Gerber Principle Review vs Mora Garberg : Steel Fails Grind 

I put a piece of 1” bicycle inner tube over the handle of the garberg. It wasn’t easy, but it’s a completely different, better feel. Highly recommended.

The 420HC blade is clearly softer than the 14C28N. I initially thought that Gerber heat treats 420HC softer because the steel is brittle. However, Larrin Thomas gives both steels a 9/10 in toughness, so if this is accurate there is no need for such a soft heat treatment. I don't understand why US knives are always so soft compared to European knives.

Pretty clear microbevel on that blade too so it should definitely be able to hold up. I had my eye on a Principle since they sell them at a local department store. No longer. Thanks Pete.

The problem with rolling is not the 420HC, it's the hardness of the heat treatment. Gerbers are notoriously inconsistent and can range between 55 and 59. If that was a 55-56, it will roll if you look at it too hard. There is no reason that any knife should be tempered under 59-60 and a variance of more than 1 point is unacceptable, especially at this price point. It really is a shame because I also love the design of this knife and it's siblings. It's almost perfect in design but sabotaged by the heat treatment. Were it 14C28N at 60, it'd be a home run.

Gerber came out with a similar design called the Terracraft. It’s in S30V and is literally a slightly larger version of this knife. You can also customize it. Gerbers s30v is also heat treated where benchmade gets their heat treatment done from my understanding, so there’s that

Never had a Gerber that didn’t disappoint… Gerber’s specialty is underperforming mystery-steel knives. Somehow they Forrest Gump’ed their way into notably strong sharpened crowbars. Perhaps they should consider making wedged door stops.

Alright, a Cedric & Ada, no nonsense, comparison review to start my Friday. Thanks Pete !

Its a shame, Gerber back in the day was pretty innovative in the knife game....then they went off the deep end of suck and everyone passed them by in the last 20 years. In the last few years you can see their genuine attempts to leave the suck behind....but they just can't get out of their own way.

My Principle came with a small nylon strip with Velcro that you can thread through the sheath and use as an additional level of retention. Zero worries about the knife inadvertently coming out when that is in use.

Hey Pete, great review as always. From my understanding, Gerber doesn't perform the greatest heat treatment on their knives also so that would be a huge factor to its poor performance and edge rolling as well. Keep up the great work.

Whats odd is that Gerber are linked to Fiskars who are linked to Sandvik who supply Mora. Their steel should be great but somehow they keep going low rent.

Bro, u gotta tell me how you scramble those eggs! I saw that sandwich and im not even thinking about the knives😅 THANKS, GREAT REVIEW AS ALWAYS👍

I liked the discussion about the design considerations between the two knifes. The Gerber handle looks really cool!

Don't give up on 420HC until you've tried it on a Buck Knife. I'd suggest the 684 or 685 depending on your size preference.

Great illustration of how toughness doesn't directly translate to edge stability.

Marttiini also makes some puukkos in 420-grade steel (european X46CR13, around 53.5-55HRC according to their website), scandi grind of course. So it seems to work for them.

Thanks for resharpening and trying it again. Love your work Pete.

Chuck a bin at that gerber Pete. Thanks for the video:)

Hello Pete. Thanks a lot for this interesting video! I wrote you a private message on instagram... Greetings from Switzerland

But… what are your thoughts on Huusk?

'Maybe my wood's just too hard and the knife couldn't handle it'. 🤣

I have a load of old Gerbers that are great 👍 I’m from Oregon and have always hoped they’d improve their Portland manufacturing. Budget knives are not easy to make in the USA.

My Gerber principle sheath came with a Velcro strap that eliminates the rattle.I update: I tested the Principle on a variety of Indiana hardwoods and blade edge slightly deformed on oak. I did the same test with Cold Steel Finn Hawk 4116, Mora Companion stainless 12C27 and C100 carbon, Marttiini Timber Jack 1075? carbon, Marttiini Utility Hunter stainless 420, BPS BS3 1066 carbon and none deformed. All of these cost a lot less than the Gerber.

I've written off almost all knives that come with hollow pins, it's a lousy way to keep scales attached to a tang. Don't do anything more than cutting and slicing or the scales tend to come loose. So I didn't even consider getting this one even though it looks nice enough.

I did a lot of standard wood/fire prep with a buck woodsman, which uses their 420hc, and it held up amazingly well. I have a feel that it's like you say, the combo of steel type and grind isn't ideal. I'll take a nice carbon steel scandi for a budget option even though it takes a little extra maintenance because it's got the right properties.

