Wow guys, thanks for the feedback! I didn’t expect it to be so fast, encouraging, and well-informed. Leave it to the Spyderco forum crowd to bring the steel enthusiasm!
Some things I think should be noted that I forgot to include originally:
All knives were sharpened to 17dps
Vanadis4E felt gummy on the sharpening stones and (by all accounts), the steel should perform better
Being that the Vanadis4E is on an old ZT, I suspect the heat treatment is not optimal and some flexible damaged metal clung to the apex and refused to be deburred - though it could also be my fault, with the hundreds of variables present in hand sharpening
I have had somewhat better results chopping wood with 1095 CroVan and 80CrV2 than 1095 proper, it should be noted that not all 0.9ish% Carbon carbon steels perform similarly
I’ve seen that chart before but with you pointing it out and his video showing similar results I get it even more.
Now that I think about it, this chart from @Larrin is more appropriate since "edge retention" doesn't matter for this particular discussion. You can see that NitroV and Magnacut cross over between 62 and 63 HRC.
