M398 STAINLESS SUPERSTEEL FOLDING KNIFE, 64 HRC TITANIUM SCALES

Description

"M398(Bohler-Uddeholm) - Bohler-Uddeholm introduced M398 steel in 2019. At least that's when it appeared on various knife related forums. M398 is intended as an evolution and improvement over a well known Bohler-Uddeholm M390 steel. As far as pure wear resistance is concerned, it definitely is an improvement. M398 has a lot more Carbon, 0.70% more of it, and 3.2% more Vanadium -making it whooping 7.20%. Obviously, this isn't a steel which is easy to work with, M390 steel wasn't an easy one to begin with. From what I've gathered so far, forging is theoretically possible but very difficult, only at low temperatures, with low strength impacts. Other than that, it's a very high carbide volume steel, 30% to be precise, for comparison, it's predecessor - Bohler-Uddeholm M390 steel had only(!) 20% carbide volume. In the end, both, working hardness and wear resistance have been increased, sacrificing toughness in process. I've seen a few M398 knives already, one of them in 66-67HRC range, which is pretty impressive. I'd be interested to get my hands on one of those. I'd guess neither sharpening, nor finishing the blade will be an easy task. Based on the characteristics, M398 is better suited for smaller, high performance cutters, and I'd also assume that this isn't the steel suited for high polished, acute edges, just like many other high carbide volume, highly alloyed steels." - zknives.com
Steel M398 - martensitic, chrome, powder steel manufactured by the Austrian-Swedish company BÖHLER. Thanks to the alloying concept, the M398 has improved properties: extremely high wear resistance and high corrosion resistance. Due to the increase in primary carbides enriched in chromium and vanadium (by 30 vol.%), M398 steel has wear resistance, hardness and compressive strength higher compared to M390. Corrosion resistance is the same.
The latest supersteel .Staneless. Top shelf . Very elegant yet well built fancy tool.Very thin edge (0.2- 0.3 mm). The knife has been hand sharpened using a guided sharpening system, finished with 3/2 micron CBN stone. It is hair splitting sharp and ready for action(or a shelf;)).
The chemical composition of M398:
Carbon (C) - 2.7%,
silicon (Si) - 0.50%,
manganese (Mn) - 0.50%,
chromium (Cr) - 20%,
molybdenum (Mo) - 1%,
vanadium (V) - 7.2%,
tungsten (W) - 0.7%.
Blade material Bohler M398
Blade hardness 64HRC
Blade length - 110 mm;
Blade finish: satin / plished sand blast
Scale material : titanium
Handle length -135 mm
Flipper mechanism: ball bearing with stainless steel washers
Liner lock with rolling ceramic detent ball
The total length of the knife is 245 mm;
The width of the blade is 30 mm;
Blade thickness - 3 mm
Knife weight -142 g
Brown leather case included
Must be 18 or older to purchase