Video Overview

Taylor Martin of Best Damn EDC spent several days at Georgia Bushcraft asking instructors, makers, and people who beat on their knives every day the same question. Would you rather carry a great knife in okay steel, or an okay knife in great steel? He expected that outdoor crowd to chase the steel name. The tally goes the other way. The video runs about 19 minutes. Victorinox, Big Idea Design, and Work Sharp sponsor this video. Thanks to Taylor Martin for taking the argument out of comment threads and putting it in front of people who actually cut with their knives.

Items & Gear List

• Victorinox Synergy X Alox, red, model 0.8226.20 – View at Victorinox
• Work Sharp Madrone Titanium Clip Point x Big Idea Design, Reserve Series – View at Work Sharp
• Work Sharp store on Amazon, sharpening lineup, not one model – View on Amazon

Editor’s Insight

Thanks again to Taylor Martin for letting the answers sit on camera instead of smoothing them into one take. At Georgia Bushcraft he asks the same fork over and over. A great knife with okay steel, or an okay knife with great steel. Most people pick the knife. They talk about how it fits the hand, how long they can use it, and whether the shape matches the job. Several say they can touch up a simpler steel in the field. They cannot fix a handle that fights them. A smaller group picks the steel. They do not want to sharpen all the time, or they figure they can build a handle around a good blade. Taylor says the room felt like four or five to one while he was recording. The tally is 17 to 8. About one person in three chose blade steel. He did not expect that split at a bushcraft meet, where people usually want steel they can service outside.

He then asks people who make and sell knives. Ben Petersen of Knafs takes the great knife. He says most of us open packages and whittle. We are not in a long survival test that needs weeks of edge retention. He would rather live with a mid steel such as 14C28N in a knife he enjoys than with MagnaCut in a knife that annoys him. Zac Whitmore, who posts as Zac in the Wild, lands in the same place. He can sharpen a blade. He cannot make an uncomfortable knife comfortable. Taylor says that matches how he buys. He wanted the Spyderco Edgerati when it showed up, and it came in S30V. He did not wait for a rarer steel. He also walks through the Chris Reeve Umnumzaan, which he bought in S35VN, then S45VN, then watched MagnaCut arrive after that. The point is the chase. A new steel name does not make the last knife bad.

Taylor still says steel matters in the right job. He shows two Work Sharp RMX folders he carries. The thicker reverse tanto is M390. The thinner drop-point slicer is 3V. He says the grind and the job should pick the steel, not a blanket rule that every knife needs the same alloy. He also shows a carbon-steel neck knife that spotted with rust about ten minutes into a backpacking trip, next to an LT Wright Frontier First in AEB-L that he has carried on several trips without that kind of rust. He says he talked with the maker and plans to buy that model in AEB-L when the run is available. The description does not include a shop page for that run, so this post does not link one.

The sponsor read points to products you can actually open. The Victorinox link is the Synergy X Alox in red, item 0.8226.20, with a locking blade, a pocket clip, and a box opener. Taylor calls the Big Idea Design and Work Sharp collaboration the titanium Madrone, and he tells viewers to find it on Work Sharp’s site. That page is the Madrone Titanium Clip Point x Big Idea Design, a Reserve Series knife with a Grade 5 titanium handle. The discount redirect opened a different knife, so this post does not use that landing. The Work Sharp Amazon link opens the brand store, not one sharpener. Use that store if you want the sharpening aisle he points at. Do not treat it as a single model.

Heat treat and geometry still sit under the steel name. Taylor wanted Dr. Larrin Thomas on camera because Thomas has said, on the record, that grind and geometry outweigh steel as a single category. Another tester, Taylor Hardness, checks the heat treat on knives people already own. Taylor Martin’s close is simple. Buy the knife that fits the work. Sweat and saltwater argue for a stainless blade over 1095. They do not argue for the same premium steel in every knife. Then use it.

Closing Remarks

Watch Taylor Martin’s Georgia Bushcraft cut before you buy a knife for the steel stamp alone. The count he reads is 17 to 8 for the great knife over the great steel. He still shows the backpacking trip where a carbon blade rusted and the AEB-L Frontier First did not. The Synergy X link is the red Alox, item 0.8226.20. The Madrone link is the titanium collaboration on Work Sharp’s site, not the other knife the discount redirect opened. Hit play, then pick the knife that fits the work you actually do.