enough opinion. It SEEMED really good in the applications I’ve used. The quiet carry the nine held a very keen edge for a good long while and responded to stropping very well. My mcnees was a thicker blade that kept the working edge forever and even shaved for longer under daily use longer than I expected. Two different stock thicknesses and grind types.

[JUUS]

I just picked up a LionSteel Skinny in Magnacut & Titanium this week. Early knives from the Italian knife makers were reported ~59 HRC, but later knives are arriving in the 61.5-62.5 range. I'm happy with it.

[MisterDeets]

You had me worried about Spyderco for a second there when I didn't see them on the first list of known good manufacturers of Magnacut knives. I am a recent convert to their knives and I have been obscenely happy with the heat treat on both my Spyderco knives. American Blade Works is another manufacturer who makes really good magnacut knives with a really solid heat treat. They are 100% US made and are widely reported as having their magnacut blades at 64 HRC.

[MikeJ]

I think spyderco was more interested in getting the stainless aspect of magnacut on point than getting a bit more edge retention and that’s only because they wanted it on the salt series.

[npenick]

I only have 2 knives in magnacut so far but both of them are outstanding. I have a Creely Mako pocket fixie at 63-64 (very highly recommended smith and knife that I first saw on Cedric and Ada, Pete's and idjit savant) that is my edc on a small ranch. After close to 18 months of daily use cutting twine, leather, zip ties, wire, pvc, cardboard, feed bags and everything else I've only had to sharpen it once (after trimming some steel mesh fencing, no real damage but made it a little scratchy to shave hair) and quick strop it monthly to keep it hair shaving sharp. The other is an Axial Shift that's more for house duty, cardboard, zip ties and letter opening so it really hasn't been challenged and hasn't even needed stropped after a year of use. So, I think that the edge retention is underestimated in most cases with a properly heat treated magnacut.

I've heard good and bad about magnacut. If the artisan knows how to work the steel and do a good heat treat the steel is great. One of my favorite knife makers, TKell knives, refuses to work with it, thinks it's over hyped. All respect to TKell, he knows more about steel and blades than I do but I love both my magnacut blades and am open to more. It's easy to maintain and holds an edge for a very long time. Easy to strop or sharpen right back to a razor's edge. I've been a knife nut since 1971 when I earned my first cub scout pocket knife and so far magnacut is my favorite steel.

[TopDog]

On my way to watch the video on S90v. S90V and 14C28N are my favorite steels, honorableness mention for me is 154CM / CPM154.

[edcevo]

I've owned and used a lot of magnacut and as long as the heat treat is done properly it is amazing! Right now my favorite knife is the Chris Reeve large sebenza 31 w/bog wood inlay, glass blasted titanium and a polished magnacut drop point w/ 63 to 64 hrc And it is just outta this world!

Mcness, tactile, Chris reeve, Protech, etc

Good job sir!

[Laurarium]

I wonder have you got any controlled experiment idicating that :
1 Better edge retention than Larrin’s website listed from Ade is due to higher hardness not other properties of the steel or even a systimatic error. Or, Magnacut has similar edge retention to Maxamet in general.
2 Higher hardness equals better heat treatment for magnacut in therms of edge retention in general

Edge retention is highly contextual, it is not simply the “edge retention”column on Larrin’s site, which is directly parallel to the TCC from his CATRA machine, which is only about wear resistance.
In real life, the longitutinal toughness and tortional toughness and many more factors play a significat role in ACTUAL edge retention, and along with geometry, they strongly affects the cutting ability retention(yes, they are different, very) or its potential.

For rope cutting, tougher steel benifits more as the rope gets dirtier, thus, the performance close to Maxamet could be due to superior toughness of magnacut. Ropes that are natural material also varies hugly from one cut to the next and one piece from another, more control, like random sampling and more statistical analyses like standerd deviation and average values are needed.

For the similar reason, to state a heattreat targeting at a lower hardness is inferior in edge retention to the ones at a higher hardness is misleading, at the very least, more restrictions are required to constitute a responsible comparison.

[ElonaldTrusk]

Ive noticed pretty good stability on thin edges on the deka in magnacut. Occasional microchipping was eliminated by convexing on the strop to put a lil more meat behind the apex, but it maintained that bite and cutting performance. However, AEB-L, 13c, 14c, etc 😂, are just a bit easier to sharpen and have a lot i like in common with magnacut while remaining much more affordable. A knife in magnacut is great if done well... But id rather have 2 in the listed steels done well for the same ticket.