I am in dire need of a quality knife !!!! I have a SHARP Smith & Wesson but the rest is junk. Blade dont lock or if it does it dont unlock. The best knife I have is a $10 Winchester but its bout as shap as a butter knife and will not hold a shape edge very long at all !!!
Here's what I'm getting for Christmas to keep my whole collection sharp !! http://www.worksharptools.com/sport...-and-tool-sharpener/flypage.pbv.tabs.tpl.html Seen them at Lowe's and Home Depot even cheaper...
The sharpest knives I've ever bought (as they came from the factory) were all Buck knives. A 119 and a 110 I have were both very sharp knives. But of course they don't hold that edge forever. They have to be sharpened often if you use them. I can get them pretty sharp but not as sharp as they came for some reason. Most of my knives can be made sharper than they were new. And some of the cheapest knives I have became some of the sharpest knives I have too. I have a fixed blade I got for free from Harbor Freight as part of a promotion that will beat any knife I own for sharpness but it doesn't stay that way long enough. The only markings on it say "El Salvador" and it has a place where they tested the oxygen content in the steel. I think it's made by Condor which is a very old company that used to be in Europe and then in the US I believe. But it's a very cheap version of one of their knives if it is. I just know they make knives in El Salvador. Still it's super sharp but has a cheap plastic handle and it won't hold an edge for any time at all.
At present I would declare my SOG Fusion as NIB sharpest and stayed that way through skinning and cutting up a 250# Black Bear. That saw worked wonders on the spine and pelvis! But as I recall the Buck 110 I opened new in 87 was pretty sharp too!
Jeff, the key I've found for a keen edge, is keeping that same angle for the WHOLE blade length including going around the curve to the point, following the pattern off the tip. The use of an sharpening system will help, ( my choice is Lansky.) but I tend to finish up by hand and eye, as I've done it a long time before I ever saw a Lansky, and my dad would accept nothing but best effort on blade sharpening.
Art that's pretty much sharpening 101 isn't it? I also learned to sharpen from my father about 50 years ago. There are some sharpening systems that will follow the natural contour of the knife pretty well but that doesn't mean they will be able to do it as well as a human can. The real trick to sharpening is to know the original cut on the blade and to be able to reproduce it or cut a new angle that will work just as well (or better in some cases). For example those Buck knives I mentioned have two angles on the edge. It takes getting both angles right to really match the factory edge. I can do it sometimes but unfortunately I can't do it exactly right every time. My family members usually end up cutting a new edge but that usually means reducing the strength of the edge because the second angle is usually the one that keeps the strength.
Jeff something about those old timers (our dads) teaching the youngsters how to do it and for the most part it sticks.
Very true Art. My dad not only taught us to sharpen knives but he made sure we had a good knife to sharpen. He bought us knives as Christmas presents often enough that I didn't need to buy my own in those days. I still buy the same knives dad bought us because it became such a tradition. He always bought us Uncle Henry knives even though that wasn't the only knife in the world and he knew it. He collected Case XX knives with stag handles. He had the entire collection at one point. I think he sold the whole collection as a unit but he must have spent 5 years putting that collection together traveling all over the area to find the knives he didn't have. Those things meant a lot to him. So did his S&W revolvers especially the magnums. I have one of those too mostly because dad liked them so well but also because they will do a job I needed done. The funny part was I didn't need the .44 magnum I have until I bought it then suddenly I had bears all over my yard. So I carried that 629 when I went out at night. Shotguns are great for bears if you can get to them but even if you're being mauled you can still draw and fire a revolver. Autos need room for the slide to operate. Revolvers can keep on turning usually even if they're pressed against a big hairy bear. I was sure glad enough to have that 629 after the bears moved in. Sometimes the old ways are the best ways. That's not to say I don't like my XD. I certainly do. There's things they will do that most pistols won't do well. I have a .40 XDM because it will penetrate car door steel with the right ammo and it will go through car glass even if you hit the glass at an angle. I used to carry a .45 ACP all the time (still do sometimes) but the .40 will do some of the things a 9mm will do while still retaining a lot of the muscle of a .45. I think they are great handguns especially with the right ammo which IMO is Critical Duty. 15+1 rounds of that plus a spare mag or two and you won't be outgunned too often. Sorry to ramble. You got me to thinking of doing things the smart way and this is what came out. BTW Tinman - my Kershaw works great too and it is very solidly built. I expect to get at least 10 good years out of it. I have the Blur with the S30V steel. That's a knife to hold an edge for a long time. It's everything I need in a EDC knife. I rarely carry any of my other knives now. Somehow they just seem too fragile compared to the Kershaw. I know they aren't but they aren't up to the Kershaw level either IMO. I love my Buck knives and my real Uncle Henry knives. Same goes for my Case knives. But the one I keep in my pocket is the Blur.
