MT46S MagnaMax SE Testing Thread

[Fireman]

After reading this thread I think the $200 the EBay Flippers are asking is too cheap

[Jeb]

Fireman,

Dang dude, don't say that stuff out loud... your trying to kill me lol. I am still trolling on the SE MagnaMax Mule as I type here now...

Edit: after you had to put that in type, I went and bought the SE MagnaMax on ebay lol. Got a set of scales for it on the Spyderco website also.

[Fireman]

Fireman,

Dang dude, don't say that stuff out loud... your trying to kill me lol. I am still trolling on the SE MagnaMax Mule as I type here now...

Edit: after you had to put that in type, I went and bought the SE MagnaMax on ebay lol. Got a set of scales for it on the Spyderco website also.

Being that these are a unique melt there won’t be any more no matter how many thousands of knives are made in the steel. That on top of being serrated makes them a top Mule to own and give love to. Enjoy the steel addiction

[Jeb]

Addiction, yes let's go with that lol. But just between you and I, what I have is worse.

[weeping minora]

Thanks Larrin. My reading on this seems to lead me to believe that the second "MagnaMax" heat for this Mule release was unintentionally quite a bit further out of compositional specification within the tolerances that were aimed for. Is this so, and why the composition has been redacted?

*Edited for clarity.

Larrin has stated elsewhere that Magnamax heat 2 was out of spec for the steel. Instead of the additional chromium requested, there's +0.25% more carbon. Seemingly resulting in higher toughness at equivalent hardness than heat 1, and higher hardness at equivalent austenitizing temps (@2200f heat 1 hit approx 64.5 HRC and heat 2 hits just over 66HRC). At 64.2 ish HRC heat 1 hits approx 6t-lbs toughness and heat 2 hits 7.7ft-lbs ish. I'm eyeballing them where there's a decimal though. and Larrin also estimated the corrosion resistance to be in the range of M390, S45Vn and Elmax which was less than what he was going for. Further info is on the patreon it seems, but I'm going on what has been said publicly on youtube.
I guess to sum up, traded better toughness/edge retention for corrosion resistance

Thanks, sage! I have to agree that the results of heat 2 seem to be an improvement, IMO. Still looking forward to MagnaMax in its "final form", regardless.

[NCJohn62]

Howdy folks here's my three centavos on the MagnaMax Mule with my copy paste from early September initial report and impressions and my current findings as well.

Sept 7th
On the MagnaMax testing front. I'll be using it just as I did the MagnaCut one, as a Kitchen Petty/utility knife, as well as handling all of the general day-to-day tasks I would normally use a folder for. I will be putting it in the dishwasher from time to time...

Mine came pretty symmetrical in terms of grind at, 19-20 degrees, although it was "fat" through the belly and probably sharpened at 220/240. Nasty, aggressive, non-shaving, sharp edge that I put right to use on meal prep, it ripped through carrots and celery as well as the HTPE cutting board underneath! It cut and opened the usual bunch of Amazon boxes around here for a day or so more before I put it on the KME. The out-of-the-box finish on the blade is very nice; any schmutz and residue is an easy wipe off.

Found it pretty easy to clean up the heel and set a 17-degree angle with the 100-grit stone, then I progressed through the CGS resin-bonded stones to 800 with a .05 micron strop, and it was shaving sharp. I have since gone through several hundred feet of standard 2-wall cardboard, as well as some very dirty 4-wall packing cardboard, along with breaking down a significant amount of plastic tubs of various types.
I normally edge test by cutting newsprint, and when the edge was a getting bit draggy, so after about 8 passes on basswood with the .05 compound, it was back to shaving sharp again. Stain and scratch resistance have been impressive; it laughed at hot steak juices last night.

Oct update.

Frankly I've stopped counting the footage of cardboard this thing has cut, It's got to be over a thousand feet now. And I am doing stupidly abusive stuff to it. As I'm using it on the cutting boards I'm deliberately torquing the edge while it's actually cut into the board and I'm cringing while I'm doing it. I can't get the edge stability to fail. It's been through the dishwasher multiple times, I keep leaving it on the cutting board or in a draining rack wet or in contact with acidic foods. Zero signs of corrosion or staining. I've stropped it back twice more to a near shaving edge.

I am very much in the K390/15V camp when it comes to tool steel use, and I would say that MagnaMax is superior to K390 when it comes to edge retention. Larrin has cooked up a winner here.

[sal]

Hi NCJohn,

How did you sharpen the serrations?

sal

[Jayrod1980]

Love this knife! Cuts great. I ended up marring the finish a bit so I decided to go acid stonewash. I cannot wait until this steel is in the regular lineup. I’ll probably sell half of my 40 something knives when it happens outside of my 15V collection.

[Jayrod1980]

I didn’t state it in my last post but I took the mule to 15 degrees each side with a 3000 grit edge on the WorkSharp. I’ll never sell this knife… first production Magnamax blades ever will be gifted to my son when I pass!

[SaltyCaribbeanDfly]

Love this knife! Cuts great. I ended up marring the finish a bit so I decided to go acid stonewash. I cannot wait until this steel is in the regular lineup. I’ll probably sell half of my 40 something knives when it happens outside of my 15V collection.

Wow! That’s one good looking knife

[Gears_QQQ]

So, those who got mule first got an even rarer version? Since there is a first and a second version of mule

[Actinolite]

Okay. Due to an issue that has cropped up with my hands, I've been unable to do any serious testing. However, I did do some cardboard box processing. My previous favorite for this was my LeafJumper SE K390, a beast that cuts cardboard better and easier than any PE knife I've used. The MagnaMax SE Mule slices through boxes at least as easily, and so far, has shown no sign of reduced performance. What makes me prefer it to the LeafJumper is the handle--while the LeafJumper is reasonably comfortable to use, the handle of the Mule is quite a bit better. It's so much easier to make a great shaped handle for a fixie compared to a folder.

How does the MagnaMax compare to K390? So far, in my limited experience, I can't tell the difference.

[Skylark427]

For anyone interested, I did a bit of live wood testing on both the 15V Mule and MagnaMax Mule to compare the two



Both used the factory edge lightly refined on a Basswood strop with 6 micron diamond emulsion, followed by 1 micron diamond emulsion, roughly 4 passes per side on each just to help refine them a bit. There was some light batoning done to get through the some branches with a small deadblow hammer.

Long story short, both performed exceptionally. This was a bit ago now, and I plan on taking both to a 26° inclusive edge and using a different test medium to get more accurate results, but this was just a way to have fun and also tell how both steels would perform in relation to each other, and how good MagnaMax is currently, even with it being a prototype heat. Both are still very usable, and the edges stropped back in about the same number of passes. Neither saw damage, but this is silver maple, not the hardest wood, not the softest. There's no way to quantify this testing, it's just a random comparison.

In the future I plan on using different synthetic ropes that are known to be more resistant to cutting and more abrasive on edges, as well as more consistently made for more quantifiable results, over a scale, and adding the K294 Mule and AEB-L Mule in just for more direct comparisons(to A11 type steels) and against high toughness and edge stability steels(AEB-L) I've also just wanted the AEB-L Mule for some time. But this was just a fun little test for people who were wondering how well it performs out in the field, or out camping. Side note: the Mule is becoming one of my favorite platforms, it's an amazing utility blade.

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/magnamax-mule-15v-m ... ns-Jlie1i6

Edit: posted the same picture twice, that's now fixed.