Well you have to remember he has to churn out the production line fairly quickly.

Remember Cloak's RD7. Initially the blade was soft as putty as if it wasn't even HTed. Though after talking with it to Justin, his RD is as best as ever is. Hell, it holds the edge as well as my FBM when chopping wood.

really?
so it slipped through HT?
weird...
but most of his edges are just like that, it's not that he made a mistake or anything.

No, you have no idea. I'll leave Cloak to tell about it. It is his story. He also might have some pics.

okay!
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
(you're talking about the edge on it right?)

SOG chose AUS-6 because it is very tough. I am also surprised that it proved tougher than the 5160 steel, though. I like my Rangers and my SOGs. I doubt that I will break either one, but the SOG Seal 2000 did pass all the requirements of the Navy.

About the SOG Seal 2000 rating. This test was different. It was underwater. A different environment. It passed most tests I put it through. Minus the side tang impacts. The extra point was given for the serrations being very effective in a life and death environment. Serrations are very important on a dive knife giving one and extra tool on the knife.

I explain the rating on the Seal 2000 page on the site. If the test took place on the surface I would have giving it a 4. The SOG Chipped out on the steel test but the blade held and I was able to break the metal so it did it's job an an passed without total blade failure.

Anyways use and enjoy your Rangers.

Time is much more significant to "shock" than any other variable. Perceived recoil is a form of shock. Res-C definitely reduces shock, just like a buttpad on a rifle. Force and shock are not of the same order. Shock is rate of change of force. Time is everything. Its not about the amount of force, it is how quickly that force changes.

A 1 second glance at the test results conclusively shows that no amount of res-c would have saved that blade and I completely agree with Noss there.

But anybody that thinks he meant that Res-C doesn't reduce shock, and agrees with it, is simply wrong.

Way to go NOSS.

AUS-6 has huge potential, just like 12C27. these steels are cheap, so they don't get treated right, but better knives can be made of these two steels than the reigning super steels like s30v and zdp189. the latter steels cannot be sharpened to as thin a bevel as the former because of their large carbides, which would tear out. 12C27, AUS-6, and a couple other lower end stainless steels can hold a super thin edge at a high hardness if properly austenized. they'd perform similarly to alloy steels like 52100, but stainless.

two things prevent knives like these from taking over: people never see knives like this so we just keep looking for higher carbon and the same thick bevels, and the cheap steels are put into cheap knives so they'll never see a proper heat treat and people write em off as junk.

bark river puts a nice heat treat on 12C27

generally speaking. the barkies were in the back of my mind when i typed that post up. 12C27 gets much more of the respect it deserves than AUS6 or 440A.