On my couple Bark Rivers that I kayak with, I put a shock cord lanyard in the lanyard hole and don't use it for my wrist but instead pull it over the tip of the sheath sort of like a shock cord on a ferro rod works on a sheath to keep in secure in the sheath.

Hahaha - I love the Willy Wagtail that's been singing away in the background of a few of your videos lately mate.

I'd love to see them make this same knife in a better steel. Something like a S30v, or even better, 3v. I love mine, but I truly don't use it much. When it comes out, it's usually for a couple tent pegs. At least it sharpens super easily.

I wonder how much the heat treatment contributed to the edge rolling like it did on the Gerber. 420hc is a fine steel with Bucks heat treat, just ask Uncle Randy.

Great comparison! Thank you. I own quite a few knives, fixed, folders from a lot of different brands. The one brand I don’t own and probably never will is Gerber!

Almost a bit sad, really. They have so much potential! PS I'm really digging the microscope shots!

Your right a leather sheath, but in cross draw configuration as small as it is, and a better steel this is the most exciting gerber in the last decade or two? Based on some of the discontinued ones

It sucks you had to pay 150 bucks for the Gerber. They are only 40 bucks in the states.

I looked up the Gerber. In the U.S. it's a $67 knife. That makes more sense. 150AUD (96.31USD) for a 420HC knife is too much. These days, for that price, one should expect a little better steel. For example, $100 can sometimes get you a U.S. made Buck in S30V. 154CM was suggested in the video. I was thinking D2 with a proper heat treat that retains a hardness of 60 Rc or higher should replace 420HC across the board.

Like the reviews. Can you do a test of the Böker Bronco in 3V (if you can get your hands on one for a reasonable price)?

Good vid Pete, thanks. Foregone conclusion really. A knife is a tool, something we really shouldn't spend massive amounts of time thinking about. Of course the Garberg is the better knife, it's a Mora knife !. Swedish, made by an honest company with a long heritage who's heat treatment is bang on. 14C28N, see Larrin Thomas on this. Garberg's all you need, use it and forget about it, it's a tool, Gerber's a non starter. 14C28N incidentally is a push cutting steel, it's high strength gives extremely good edge stability, which is just what's needed for the varying side loads on the edge encountered in bushcrafting conditions. The following is probably known already, but the Scandi grinds in effect is a splitter, working in conjunction with a minimal micro bevel at say 30-35° to assist its passage through the material. The edge cuts, the primary Scandi splits and 'allows' the edge further progress. The zero Scandi is impractical, 14C28N at say 57HRC and 20°'ish doesn't work in bushcraft, far too fragile. The edge incidentally should be presented to the workpiece perpendicularly to actually use the selected edge angle (mine 30-35°), slant, and less than this is presented, negating the purpose of the selected edge angle. The slice is 'zero' edge angle, which really is where more 'advanced' steels - powder steels come to the fore. The knife is a tool we, as said, shouldn't really think too much about, Mora know this, and give us what we really need. AL.

The microscope views are a fun nod to the legendary Dr. Wako. Good times.

Yay, Friday and you graced me with yet one more video!! 😊

Great review mate!

Damn, that edge looked miserable! Morakniv is hard to beat, as long as it isn't wood handled!

Like you said. Really cool looking knife, but why 420HC? There are so many good affordable steels out there 12/27, 440C, 14/28. Why 420HC? That’s what Buck uses. I have never liked sharpening Buck knives. 🔪🎸 Thanks

Buck seems to be the only one that can do 420HC correctly, but even then it tends to be kind of on the brittle side. It makes decent skinning and hunting type knives when you're going to cut meat and fat and skin but it's just too damn brittle for anything tough like wood. Gerber would have been better off with 1095 If they just had to use a cheap high carbon steel.

I'm no Gerber fanboy but I'm wondering if any other 420hc Gerbgers, when sharpened so accutely, roll over the same way or if this was a batch/manufacturing process issue. Also, a lot of money for 420hc even if it does look great.

I got my Garberg with the lovely leather sheath from Massdrop years ago. That would have been true 14C28, right? Later I got a Kansbol just to get the more utilitarian sheath. I also have a very similar Gerber that came in a set with the pack hatchet and spork. It was not named but looked the same and I believe was 420. I replaced the hatchet with the much better Fiskar X7 which is much better. The knife never impressed me, but does look good! It has a good plastic sheath with a long metal clip designed for a backpack waist belt. THAT is a good idea.

