Best blade steel for a tactical knife?

J S Machine

J S Machine

Well-Known Member
I want to start working on some tactical knives. They will be straight knives with a full tang, and likely have something like micarta for the handle scales. I was wondering what steel is most popular.

Also, I notice a lot of these knives are coated black. I'm sure some of them are some sort of phosphate, but I also saw where Cerakote was being used. What is a popular choice for a good hard coating on these types of blades?

One last thing..These will most likely have kydex sheaths or nylon type sheaths. Any info on some good kydex tutorials? I have never messed with that stuff, so I think I will learn.

Thanks.
 
The Tactacool market have many patterns these days.

If I want a hard use knife for the field I go with 440C or CPM-154 The other CPM steel like CPM-S35VN and CPM-S30V
are respectively harder to work and harder to sharpen if you want something a little easier start with 440C or CPM-154 for great balance of corrosion resistance and taking a fine lasting edge.

Ernie Emerson uses, CM-154 and those other CPM steels I mentioned and he is in that market.

I don't do any coatings so I can't help you there.
 
Thanks for the tips. I've done a few in 440c and still have. Few blanks of that, but I was wondering about the CPM steels.
 
The CPM steels hold an edge well due to their fine grain stucture but would caution to stay on lower end of hardness to avoid loosing toughness on a tactical knife.
Some CPM steels get chip-prone such as CPMS60V in some production tactical folders.
 
Ok. Looks like I can do both S30V and S35VN. For some reason I had always thought those were some of the ones I had not used because they turn out best with a cryo treatment. I don't have that capability, and I like to do my heat treating by myself. I see they might benefit from it, but based on what I have read it is not a requirement.
 
Don't forget about A2. Its tough, has a simple heat treat, cheaper than any of the CPM steels, & comes nice, clean, & ready to work, which saves a lot of time and belts. A large percentage of Busse knives used to be A2. Its not stainless but that shouldn't matter if you're gonna coat em anyway.
 
The other Tool seml stainless that can had in CPM that I have used with great results is D2 CPM -D2.

The big chopper crowd like this steel and it has large carbide clumps in it that cut really well. It can be cryo or not.
 
Cpm d2 is easy to work with, it grinds easy and takes a wicked edge, and is pretty stain resistant,
Cpm 3-v is easy to grind when its soft but hard to finish once its hardened, as for toughness it's supposed to be the cats but I haven't put my just finished batch of 3-v choppers through any testing yet.
I'v seen A-2 chopping through concrete block with no serious chipping.
 
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