The reason I like a skelly better than the mudder handle is because I find the mudder handle a lot harder to carry as an EDC because it is so fat even though it is nice and light. I especially like neck catty under a shirt and the mudder is no good for that at all. The HC is to heavy because of the full tang and big G10 or on the ones in the store right now micarta grips.


I am a big fan of tool steel for knives. In many ways it is superior to stainless.
Some steels suit certain types of knives better than they do others and Sr77 is
one of those steels where it is particularly good for big hard use blades where they are going to experience a lot of shock and awe.

S7 before the Busse guys got a hold of it was not even considered a cutlery steel
because it did not get hard enough to take a good edge. It was used for things like jackhammer bits where it needed to be insanely tough but not that hard.
The truly amazing thing Dan and Jerry did with it (probably while making the Crash Rat)was to make it hard enough to hold a decent(actually pretty [censored] good)
edge. Now I have done no testing so this is a wild guess but I figure Sr77 is close to 1095 in edge holding which is pretty amazing and perfect for a knife like the DFLE.

However it is not a good choice for a small knife where toughness takes a back seat to edge holding. That is where you need something like CPM154 or S30V.
There are tool steels that hold an excellent edge like SR101 which is what I had originally guessed would be what the Yard would use for their smaller knives but tool steel does not have any real advantages for a knife this small so CPM154 is a great choice.

Now the only issue I have with 154 is it is not terribly exciting. All the other Busse steels have been the kind of thing us steel snobs love. Sr77 ,diff tempered 52100 and especially INFI are all exciting interesting steel while CPM154 is a bit pedestrian. 5 years ago it would have been fine but now it lacks a little excitement. Still it is a top notch super stainless and CPM154 is a
quintessential American steel which is a nice touch for a US made product. Hell I appreciate it and I am not even an American.

I think the Muppy tests finally put to rest any worries people had over
toughness issues. Now Scrapyard has 2 excellent steels and can have a full lineup of blades with steel and heat treat perfectly suited to the task in which they were designed for.

There could be a bit of overlap in size but it is the purpose that is important.
For example we can have a small hard use knife like the YKCG in Sr77 and a bigger hunting knife in 154 like a Buck 119 like HornDog mentioned. I love that idea and think something along the lines of a Fallkniven S1 with a mudder handle and CPM154 would be a perfect hunting knife.