We need a serious discussion about the merits of each and more importantly which is better for a given circumstance or use.

For the purpose of this discussion, price cannot be the determining factor. If you know me at all you know I'm only interested in the best regardless of the cost. HOWEVER, price to performance should be discussed and can be a factor. For example if your experience yields that INFI is 15% more durable but 200% more money...you should state this.

Down and dirty. SR101 makes for a better slicer. INFI makes for a better chopper subject to more abuse. Just my opinion.

For me, the only improvement I see in INFI over SR101 is stain resistance. So it's difficult for me to justify the price difference.

ETA - I should also mention that INFI is noticeably easier to sharpen.

I still want a comp finish choilless INFImandu.

That's a great start to this dialog. Thanks for sharing.

Anyone else have experience they can share?

I concur with Spider pig. INFI for choppers (Well OK, for ANY knife). For me INFI is a piece of cake to sharpen. SR101 on the other hand takes a while. BUT it does hold a good edge. IF my last name was Gates, I would have Dan's wares AND probably all the INFI I could purchase.

Camping once with a buddy. I was batoning and chopping with my 911. She took a licking and asked for more. I then started doing the same with my buddy's sarge 7. The infi accumulated very small yet visible rolls in the blade. Both edges were factory edges. That is my only experience with infi. I am just learning to sharpen blades by hand and I find that Sr 101 isnt difficult, just more time consuming than some other metals. Price to performance, I would take Sr 101 any day.

To clarify; A roll is obviously better than a chip. The infi did what it was supposed to do. After hearing of the magical properties of infi, I was just shocked at how easy it was to roll the edge.

When I reprofiled the edge on my Wardog from a convex to a V grind I thought something was wrong. It sharpened SO easily. I couldn't believe how it holds that edge being that (Seemingly) soft steel.

Gary, this is from the Busse site:

About Our Steel - INFI

INFI is a proprietary steel and heat-treat protocol developed by Busse Combat Knife Co. It is ONLY available through Busse Combat.

Some facts and info about INFI.

Hardness



Although hardened INFI knives are 58-60 Rc we have yet been able to chip an edge. The edge can be dented or misaligned but its high level of malleability at such high hardness has never been duplicated by any other steel that we are aware of or have tested.

Flexibility



In one of our performance tests, we bend a Battle Mistress 35 degrees in a vise and it springs back to true. Why would we do this? What does it prove? What is the benefit to the customer? Not only does this test demonstrate the enormous toughness and lateral strength of an INFI blade but, because our hardness is homogenous and not differential, it demonstrates the amount of lateral strength and "spring" of INFI all the way to the edge. That means that edge of the blade will possess this same toughness. INFI is the only knife steel ever tested that has achieved such high levels of lateral strength with a homogenous hardness of 58 - 60 Rc. No other steel has even neared this performance level.

Edge Retention



Many so-called knife experts have heralded the "wear resistance" of a steel as the key to edge retention. This may very well be true if a knife is designed and intended for the cutting of soft materials ONLY. However, we have never inspected a dull knife and found the edge to be perfectly smoothed away, like a ball bearing. Instead what we find are microscopic chips where the edge has broken or chipped away like glass after having impacted against bone, gravel, or other hard surfaces. This micro chipping dictates that the edge be reground during the resharpening process, which will ultimately lead to a thicker edge and a radical change in overall blade shape. Steels with high wear resistance normally score fairly low in shock resistance, lateral strength, and overall toughness. INFI scores very high in ALL of these categories.

Sharpening



INFI's high level of chip resistance also makes it the easiest steel to resharpen by hand that we have ever encountered. One of the great features of INFI is that simply stropping away from the edge (the way a barber strops a straight edged razor) on a ceramic stick is basically all that is required to resharpen INFI. Since you're not chipping steel off the edge there is no need to grind any steel away. This feature of INFI will, likewise, allow you to keep the same overall profile of the knife for a much greater period of time.

How does INFI compare to other steels?



Simple question, complex answer. INFI represents what we have always dreamed of in a knife steel. Tougher, by an enormous margin, than any other steel we've ever tested. It has unparalleled edge holding under high impact and in cutting tests, and shock resistance that begs you to "bring it on". INFI has an ease of re-sharpening that you have to see to believe and higher levels of lateral strength at high hardness than have ever been achieved by any other steel. We have published our test results and our testing methodology. We have video taped all of these tests and play the video at the knife shows we attend. More importantly, we have duplicated these performance tests in "LIVE" demonstrations at many trade shows throughout the United States. We encourage all manufacturers to put their products through our tests and to publish their results. If you want to know how another maker's knife will compare to a Busse Combat knife, ask the other maker to duplicate our tests in a "live" demo.

