A review of the SE and PE Magnacut blades and how Spy27 measures up

[Wartstein]

And, it might sound weird, but I somehow wished I´d prefer the Native 5 LW over the Delica / Salt 2...

After reading the review I found myself wondering if a Native 5 could make it into my collection. Heretofore the Native's limited length has made me hesitate; thank you for your comments about the Delica's positives.

You´re welcome, but keep in mind: Most of my points about preferring the Delica/Salt 2 are pretty subjective and ymmv!

What is objectively true:

- The Salt 2/Delica offer a bit more cutting edge (among the two the Salt 2 actually has a bit more edge than the Delica)
- The Salt 2/Delica have thinner blade stock
- The Salt 2/Delica have a longer grip area on the actual FRN handle (how the actual ergos of that grip area feel to an individual person is another stroy though of course)
- The Delica WITH its sturdy liners weighs about the same as the linerless Native 5, the linerless Salt 2 is clearly lighter

What is really subjective of course is "everything ergos"

- In MY hand and how I grip folders (mostly NOT using the thumb ramp but putting the finger on the flat of the blade, which positions my hand a bit more forward than with finger on the ramp): The Delica is more comfortable and more stable in hand in real use. The Native 5 feels amazing when just holding the knife, but has more tendency to "shift and roll" a bit in harder use than the Delica.
I also prefer choking up on the Delica ricasso over the Native 5 choil: The latter is more comfortable, no doubt, but somehow gives me less control.

I actually had a Native 5 LW (even the S35VN version, not in production anymore) and one of that old FRN Natives wíth the cool swedge!
Loved those knives, just from their looks and cool factor - but could not help to come to the conclusion: Whenever I want such a small folder (not often anyway), practically speaking Delica / Salt 2 / Chap are more "my" models.

[Bolster]

Are there any threads you recommend that address hiking / backpacking knives?

(I have been thinking about the relative strengths of the Native 5 LW, Endura 4, Manix 2 LW, Chief, etc.)

And I must say, I would carry a backup/emergency knife backpacking (perhaps a Mora) - just in case something happens to your primary tool.

I'm not aware of any recent pack-worthy threads that include >3" blockbuster new offerings like the LW Stretch XL, LW Magna Nat Chief, and LW Magna Manix. Sal and company have given us some righteous new backpacking options, for those who like to carry a larger folder. (Of course you will find ultra packers who will tell you all you need is a razor blade.)

OTOH, It's difficult to beat a fixie Mule for extreme strength and light weight and the ability to baton without concern. You may have caught my thread on modifying a Mule for even lighter-than-factory weight. I have a Mule that weighs just 2.4 oz and a sheath that adds 0.4 oz. I think the AEB-L Mule is still available, and that would be a dandy backpack steel IMO. Yes, a Mora is widely recommended...it's just that I'm a Spyder die-hard. I don't know what Moras weigh.

My budget is 3 oz for a knife and frequently I'll carry a LW Manix in some stainless steel flavor. Lots of my ultralight brothers would groan at that weight, and tell me to get it down to 1 oz. If I had to do that, I'd consider the Spyderco Bradley Air or a Vic Paring Knife.

[toomanyquestions]

I'm not aware of any recent pack-worthy threads that include >3" blockbuster new offerings like the LW Stretch XL, LW Magna Nat Chief, and LW Magna Manix. Sal and company have given us some righteous new backpacking options, for those who like to carry a larger folder. (Of course you will find ultra packers who will tell you all you need is a razor blade.)...I don't know what Moras weigh.

My budget is 3 oz for a knife and frequently I'll carry a LW Manix in some stainless steel flavor. Lots of my ultralight brothers would groan at that weight, and tell me to get it down to 1 oz....

I appreciate your response - thank you!

A 3 oz 'budget' - wow - I guess there isn't much room for an additional knife, even a Mora Eldris!

As someone who doesn't backpack, and hikes but rarely, I find the 1 oz crowd hard to understand. Obviously ounces make pounds, but the ultra lite crowd's concern with a 5 ounces difference between your pack with its "heavy" 3 oz spyderco(!) and their lite pack is (SMH)..... A 5 oz difference barely crosses the 3% mark (on a 10lb pack). For consistency sake I hope the ultra-lite crowd increases their fiber intake before the journey, and religiously maintains <10% body fat. Egads.