It seems like Gerber may have made a mistake in heat treating that knife. Now I’m curious; are all of them that bad, and if so how did Gerber not see this coming?

So it´s a bit sad that Mora goes the ”noname”-Steel lane, although I guess they still use 14C28n on the Garberg(?). Regarding the rattle of the sheath on the Gerber, at least I got a fastening loop with my sheath, it doesn’t eliminate the rattle, but at least suppress it a bit. Anyway, thanks for a great video!

I read your bushcraft article in Knives Illustrated, very good read. What happened to your D*ckhead Survival series?

Hiya Pete, been a fan of your channel for ages, since before I had much of a knife collection at all really. I tend to trust your opinions on knife stuff. Based on my experience with (mainly) Nitro-V, and I guess by extension 14c28n, and hypothically AEB-L (if I had a knife with that) I've kinda been starting to prioritise toughness and fine grain structure in a knife over wear resistance/edge retention. For me as someone who has no pocket knives over £100 and quite limited experience with steels, idk for me I'd rather my knife can get a really fine, sharp edge, I'm less bothered about how often I have to strop/sharpen them. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this topic, if you happened to have read this longwinded comment and not been put off by all the unneccesary parenthesis. I think for strictly budget knife people like myself there's always going to be a trade off, and idk I always thought of toughness as the category that mattered for my bushcraft knives but wasn't so relevant to my EDC folders, now I pretty much think the opposite. Sorry for leaving such an essay of a comment haha, but I'd like to hear your take on this!

quite interesting. i've got no doubts about the impressive overall toughness of 420HC, but i haven't got to grips with the "edge stability" concept, which seems to be the differentiating thing here. i don't have a good understanding of that yet. (edit: watched the epilogue. suggests some screwiness with gerber's materials as opposed to more general metallurgical principles)

Personally, my history since 1974 with Gerber - ends with the Fiskars buyout. Cute - clever - disposable - crap. I still have cherished pre-fiskars steel that remains amazing (for that steel era) to this day.

The bird in the background pissed me off I thought it was outside my house mate

Yeah this is the primary issue with Gerber. They have some really nice designs, like their design department is doing great work. But then they send it over to the materials department, and those guys seem to take a lot of vacations or else they drink on the job pretty heavily lol. They don't think about application at all, they just go "Well if it's American and in this price range, then we'll use 420HC. If it's Chinese made, we'll use 7Cr17MoV ("440A") no matter what the design is. If they want an upgrade we'll give 'em China mystery D2 on like two models...people still like D2 right? Great!" These guys seem to have the easiest job in the world and somehow they never get fired. 😂

Micro 18° bevel maybe 🤔 Bummer...My prodigy with a 19° vgrindVex mutant works excellent. 0° scandis are finicky...BUT my Enzo elver 0° is amazing and its 12C27n,. Im guessing Gerbers heat treat is to soft on these blades . A window of 55hrc to 59 is just too much imho . Cudeman does the same thing woth their HRC NUMBERS on their bushcraft blades also. I think Gerber should use a proprietary heattreat specific to that blade. Just like Buck does with their 420 USA stuff.

Agreed that the gerber’s sheath is way too rattly. Had to get a custom kydex for mine

Thanks!

I’m thinking about getting the Gerber principal, then putting a high saber grind on it

I often see companies make scandi ground knives out of steels that just aren’t up to it like N690 and after any amount of typical use just carving slightly harder wood you get chips and rolls and it’s terrible A real bummer

But is it better than the Huusk?

Niomax would do well on a scandi. But if you don't want a powdered steel, the AEB-L, Niotro V, 14c28,, Niomax family seems to be the best choice for stainless. Kershaw imports 14c28n. Gerber can, too. Otherwise something like 80crv2 makes more sense. I bet s35 is getting cheaper; maybe we'lll see that replace 420hc ;)

Baffling that Gerber wouldn't go with something tough like AEB-L for a wood/utility knife like this, where outright edge retention doesn't matter as much as edge stability and stainlessness. AEB-L tolerates thin edges well, can be made absolutely screaming sharp, and it's pretty cheap. Just a bizarre product decision to go with poorly heat treated 420HC when there are so many good options available at similar prices.

Thanks for your work! And oh my dog, would that knife benefit from an upgrade to Larrin’s favourite CPM-154...

Love this channel 😊

My principal buckeled on its 3rd outing I was doing small batoning ,and where the blade bends up to meet the tip ..3 big buckles appeared,thats a red 🚩 fail . Cost me £95 that converts to $186 Australian dollars..another 20 quid and you get the benchmade puukko .