I am not real experienced with knives but to the actual question I have Buck, kershaw, Gerber, Crkt, Cold steel Kinves. At least two of each type up to as many as 4 of some. The sharpest from the factory has by far been the Cold Steel.
Cold Steel knives are exceptionally sharp for sure. They are good knives too. I tend to look for a knife that can be sharpened to a very sharp edge and will stay that way a very long time. Plus I look for a knife that can last a very long time. And then I look at the price for the knife. I know the initial cost isn't the biggest factor in what makes a knife a bargain but if a person can find a really good knife at a good price then they truly have gotten the most out of their money. My Buck 110 (the sharpest out of the box knife I've ever owned) is made from 420HC steel but it's a better treated version of that steel than I've seen in other knives. Now Buck makes 110's with S30V. That's the same steel in my Kershaw Blur. A lot of people shy away from that steel citing issues with inconsistent manufacturing and it being a really hard steel to sharpen. I have to admit it took a good bit of work to find the right sharpening method for my Kershaw. Once I found it though the knife seems to last forever without losing it's edge. And I found a method to sharpen it that takes about 10 seconds. I use a sanding belt with very fine grit belts (6000 or finer - I currently use 10,000). Of course a person has to watch about burning the temper right out of the blade but S30V is an extremely tough type of steel. So far I haven't destroyed it. And I only have to sharpen this knife about every 6 months. But I don't use it for heavy cutting or anything but it does get a pretty good workout in 6 months. I've never seen any other steel come close to holding an edge that long through moderate to heavy use. And it will get very sharp too. So in my mind this is by far the best knife I've owned or even used. I'm not saying I've owned every knife. I am not an expert. I just know what I've seen and that I haven't used any of the expensive knives around like Benchmade, Sog and Spyerdco. There are lots of expensive knives out there that I've never even seen. But when I see a $500 pocket knife, and I have seen a few, I have to wonder if it really is 6 times better than my Kershaw. It would have to be one heck of a knife. I'm sure there are better knives than my Blur but I can't think of a single good reason to worry about getting a better one. My Kershaw Blur is incredibly tough, holds an edge like crazy, sharpens very easy now that I learned how, and gets very sharp. It also has assisted opening so it's very easy to get out of my pocket and put to work with one hand which is great if I'm holding something with my other hand. I've owned knives that were considered to be among the best during their early years of service. Field And Stream listed both the Buck 110 and the Uncle Henry 885UH (my dad kept us supplied with those knives for years making sure we always had a fairly new model) among the top 20 knives ever made. I've used both extensively. I still do. But neither measures up to the Kershaw. It's a knife from a whole new era it helped to create just like the 110 and the Uncle Henry's before it did in their time. There are lots of great knives around. I just happen to like the features of the Kershaw Blur with S30V steel better than any other knife that doesn't cost a whole lot more money.
Cold Steel knives are always extremely sharp, including the ones that don't necessarily need to be that sharp (various kukri-style blades, for example.)
