These 9 MagnaCut Blades Hardness Tested. 

Hopefully, the amount of research and tedious calculations, editing and removing coatings from brand new blades was worth your time! Enjoy!!!

You, sir, are doing the lord's work!

3:20 BM 710 3:58 Kershaw Belair 4:29 Spyderco Manix 2 Salt 5:05 BM Mini Adira 8:56 Hogue Deka 9:33 Viper Vale 11:23 Pro-Tech Strider 12:21 Lionsteel Nano 13:43 Hogue Mysto

Thank you for your videos. The time and effort you put in is unmatched.

Incredibly impressed with your work. In addition, the way you presented it... 👌

I've been experimenting with a similar Leeb hardness tester. I think it's a worthwhile tester, although I need to send some blades out for testing on a calibrated, professional Rockwell tester to get a real read on accuracy. As I'm sure you know, the Leeb testers aren't really intended for this sort of thing. They're intended to be used on thicker/heavier materials, particularly with the Type D impact device you're using. Specifically, they're spec'd to be used on materials weighing at least 5 kg and with a minimum thickness of 5mm. The caveat is that they can be used on lighter, thinner materials if "coupled tightly" to a heavier piece of metal, like the calibration block. After some research, it appears that what they mean by "coupled tightly" is adhering the object (blade) to the block with Vaseline or some kind of grease to fill any gaps. I started getting better results when I started using grease between the block and the tang, although it looks like you're getting pretty good results without that addition. It would be interesting to see if your results come up a little using Vaseline or grease. Final note: even under ideal circumstances, these devices are rated to be accurate to +/- 0.5 hrc. I'm hesitant to publish bad results because I dont' entirely trust the Leeb tester for this kind of work. A low score can be the result of a lack of flatness rather than a lack of hardness. This is why I want confirmation from a traditional hrc tester. I've tested four Magnacut blades so far. As in your testing, Hogue (RSK in my case) did very well at 63.4, with the best being an American Blade Works Model 2, at 64 hrc on the money.

I can’t tell you how important I think this content is. You are fair and as scientific as possible with your equipment. This can only benefit the end user. Kudos on showcasing actual numbers. Hey Kershaw, pay attention!

MagnaCut is a fascinating steel. It and CruWear are really all you need for edc folders anymore.

Now just imagine how sub-optimal all the other steels these production companies push out.

Great job as always!

Great video. Thanks for putting in the effort and the sacrifice of the blade coating😮

This was an amazing video! Thank you!!!

thank you so much, great analysis!

I'm guilty of spreading rumors of soft Italian heat treats. It was based on information from years back and I'm very happy things have changed. Definitely looking at some of the Viper and Lionsteel models more seriously now as I love their designs. Thanks for the video.

Love the hrc testing

Great video some great information!

Thanks for the detailed video - you are the man!

Awesome work!

Great video

Thank you so much for all you do. I know so many companies must hate you.

I look forward to your new videos all the time! Top shelf stuff!👍💪

Great info, thank you

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻Absolutely worth the time! I appreciate this extensive, evidence-based breakdown of a rather poorly understood aspect of steel.

Thank you!

Great info, well done!

Awesome vid!!!

I knew Spyderco's CPM-S30V and CPM-CRUWEAR were awesome Steels! These are the Steels that I have in my Manix 2XL and Military 2 Folders that I absolutely luv. I knew those were good Steels! Thank you for proving this to me! Great Video! Keep up the good Work you're doing! :-) Peace, Stiletto :-)

It's a shame that the Manufacturers are doing an injustice to MagnaCut by not hardening it to its optimum hardness. I could care less about corrosion resistance, I take care of my knives. I do,however, care about edge retention. Thank You so much for thus Video! Outstanding Job, and excellent content!!

Absolutely right about needing to know the blade HRCs. Thank you.

Interesting to see the HRC of the Italian made knives, the numbers don’t lie!

great video!!

Love your videos brotha my channel is finally growing thank you for all you do for the knife community

In addition to advertised HRC, I’d love a standardized behind edge thickness measurement listed. Since geometry is so critical, but we don’t know how to expect cutting performance until we get it in hand.

