Yes, that little bit of extra performance that INFI has comes at a premium price. That's why we have Swamp Rat and the Yard, whose knives still perform with an amazing toughness but at prices most can afford. Some will only have INFI, and I have my share, but SR77 and SR101 get most of the real use by my Busse made blades. I have had no failures with either steel.

I wished I could come spend the day in your yard Vic,

The funny part is, I bet the knives would break you before you could break them. I'm starting to learn that I actually like the knives I abuse MORE than the ones I don't. The knife that gets abused has done something none of the others ever will.
My current example is that I've picked up the habit of opening beverage containers (pop cans) with my SOD. You stab it (carefully) and twist. You can make the hole any size you want, plus if you put a little vent in the top of the can it flows much more smoothly.
While this isn't extreme abuse, it doesn't fall under the category of "normal use" either (but maybe it does?).
Really, if I searched high and low for the worst job a knife could do, chances are the SOD would just laugh at me, and I would be really sore after trying.

I doubt you could hurt a SOD with a pop can.

SR-77 is definitely some crazy tough stuff. On a SOD-sized knife it's a great choice. I think I need to spend more time beating on my SOD - the NMSFNO has gotten most of the love lately.

Good point!

I would also like to see some INFI married with Res-C handle in larger blades (as it was in the medium-small scrapper 5).
The dissadvantages of the full-tang reflects also in the overall weight of the knife (weight counts a lot for backpacking).

I chipped INFI also and I can show video about it <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.
However, it performed better on rock impacts than any other steel I have tested that way. The CS Bushman was the one that also performed the same on the same rocks (but the Bushman is about 5 Rockwell points softer so it should normally be less prone to chipping). The chips were small and they had the shape of the rock, looking almost like stamps (but they were chips because small parts of the steel were missing from the edge, not only deformed <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsaQRFYO2_s

INFI is great in all but one area, price.

Ok, a lot of folks made knives and worked with various steel over the years. Jerry has a PHD in metals. I don't know the exact title, but he is not only very educated on all steels and metals, he is a professor on the subject. I beleive what Jerry says. If there was a better all around steel, I think he would be using it. He used to use other steels... until he came up with INFI. When it comes to "hard use" cutlery steel, there are lots of great choices. INFI just has that special "edge". Thats only my opinion.

Quick tale of the Scrapper 5 Combat Grade.
Not an INFI story but I'm putting it out there for comparison if anyone has done anything simmilar.

My S5CG is my EDC. One job we were on the other day was repairing an old red oak floor. A few planks had to be torn out, trimmed and put back. If you have ever seen a hardwood floor repair you know the lower half of the groove needs to come off to fit the last piece in for a spot repair.
With no table saw handy I decided to baton the strip off of this 2 foot long section just to hurry up and call it done. I worked my way to the halfway point in the floor board, beating the S5 with an old unusable section of oak when it suddenly stopped. It stopped hard. It crossed my mind that it might just be bound in the grain so I slammed the blade one more good time and it didn't budge.
I wiggled the S5 out of the floor board and took a look at the edge. No damage whatsoever. Not a glint on the edge at all. Now, upon closer inspection of the floorboard I found that my blade had been in hard contact with a 70 year old section of a hardened "cut" nail which now had a heck of a notch cut into it.
Needles to say I am VERY happy with my S5CG and it is still gliding through paper like it was fresh out of the cardboard wrapper.
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I tried to baton SR101 through a nail once... it didn't go quite as well....







'course, that was a hardened masonry nail in the middle of a birch tree that I cut down, but still... it sucked <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Ouch. Those masonry nails are no joke.