[Bolster]

... I find the 1 oz crowd hard to understand....

Yes, it can get zany. For example I just spent $90 to upgrade my $20 8 oz fleece sweater to an 4 oz Alpha Direct fleece sweater. Is 4 oz savings worth $90? Witness the wild popularity of the BM Bugout, whose claim to fame is extreme light weight.* To be fair, many pursuits go for “ultimate." Do we really need a 1200 diamond stone to put a mirror finish on an edge? Etc. While UL’ers like to compare pack base weights (my base weight is currently 10.6 lbs, which is considered unimpressively mediocre), an often repeated phrase is “Hike your own hike.” If you want to carry 16 oz of knife, or three of them, do it! It’s your hike and nobody else’s. Obviously weight is less important if you’re not carrying it for days on end.

*BM recently produced the BM535BK-2 which dropped a whopping 0.05 oz off their previous Bugout, for a total weight of 1.8 oz.

[R100]

*BM recently produced the BM535BK-2 which dropped a whopping 0.05 oz off their previous Bugout, for a total weight of 1.8 oz.

But you have to carry two in case an omega spring breaks.

Dan

[Bill1170]

I thought tensile strength was pulling on opposite ends of a material until it separated.

To wit, my budget, being pulled on one end by my wife and the other end by my daughter, has low tensile strength and funds separate easily from my wallet.

Whereas the Charpy is basically cracking/fracturing a material apart with a blow from the side.

Not unlike the blow my shin receives under the table, from my wife, if I accidentally start talking politics when company is over for dinner.

Most of what I've learned about strength, or the lack thereof, I've learned from my wife, so my knowledge in this area is only as good as my teacher.

Best post I have seen in a long while.

I agree. That was great!

[RyanY]

... - I am still not convinced that MC is necessarily the better choice over LC 200N for some folks who think this is the case.
But then I am not really in a position to talk about that, since I only know LC but not MC.
It looks like though as if they are both completely rustproof in any not super extreme condition (LC technically a bit more so), MC has better edge holding and LC better toughness - which could potentially be used for even steeper edge angles in LC? And that would enhance edge holding of LC?

Having used LC200N and Magnacut both pretty extensively I find Magnacut to provide a more durable edge at steep angles. It has higher hardness which means more strength. The toughness is more important for preventing large crack formation like taking a whole dime out of an edge or snapping a blade in half. But I think Magnacut outpaces LC200N for in every metric I care about, including sharpening. The higher hardness with still not very much carbide volume means it will sharpen easily, even on ceramic stones, but most importantly does not have a very stubborn burr. The softer and tougher LC200N makes burrs that are more tenacious and harder to cleanly remove.

That's just my experience and opinion though. I still enjoy LC200N, it is a great steel, and I'm not running out to replace every LC200N steel with magnacut, but given the choice I would go Magnacut for every folding knife. Maybe LC200N for a bushcraft knife that might see batoning.

Edited to add this disclaimer about experiential data and personal experience because I don't spend all day every day testing knives, and my experience is merely a small slice of steel full of bias from what I have read and what I expect:

"Very often, information is spotty, patchy, scattered; it comes in bits and pieces. Many of the things we might want to observe are not so homogeneous that they always appear in the same way. We may observe certain things, but our observations may be flawed by the fact that we have seen only a small part of their reality … You know it rains a lot in Seattle, but you stayed there for a week and didn’t see a drop of rain. Your observations were empirical – you used the data of your senses. But they were very partial, very selective, and not a good cross‐section."
(Goode 2000, p. 25) quoted by Ruane, Janet M.. Introducing Social Research Methods : Essentials for Getting the Edge, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2016.

[Wartstein]

... - I am still not convinced that MC is necessarily the better choice over LC 200N for some folks who think this is the case.
But then I am not really in a position to talk about that, since I only know LC but not MC.
It looks like though as if they are both completely rustproof in any not super extreme condition (LC technically a bit more so), MC has better edge holding and LC better toughness - which could potentially be used for even steeper edge angles in LC? And that would enhance edge holding of LC?