Dude. Thank you. Really really good stuff and great information. It’s too easy to be given information and then corroborate it and not have it authoritatively challenged or criticized/qualified. I DO remember S30V catching a bad rap. And I still shake my head at that every single time I try to freehand sharpen it lol.

I really like u thanks for all!

About dealers listing HRC, you can look up the same knife at four different vendors and get four different ranges listed, at that point it's no longer worth a damn, I rather get information like that from channels such as yours.

once again great video!!!! I will for sure be asking for HRC on every retailer video I watch if it's not stated! and I'm going to be purchasing a hogue mysto soon now!

Good video, thank you! Happy to sub 🤘🏼

В очередной раз, спасибо за интересное и информативное видео! Ваш канал это, пожалуй, лучшее, что есть на ножевую тему на ютубе на данный момент. Даже интереснее хард юзов от вининула пожалуй)

I really want to see you test corrosion and hardness in all components of the knife for spyderco PM2 salt in magnacut. I also really really want you to test corrosion for quiet carry knives since they are claimed to be completely rust proof and also use rust proof hardware (one of the first companies to do that). Awesome videos!

Dude. Thank you. Really really good stuff and great information. It’s too easy to be given information and then corroborate it and not have it authoritatively challenged or criticized/qualified. I DO remember S30V catching a bad rap. And I still shake my head at that every single time I try to freehand sharpen it lol. I think a lot of the Italian rep comes from the treatment of M390, and I can add some anecdotal experience of really soft stuff from MKM and Viper there-but the designs were so good that I almost didn’t feel angry… almost. Finally, at this day and age: THIS is really what I want the bulk of my knife content to look like. I appreciate the rapid fire “window shopping” approach of a lot of other channels, but I really want to see what’s under the hood sometimes. This video alone set me straight in a couple of blades I’ve already passed on-and now wish I hadn’t. It’s funny how money muddies waters, when people want to spend when they can understand. I’m with you on our responsibility to make demands as consumers and shape the market to provide what we want. I’ll quit rambling now. Well done sir. Thanks again. Glad the algorithm threw this at me!

Your knowledge is exceptional. How about a video of your top 5 high end grail knives? Would love to see.

Absolutely fantastic of you to go into so much depth and detail on this subject it’s going to smack a lot of people right in the face! The people that scream about rubbish HT and from your results they are banging a totally wrong drum. @TacticalCenter get this into that stubborn little head of yours especially about the Italian knives, as I always said unless you have a hardness tester yourself then your just spouting out figures that you don’t know if you can trust. This is a excellent upload that will definitely stick in some people’s throats and about damn time as well thank you my friend 🫵🏻😘👍🏼

Turns out American made production knives had a soft heat treat. So much for made in the USA. Now I'm glad that i ordered the Lionsteel M4 in Magnacut instead of the Manix 2 Salt.

Excellent job as always man. I appreciate the attention to detail you put in your vids. I have a magnacut Ad20s clip point coming in soon, would you want to do an hrc test on it? I'm local in Arlington/Alexandria

The best knife enthusiast channel!!!

Awesome keep it up! Im curious about the Spyderco Paramilitary 2 salt, I find its edge retention excellent so I would assume it had an HRC of 62 or above

Totally agree brother!! We lose rwh stats and we lose our ability to determine what is what.

63-64 HRC every day of the week here.

Professional

Yeah I don't even believe what is put out by the manufacturers or big box knife dealers anymore. I either test it myself or obtain the information from channels such as this one. I have a buddy that owns a fabrication shop and he has a big press style looking hardness guage. There's actually a guy from the vendor that comes twice a year and calibrates the thing, pretty cool. With that said I have taken the opportunity to test HRC on a few blades. To provide a comparison, one of the blades I tested was a Ritter/Hogue RSK in Magnacut, and its 3 test average was 62, just like your Deka. Im now convinced that Hogue is running a very precise and repeatable heat treat on their Magnacut. It just so happens that Hogue is one of the few companies that seems to actually be at advertised hardness, as they list almost all of their Magnacut at 61-63 HRC. As a side note, I will agree that S30V is a much better blade steel than people think. Truth be told it's still one of my favorite edc steels. Its not the best at anything but it's good at all of them, corrosion resistance, toughness, and edge retention. I actually tested a Spyderco Smock in S30V one time and Spyderco had the hardness at almost 62hrc, and I immediately understood why that knife seemed to perform so we'll.

