Survive knives

[electro-static]

I work as a process development engineer for manufacturing and have been following the fiasco with Survive! knives, he’s been pretty adamant about blaming a specific steel for all sorts of delays and quality problems. However it would also seem to me that he tried to scale production without doing adequate process development when switching to a new material before locking himself into a price-point with pre-orders.

Ordinarily I’d dismiss it because it seems like materials being blamed for poor process development practices, however now many people are repeating his claims about Magna-cut on videos with other knives in it. Has anyone else besides him who has worked with Magna-Cut seen the “inclusions” he is talking about or had issues with knives breaking unexpectedly?

I am fairly skeptical because most of the issues I have seen so far seem to be a result of inadequate process development.

[TomAiello]

I have some older Survive knives in 20cv and 3v, and they've been super solid. Apparently they went downhill when they tried to scale up (unsuccessfully). My general impression from reading through things a while back is that I basically wouldn't trust them. They seem to be in the business of blaming everyone else for their problems.

FWIW, I own multiple knives in Magnacut and have never had any issues. I actually did some pretty abusive testing on a Bradford Guardian (side by side with the same knife in 4v because I wanted to compare) and definitely didn't see any issues like blade failure.

[electro-static]

I have some older Survive knives in 20cv and 3v, and they've been super solid. Apparently they went downhill when they tried to scale up (unsuccessfully). My general impression from reading through things a while back is that I basically wouldn't trust them. They seem to be in the business of blaming everyone else for their problems.

FWIW, I own multiple knives in Magnacut and have never had any issues. I actually did some pretty abusive testing on a Bradford Guardian (side by side with the same knife in 4v because I wanted to compare) and definitely didn't see any issues like blade failure.

Standard process development practices like doing a pilot run, and a cost of goods analysis for pricing in scrap should keep them running smoothly and profitable even with a claimed 20% scrap rate. From what I can tell Survive is mostly appealing to ignorance about manufacturing process development to excuse it’s late production.

I’ve only had good experiences with Magna cut, and have only really heard of others having good experiences with the material. A lot people seem to be jumping on survive’s bandwagon in the comments section of any knife in magna-cut do I was curious if any makers or users had experiences different from my own and the experiences that I have heard of.

[standy99]

Survive is a train wreck on Instagram.
Plenty of claims made due to the steel and not his over pre-order. (And yes his pre-order price and timeline was way off the mark of being profitable or achievable without hiring staff) He doubled down blaming the steel which didn’t go down well. He was even offered a refund from the steel manufacturer for every claim he had and had to send the blank as proof, which he only sent a few in and wanted them back pretty quick I hear!!!

No issue with the steel with the 40-50 custom knife makers I chat with being a hobby knife-maker. Have used a few of the early runs of Magnacut and found no issue. Albeit only made a few knives with it.
I have 3 lots of Magnacut sitting from 3 different orders from 3 different suppliers in Australia and the US over time and it all looks good to me.

He is well known for taking up to 18-24 months to honour a pre paid knife on more than a few occasions.

The only wobbling I have heard of for Magnacut was due to warping when very thin kitchen knives were being made very early on in the first few months of release.

[electro-static]

Survive is a train wreck on Instagram.
Plenty of claims made due to the steel and not his over pre-order. (And yes his pre-order price and timeline was way off the mark of being profitable or achievable without hiring staff) He doubled down blaming the steel which didn’t go down well. He was even offered a refund from the steel manufacturer for every claim he had and had to send the blank as proof, which he only sent a few in and wanted them back pretty quick I hear!!!

No issue with the steel with the 40-50 custom knife makers I chat with being a hobby knife-maker. Have used a few of the early runs of Magnacut and found no issue. Albeit only made a few knives with it.
I have 3 lots of Magnacut sitting from 3 different orders from 3 different suppliers in Australia and the US over time and it all looks good to me.

He is well known for taking up to 18-24 months to honour a pre paid knife on more than a few occasions.

The only wobbling I have heard of for Magnacut was due to warping when very thin kitchen knives were being made very early on in the first few months of release.

This is the type of information I was looking for from someone who works with the material. I can’t help but feel like dragging cpm magna-cut is just part of a marketing blitz for their knives in European grades of steel.

[standy99]

Survive is a train wreck on Instagram.
Plenty of claims made due to the steel and not his over pre-order. (And yes his pre-order price and timeline was way off the mark of being profitable or achievable without hiring staff) He doubled down blaming the steel which didn’t go down well. He was even offered a refund from the steel manufacturer for every claim he had and had to send the blank as proof, which he only sent a few in and wanted them back pretty quick I hear!!!