Having used LC200N and Magnacut both pretty extensively I find Magnacut to provide a more durable edge at steep angles. It has higher hardness which means more strength. The toughness is more important for preventing large crack formation like taking a whole dime out of an edge or snapping a blade in half. But I think Magnacut outpaces LC200N for in every metric I care about, including sharpening. The higher hardness with still not very much carbide volume means it will sharpen easily, even on ceramic stones, but most importantly does not have a very stubborn burr. The softer and tougher LC200N makes burrs that are more tenacious and harder to cleanly remove.

That's just my experience and opinion though. I still enjoy LC200N, it is a great steel, and I'm not running out to replace every LC200N steel with magnacut, but given the choice I would go Magnacut for every folding knife. Maybe LC200N for a bushcraft knife that might see batoning.

Edited to add this disclaimer about experiential data and personal experience because I don't spend all day every day testing knives, and my experience is merely a small slice of steel full of bias from what I have read and what I expect:

"Very often, information is spotty, patchy, scattered; it comes in bits and pieces. Many of the things we might want to observe are not so homogeneous that they always appear in the same way. We may observe certain things, but our observations may be flawed by the fact that we have seen only a small part of their reality … You know it rains a lot in Seattle, but you stayed there for a week and didn’t see a drop of rain. Your observations were empirical – you used the data of your senses. But they were very partial, very selective, and not a good cross‐section."
(Goode 2000, p. 25) quoted by Ruane, Janet M.. Introducing Social Research Methods : Essentials for Getting the Edge, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2016.

Thanks for the reply (and sorry for my late one, I was away for a while)!

Good real world info and makes a lot of sense! And me really want to finally try out MC, preferably in SE (which would leave me with pretty few choices though as far as I am aware of - The "Salts" of Native 5, Chief, Para 3 and UKPK?... once more I wish that the Manix 2 LW Salt would come with "teeth" too...)

[RyanY]

... - I am still not convinced that MC is necessarily the better choice over LC 200N for some folks who think this is the case.
But then I am not really in a position to talk about that, since I only know LC but not MC.
It looks like though as if they are both completely rustproof in any not super extreme condition (LC technically a bit more so), MC has better edge holding and LC better toughness - which could potentially be used for even steeper edge angles in LC? And that would enhance edge holding of LC?

Having used LC200N and Magnacut both pretty extensively I find Magnacut to provide a more durable edge at steep angles. It has higher hardness which means more strength. The toughness is more important for preventing large crack formation like taking a whole dime out of an edge or snapping a blade in half. But I think Magnacut outpaces LC200N for in every metric I care about, including sharpening. The higher hardness with still not very much carbide volume means it will sharpen easily, even on ceramic stones, but most importantly does not have a very stubborn burr. The softer and tougher LC200N makes burrs that are more tenacious and harder to cleanly remove.

That's just my experience and opinion though. I still enjoy LC200N, it is a great steel, and I'm not running out to replace every LC200N steel with magnacut, but given the choice I would go Magnacut for every folding knife. Maybe LC200N for a bushcraft knife that might see batoning.

Edited to add this disclaimer about experiential data and personal experience because I don't spend all day every day testing knives, and my experience is merely a small slice of steel full of bias from what I have read and what I expect:

"Very often, information is spotty, patchy, scattered; it comes in bits and pieces. Many of the things we might want to observe are not so homogeneous that they always appear in the same way. We may observe certain things, but our observations may be flawed by the fact that we have seen only a small part of their reality … You know it rains a lot in Seattle, but you stayed there for a week and didn’t see a drop of rain. Your observations were empirical – you used the data of your senses. But they were very partial, very selective, and not a good cross‐section."
(Goode 2000, p. 25) quoted by Ruane, Janet M.. Introducing Social Research Methods : Essentials for Getting the Edge, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2016.

Thanks for the reply (and sorry for my late one, I was away for a while)!

Good real world info and makes a lot of sense! And me really want to finally try out MC, preferably in SE (which would leave me with pretty few choices though as far as I am aware of - The "Salts" of Native 5, Chief, Para 3 and UKPK?... once more I wish that the Manix 2 LW Salt would come with "teeth" too...)

Glad to see you back, hope all is well! A manix salt with teeth would be pretty neat!