Great tests! Maybe, you should startup your own sales platform to sell knives that you've tested. Love the vid!

Yes

Fantastic video.

From what I was told Protech worked with Larrin Thomas on getting the heat treat right. It shows

Love it brother. I’m also here in VA. I would love to film a collaboration with you

Really surprised how well the Lionsteel did. Thank you for all your work.

My god you do really beat your knives for us thank you love all your video's you have saved me lots of money . Any chance you will do any reviews on Guardian Tactical they use to work for Microtech. I hear their knives are really good.

Glad to see an example of Kershaw Magnacut here. I nabbed a Link for like 80 bucks a month ago and was curious how it stood up against others.

Not saying you're wrong, but I do think it's weird (or shocking) that both Spyderco and Kershaw claim 63-64 but they're testing significantly lower. I could see a point either way but potentially 4-5 points is enormous in a hardness scale. I've seen video of Kershaw testing Livewire blades and nailing 63. Spyderco also said they were late to bringing this steel to market because they went back and completely revamped their heat treat to optimize it. Anyway, having taken apart a lot of knives I know this video took a lot of work so great job.

very nice .. take my sub you earned it

I enjoy your videos very much and certainly appreciate what you do (especially at your own expense). However, I would like to see you do other videos of just your favorites, grails (mentioned below), and the like. Thank you.

Im curious have you tested any kizer knives. Ive heard repeatedly they heat treat on the soft side.

I’m one of probably a bunch of lurkers and I really enjoy your videos. Thank you for taking the time to share with us your approach. I’ve been waiting to purchase a magnacut knife for a bit over a year now. I like the Deka and the Bel Air along with others. Between the two wharn style blades one broke and one bent. I keep coming back to which problem would I rather have in the field? Did you try the Deka clip point in the tree of doom?

Get a lapel microphone you’d sound much better by your display case in your showroom. Great video my man.

Some of the numbers were disappointing to me but when spyderco does something there is usually a reason and I am uneducated on the subject so I believe them 😂

🤙

HRC does matter don’t get me wrong, but people really are over hyping the value of this. The difference in 1-2 rc on most steels is negligible for everyday use. Larrin actually has a detailed video on this you guys should check it out. More important in my opinion is edge geometry. If you actually invest in learning how to do this you could make a subpar steel out perform a premium steel in edge retention testing. This being said hrc is still very important and I am glad there is finally someone out there holding companies accountable. Good work man!

I got launch 20 auto mag cut.rw.60 62.yes.

Thanks for the good work. I had a feeling spyderco kept the HRC low for the salt series. I’m okay with it for those particular knives. The bel air should’ve been at least 62+ tho

Awesome video. There should be Chris Reeve blade included also.

Thank you very much. This is a very good test. Interesting that you tested the bel air below 60 hrc as kershaw says on their page that they harden it to 62-64 hrc

The thing we all have to remember is also Rockwell hardness does not guarantee a good heat treat either.

Id like to see a video on various spyder co hr. Tests. Everyone says they do good hrc, but i seen a video with a guy who got a soft blade. Id like to see maxamet, and many other spydercos.

Would love one on giant mouse iona v2

you really need to test Microtech M390mk

HRC testing conducted by Transparent Knives on Spyderco MagnaCut has produced a range between 62.4 and 63.5. Unsure as to why your procedure generated a value so far below what one would expect following an examination of the above datapoints. One of the three blades within TK’s test pool, notably, was taken from a Manix 2. Likely worth considering the discrepancy.

In Europe, it is customary to organize everything from left to right, and not vice versa. So it is very strange to see that the left is better and the right is worse 🙄

It make sense now why my Houge Deka chipped easily. because its at 62 hrc….