420 hc is basically 1095 with chromium added. Tons of "scandi" knives are made in 1095 and hold their edges just gine.

Another gas station mora.. just what i needed

So the Gerber principle is 420HC? Thought it was S30V

Thanks

Hi there ! Very interesting vid, cheers !

Heat sheath and squeeze till cool No rattle

This probably has less to do with the steel type and more to do with the hardness of the steel. the edge wavyness indicates a lack of strength and judging by the way gerber heat treats their strongarm, im assuming they used the same protocol for this knife too. 420HC can get to a high enough hardness for a scandi (I believe buck's 420hc is 59hrc) but its clear this one is too soft.

I really wish Gerber would stop shooting themselves in the foot. They've put out some really attractive offerings the last couple of years but their fail rate when it comes to quality just keeps me away every time. The Principle looks like it would otherwise be a phenomenal knife and a huge contender for a general purpose outdoors knife but whatever went wrong with the steel (grind or heat treat) just ruins it. I wonder if giving it a slight convex might fix that?

Carbon steels like VG10 are the minimum standard for a Scandi or stainless like 154CM. I wouldn't even use 440c on a Scandi, but then I don't actually own a Scandi and actually have no practical idea what I'm talking about, lol. I'll stick to my hollow grinds and flat grinds 90% of the time, ideally in S35v, CTS XHP, M390 or 20CV just for the overpriced reassurances.

Could you get the hardness tested? I have a feeling that it is soft, which is why it can't support that thin apex.

Nice review. Is Mora v Gerber a thing? Yesterday I watched a Mora Kansbol v Gerber Spine review. That comes after any number of Garberg vs Strongarm vs LMF videos out there, often with something from Essee thrown in.

I like the Garberg with red handle

Garberg has been sub $70 USD on Amazon for a long time. Roughly $110 Aussie dollary doos.

For your next review can you please test an orange vs an apple? thanks

lock v friction fit. tape the inside.

Gerbercrap I’ve never had any luck with gerber or any of the 400 series steels it’s just not good steel for a knife for a pot and pan yep it’s ok just not knives

Come on Pete....it's a Gerber. Of course it's only mediocre. I bought my first Gerber, A Gerber Paul Knife, in 1984. In less than 6 months the lock failed. Instead of repairing it, Gerber sent me a 3 pack of cheap kitchen small knives and a Japanese made small gentleman's lockback. All combined sold for about half the price I paid for the Paul Knife. And Gerber's customer DIS-service thought that was a fair swap-out. That was my last Gerber purchase. I'm in the USA and I will buy a foreign made knife or a USA made knife from almost any other company than Gerber. The complete failure of a once great USA company.

I don't know the price of steels, but what would it cost to use a better steel, just a bit better, not Magnacut? I'd like to support US workers, but.......

I wonder if you apply the same Gerber fine edge principle to the Strongarm, then it might be a mistake to reprofile the edge geometry to 20 degrees or less. I just bought one and have done nothing to the edge yet but I think I might just leave it be.

seems like the only way for them to save face, is to recall them all, and send them back with CruWear or better... ;)

Here in the states Gerber really has a poor reputation, they produce a lot of poorly thought out & badly executed products.

Pretty sure the Gerber sells for around 60$ at Meynards.. nice review though

I’d put a convex on the gerber probably, and try again

I want a terracraft so bad! Good thing I didn't settle for the principle😔

420 HC… I dont gave a problem with it directly, but once the price reaches 50 or max 60 USD I just expect something else, sorry

I wasn’t aware they were calling the steel in the Garberg recycled. That’s good to know. Thank you. Then that proves the point that I made in my video about the “trash series“ and the mystery steel conundrum. As always you were spot on, and I really love your delivery! Keep up the awesome work! And thank you for saving me the angst and disappointment and money from buying this knife.

Well, Gerber is consistent. Like some vehicles, might look good but gonna let you down.

No edge stability be like that.

Give a plain old Mora Classic any day. Just have to remove that stupid red paint lol

That's a seriously disappointing edge, Pete. As you say, nice knife, shame about the steel.

The Garberg uses 14c28n from Sandvik

Thanks for testing. Why don't you donate it to Joe X, to discover its full potential.

I smell cinnamon rolls

Mora and their "recycled steel" . Next model will be the Mora Thunberg

The first hint should have been.... gerber

The word you're looking for is edge strength. You need a fairly tough steel with high hardness for edge strength, unfortunately 420HC is just too soft.

PizzA