Is INFI stainless?



INFI is technically not supposed to be, however, INFI has demonstrated very high levels of stain resistance in many different climates. Uncoated blades have been tested for years in Alaska and have made their way into the wilds of British Columbia, the High Sierras and tropical rain forests. No rust in Alaska or British Columbia! No rust in the High Sierras, even when exposed to great quantities of blood and left in the wet grass overnight. The tropical rain forest, which has been known to rust plastic (just kidding), did offer the toughest of the environmental exposures and a light speckling of surface oxidation did occur but was easily removed in the field with a hand rubbing of sand and water. No deep pitting was reported. When compared to other cutlery steels in salt spray tests, INFI faired better than ATS-34 and D-2. Although all three grades exhibited surface oxidation, the INFI was not deeply pitted as was common in these other two grades. So, although INFI is not technically a stainless steel, it is certainly not a rust aggressive steel. Couple this with a minimal amount of care and you've got a fairly maintenance free knife.

With a steel like INFI it's easy to understand why we offer the toughest guarantee in the business. We guarantee against any and all unintentional MAJOR damage forever.


Here is some more I found.

Heat Treat and Tempering Processes Used



Busse Combat knives are exposed to over 60 hours of heat treating and tempering. It is in this process that the very soul of a blades performance will be born. It can also be the most expensive process involved in the making of a fine blade.

Sadly, the knife buying public has been led to believe that Rockwell Hardness is some sort of gauge by which to determine performance. This is ridiculous. Following standard ASTM heat treating and tempering protocols, a blade made from a standard tool steel can be "properly" heat treated and tempered in less than 1-1/2 hours and brought to a hardness of 57-59 Rc.

But what does that prove? One of our Swamp Rat division blades that has received our proprietary heat treat and tempering protocol of over 40 hours will also test out at 57-59 Rc. This fact is that one of our Swamp Rat transversion wave tempered blades that tests out at 57-59 Rc will greatly outperform a standard heat treated knife blade out of the same material that also has a 57-59 Rc hardness. Now imagine the performance of a Busse Combat blade that has undergone our proprietary heat treat and tempering protocol of over 60 hours that tests out at 58-60 Rc!

Grain structure and carbide distribution, are the keys to great performance NOT Rockwell hardness!




Cryogenic Treatment



Busse Combat knives undergo a deep cryogenic treatment at over 300 degrees below zero. This deep-freezing of our INFI steel to 300 degrees below for a prolonged period of time stabilizes the microstructure of the INFI. Just as retained austenite is transformed to martensite during the tempering process, the same change occurs during the cryogenic treatment.

Our cryogenic treatment improves the mechanical properties of INFI like hardness, wear resistance, toughness, and resistance to fatigue.

AND I found this from http://www.tzknives.com/articles/INFI.html

Busse Combat's INFI is a steel that is beginning to unravel all my theories about high chromium steels. Jerry Busse sent me some recently to test its' suitability for forging by custom makers. At this point I have only done preliminary testing, but the results are very intriguing.

While this isn't truly a stainless steel INFI does resist staining about like ATS-34. It is stronger than any stainless steel I have ever seen. I think it will rival O1 in tensile strength and L6 in impact strength. After shaving a lot of cardboard it will easily keep up with, and probably surpass most carbon steels on edge holding. Finally, there is a rust resistant steel that really cuts and cuts and cuts�

One of the weird things I noticed was how the hardness test marks looked under the microscope. In many carbon steels the dent crater will have cracks around the edge. This is especially true if the steel is not martempered. Even at a hardness of 62HRC INFI just seems to mush out of the way like putty.

INFI is an air hardening steel. It is also difficult to forge. You really have to hit it to get it to move. For heat treating, kilns and liquid nitrogen are required. But, if you have access to the equipment this could be one of the best all around knife steels ever. Hopefully, Jerry will make it available to custom makers.

I'm wondering when this INFI 2 that Jerry teased us with a few years ago will finally make it's appearance.