Is this test good for magacut steel.needs to be at least 61 62..

I always found harder blades are easier and faster to de-burr.

Ironically the Italians hardened their Magnacut to a greater HRC than Benchmade or Spyderco. I knew Benchmades run soft but disappointed that the manix 2 salt was so soft. I have that exact same knife. Magnacut is best at 63-64. I would forgive 62, but 60 or less makes it a rip off to pay extra for the blade material when you aren’t getting the majority of its advertised qualities.

ONG IM GLAD YOURE TESTING THE VIPER VALE. Ive been having Bad Viper Customer Service. its been 3 months since i requested a SINGLE PIVOT SCREW REPLACEMENT

Tell me... What's the difference in edge retention in magnacut at the same hardness number but wirh and without cryo.

Out of curiosity is that hardness tester any different then some of the larger table top ones I have seen?

I tend to avoid "do it all products" or "all in one products." Magna cut is trying to be a combo TV, CD, and DVD player all in one. Jack of all, master of none. So many better steels. Sheeple love to ride the bandwagon because it's so trendy. In my opinion a couple drops of oil goes a long way, so I tend to like edge retention and toughness over any corrosion resistance. Pick two qualities and work around the 3rd of your choice. If you love to sharpen knives then pick something with corrosion resistance and toughness. Elementary dear Watson! Thank your for calling this out! Hopefully this will raise some brows. GREAT CHANNEL!!

Yes, Magnacut under 60 - it is nothing. By the way, there is Fox Original Gangster, where Fox promises in specs 62-64 hrc on Magnacut. It would be interesting to check it, according to other Italian knives result - it can be real

Concerning your HRC tester, I am no expert, at all, but I once investigated it out of curiosity, in search for a cheaper alternative to regulars testers. I recall reading something about it needing a relatively large piece of steel to test acurately, and I must say that I'm surprised it works well on pocket knives, only maintained by the pressure of your fingers. The event that hyped MC a lot was when Cedric and Ada tested this dual grit mule that did so well. Had he cut 500 bits of the rope, the story would have been different. Dr Thomas rated MC at 7 for toughness and 5.5 for abrasion resistance. Nothing incredible, but where it excels is that it can be hardened to the level of a similarly carbide rich tool steel, because the chromium is kept in solution. Around 60 I think it misses the point.

Hello... Who tested HRC on Kershaw Launch 15 Magnacut? Kershaw answers different data (from 60-62 to 62-63)

Please timestamp chapters into video like this! It's easy to do and helps learning disabled persons such as myself. You'll get more views, too.

I wonder if the same knife make and model from three different batches would result in three different results?

When talking about coatings I think you mean to say tempering temperature instead of annealing temperature.

There's a couple people testing hrc with different equipments now. Guys, if you wanna make abuying decision based on hrc, make sure you follow the scientific method and compare the results for a particular knife from different people before you assign a number.

Would we be able to send you blades to test?

spread #MakeHRCGreatAgain

I think you might want to recalibrate.... I have seen most of these knives tested multiple times on a actual rockwell testers and most of them were higher. And I mean multiples of the same knife tested independently in different nations showing way different results then yours. All results were relatively close, except yours!

that is super disappointing about spyderco's hrc on magnacut I was truly hoping they would hit the 63hrc range. I was going to purchase the manix 2 salt but am now having second thoughts. Have you noticed major differences from the hogue vs manix 2 when using them?

At this Range it is pointless to use Magnacut. You get 0 benefits of what Magnacut is.. Thx for the Tests. Glad someone with your background is doing this..

Lazy hardening makes unbelievable waste of steel.

Call them out, we will know who are true to what they say, this will call out the ones that arnt true and I bet this is wear alot of the companys have the 2nd in command come to the boss and say boss we got a problem, did u see this new video uploaded on RU-vid, we are fkd what can we say to get out of this, here we all will help you company's out here, JUST ROCKWELL UR BLADES AT THE CORRECT HARDNESS And DON'T LIE ABOUT IT. (EVERRRRR)