No issue with the steel with the 40-50 custom knife makers I chat with being a hobby knife-maker. Have used a few of the early runs of Magnacut and found no issue. Albeit only made a few knives with it.
I have 3 lots of Magnacut sitting from 3 different orders from 3 different suppliers in Australia and the US over time and it all looks good to me.

He is well known for taking up to 18-24 months to honour a pre paid knife on more than a few occasions.

The only wobbling I have heard of for Magnacut was due to warping when very thin kitchen knives were being made very early on in the first few months of release.

This is the type of information I was looking for from someone who works with the material. I can’t help but feel like dragging cpm magna-cut is just part of a marketing blitz for their knives in European grades of steel.

Funny but all the noise about the steel is coming from the big players that send the hundreds of blades out for heat treat and grinding.. the standard for 3rd party is 62 HT as any higher it’s more on belts and cost etc. they are the ones claiming 61-62 is good enough for Magnacut

The small custom guy with a heat treat oven in his shed has no issue going to the 64HT which has been advised as the optimal best for the steel and doesn’t mind a extra half a belt cost in grinding.

But for me the big thing in this case was someone hyped up a product in a popular steel and took a lot of pre orders in $$$ and the more he fights the “it’s the steels fault” instead of knocking knives out is always going to upset people. Because the smaller guy knocking out a few knives a week in Magnacut to feed his family who is not having a issue with it, are the ones he’s upsetting, along with the knife enthusiasts that have paid him up front 12 months ago.

This is just my view from being in the knifemaker world. I work full time 12 hour shifts and make knives as a hobby. I wouldn’t expect anyone to pay anything until the knife is ready to post.

[electro-static]

Survive is a train wreck on Instagram.
Plenty of claims made due to the steel and not his over pre-order. (And yes his pre-order price and timeline was way off the mark of being profitable or achievable without hiring staff) He doubled down blaming the steel which didn’t go down well. He was even offered a refund from the steel manufacturer for every claim he had and had to send the blank as proof, which he only sent a few in and wanted them back pretty quick I hear!!!

No issue with the steel with the 40-50 custom knife makers I chat with being a hobby knife-maker. Have used a few of the early runs of Magnacut and found no issue. Albeit only made a few knives with it.
I have 3 lots of Magnacut sitting from 3 different orders from 3 different suppliers in Australia and the US over time and it all looks good to me.

He is well known for taking up to 18-24 months to honour a pre paid knife on more than a few occasions.

The only wobbling I have heard of for Magnacut was due to warping when very thin kitchen knives were being made very early on in the first few months of release.

This is the type of information I was looking for from someone who works with the material. I can’t help but feel like dragging cpm magna-cut is just part of a marketing blitz for their knives in European grades of steel.

Funny but all the noise about the steel is coming from the big players that send the hundreds of blades out for heat treat and grinding.. the standard for 3rd party is 62 HT as any higher it’s more on belts and cost etc. they are the ones claiming 61-62 is good enough for Magnacut

The small custom guy with a heat treat oven in his shed has no issue going to the 64HT which has been advised as the optimal best for the steel and doesn’t mind a extra half a belt cost in grinding.

But for me the big thing in this case was someone hyped up a product in a popular steel and took a lot of pre orders in $$$ and the more he fights the “it’s the steels fault” instead of knocking knives out is always going to upset people. Because the smaller guy knocking out a few knives a week in Magnacut to feed his family who is not having a issue with it, are the ones he’s upsetting, along with the knife enthusiasts that have paid him up front 12 months ago.

This is just my view from being in the knifemaker world. I work full time 12 hour shifts and make knives as a hobby. I wouldn’t expect anyone to pay anything until the knife is ready to post.

I’ve only really bought custom knives in CPM magna cut as many customs cost roughly the same as high end production knives It sharpens well, and it holds an edge well as well, anyone who has made a knife for me has taken payment after proof of production. Hearing from a custom knife maker puts the lie to many of the claims.


I work in process development and have had to deal with high defect rates in raw materials before, and part of my job is reducing scrap rates as well. I feel you with those long shifts.

Everything I have seen from Survive’s youtube channel strikes me as really just routine manufacturing challenges when developing a process for a new material.

Granted that mass producing a product and making one in your shed are entirely different levels of difficulty for production so I wouldn’t be surprised if a knife steel would be easier to get right as a small custom maker than as a large knife manufacturer. But the claims that Survive is making are so large that a custom maker or hobbiest should be able to asses them.

[Ankerson]

Survive is a train wreck on Instagram.
Plenty of claims made due to the steel and not his over pre-order. (And yes his pre-order price and timeline was way off the mark of being profitable or achievable without hiring staff) He doubled down blaming the steel which didn’t go down well. He was even offered a refund from the steel manufacturer for every claim he had and had to send the blank as proof, which he only sent a few in and wanted them back pretty quick I hear!!!

No issue with the steel with the 40-50 custom knife makers I chat with being a hobby knife-maker. Have used a few of the early runs of Magnacut and found no issue. Albeit only made a few knives with it.
I have 3 lots of Magnacut sitting from 3 different orders from 3 different suppliers in Australia and the US over time and it all looks good to me.

He is well known for taking up to 18-24 months to honour a pre paid knife on more than a few occasions.

The only wobbling I have heard of for Magnacut was due to warping when very thin kitchen knives were being made very early on in the first few months of release.

This is the type of information I was looking for from someone who works with the material. I can’t help but feel like dragging cpm magna-cut is just part of a marketing blitz for their knives in European grades of steel.

Funny but all the noise about the steel is coming from the big players that send the hundreds of blades out for heat treat and grinding.. the standard for 3rd party is 62 HT as any higher it’s more on belts and cost etc. they are the ones claiming 61-62 is good enough for Magnacut

The small custom guy with a heat treat oven in his shed has no issue going to the 64HT which has been advised as the optimal best for the steel and doesn’t mind a extra half a belt cost in grinding.

But for me the big thing in this case was someone hyped up a product in a popular steel and took a lot of pre orders in $$$ and the more he fights the “it’s the steels fault” instead of knocking knives out is always going to upset people. Because the smaller guy knocking out a few knives a week in Magnacut to feed his family who is not having a issue with it, are the ones he’s upsetting, along with the knife enthusiasts that have paid him up front 12 months ago.

This is just my view from being in the knifemaker world. I work full time 12 hour shifts and make knives as a hobby. I wouldn’t expect anyone to pay anything until the knife is ready to post.

I’ve only really bought custom knives in CPM magna cut as many customs cost roughly the same as high end production knives It sharpens well, and it holds an edge well as well, anyone who has made a knife for me has taken payment after proof of production. Hearing from a custom knife maker puts the lie to many of the claims.


I work in process development and have had to deal with high defect rates in raw materials before, and part of my job is reducing scrap rates as well. I feel you with those long shifts.

Everything I have seen from Survive’s youtube channel strikes me as really just routine manufacturing challenges when developing a process for a new material.

Granted that mass producing a product and making one in your shed are entirely different levels of difficulty for production so I wouldn’t be surprised if a knife steel would be easier to get right as a small custom maker than as a large knife manufacturer. But the claims that Survive is making are so large that a custom maker or hobbiest should be able to asses them.

There is a massive difference in Commerical Heat Treating and doing a few blades.

I don't know Survive Knives process nor who does their heat treating however so I can't comment on any of that.

[electro-static]

This is the type of information I was looking for from someone who works with the material. I can’t help but feel like dragging cpm magna-cut is just part of a marketing blitz for their knives in European grades of steel.

Funny but all the noise about the steel is coming from the big players that send the hundreds of blades out for heat treat and grinding.. the standard for 3rd party is 62 HT as any higher it’s more on belts and cost etc. they are the ones claiming 61-62 is good enough for Magnacut

The small custom guy with a heat treat oven in his shed has no issue going to the 64HT which has been advised as the optimal best for the steel and doesn’t mind a extra half a belt cost in grinding.

But for me the big thing in this case was someone hyped up a product in a popular steel and took a lot of pre orders in $$$ and the more he fights the “it’s the steels fault” instead of knocking knives out is always going to upset people. Because the smaller guy knocking out a few knives a week in Magnacut to feed his family who is not having a issue with it, are the ones he’s upsetting, along with the knife enthusiasts that have paid him up front 12 months ago.

This is just my view from being in the knifemaker world. I work full time 12 hour shifts and make knives as a hobby. I wouldn’t expect anyone to pay anything until the knife is ready to post.

I’ve only really bought custom knives in CPM magna cut as many customs cost roughly the same as high end production knives It sharpens well, and it holds an edge well as well, anyone who has made a knife for me has taken payment after proof of production. Hearing from a custom knife maker puts the lie to many of the claims.


I work in process development and have had to deal with high defect rates in raw materials before, and part of my job is reducing scrap rates as well. I feel you with those long shifts.

Everything I have seen from Survive’s youtube channel strikes me as really just routine manufacturing challenges when developing a process for a new material.

Granted that mass producing a product and making one in your shed are entirely different levels of difficulty for production so I wouldn’t be surprised if a knife steel would be easier to get right as a small custom maker than as a large knife manufacturer. But the claims that Survive is making are so large that a custom maker or hobbiest should be able to asses them.

There is a massive difference in Commerical Heat Treating and doing a few blades.

I don't know Survive Knives process nor who does their heat treating however so I can't comment on any of that.

I think they ship their knives out to peter’s heat treat.

[standy99]

He still has knives from 2015 outstanding


If you scroll down on this page

https://surviveknives.com/production-schedule/