Boker & CountyComm D2 Stout Commander Frame Lock Knife Discussions | Drop

Click to view our Accessibility Statement or contact us with accessibility-related questions

Free Standard Shipping in the US on orders over $99

Boker & CountyComm D2 Stout Commander Frame Lock Knife

Showing 1 of 12 conversations about:

Boker & CountyComm D2 Stout Commander Frame Lock Knife

reswright

3850

Mar 6, 2020

I like most everything about this but the D2. I like the scale, I like the lock, I like the grind, I like the lanyard hole, I like the clip, but a MSRP of $179 for a knife with D2 is ludicrous and even the markdown price of $79 is about $29 more than I want to pay for this knife. I see the carbon fiber scale and the limited run, and maybe on a good day I'd go up to $60, but I also see the stainless and D2, and I can get a very well made D2/CF knife made with titanium instead of stainless under $50 (and in fact, I own a bunch of 'em). Still a little torn because damn, it's a nice looking knife, but Boker was being a little cheap when they specced out the blade.

Unwisefool

480

Mar 8, 2020

reswrightI got it for $65 and I think it's pretty nice for the price. Blade was centered, good action, nice fit and finish. I have another D2 knife that was $225 and it's held up well. D2 when done right can be very good

reswright

3850

Mar 8, 2020

UnwisefoolI don't really dispute that it can be good when done right, but I still have three main issues with D2. The first is that it's very hard to give it a thin enough edge that I will like how it cuts, and once you get that edge on it you almost don't want to use the knife and put wear and tear on it. If you go with a thick grind angle, that won't be a problem, but you're giving up slicing ability when you do that. The second thing I don't like about it is that if you DO beat the edge up, it's going to take forever and a day to undo that damage. D2 is just a tremendous pain in the ass to sharpen, let alone reprofile, and if I'm going to go through all that, I might as well be using a super steel. You gotta take off your consumer hat and put on your industry hat to understand the third: D2 isn't chosen by knife makers because of merit, no matter what they say in their ad copy. It's decent, but there are a lot of other steels to choose from which bring similar strengths and weaknesses to the table; the reason D2 is chosen is because it is cheap. The motive is profit, not performance.

D2 is an old ingot steel that dates from WWII
it requires no proprietary technology
every steel mill in the world knows how to smelt and forge it, and in fact even if they didn't, the Chinese government is pumping out so much subsidized D2 steel for its industries that they'd still have a glut of it.
It is cheaper than 154CM, cheaper than VG10, even cheaper than 14C28N Sandvik, let alone PM steels.
Manufacturers know how to heat treat, grind, polish and sharpen it, they know how to machine it, they waste less of it compared to steels that are harder to grind, so it's cheaper that way too. No one needs to go buy special tooling to handle D2 the way you do with something like Maxamet or S110V.

So, I mean, you're right to say that D2 can be great steel if it's done well, and I'm not really here to say that it sucks. A real bladesmith can bring good stuff out of it. But it is inexpensive compared to most steels you would find on a knife selling for $79, let alone at $100 more than that. So every time I see a PRODUCTION knife at that price range, with a lux material like CF but they went with a D2 blade I know that the company had a range of steels to choose from when they were designing their product, and that they chose D2 to save money and increase their profit margin, not because it's awesome sauce or commensurate in quality with the CF and other workmanship of the knife. It's good to hear from you that the blade on this knife is well done, but I think I'll wait for a version with something like XHP. I know it'll cost more, but I'll be happier with it.

(Edited)

Qwervy

464

Mar 8, 2020

reswright9cr18mov, am I right?

Vote

reswright

3850

Mar 9, 2020

QwervyFor a while it seemed like every inexpensive Chinese knife was either 8Cr13MoV or 9Cr18MoV, every mid tier knife was D2, and every premium knife was S35VN, largely because China subsidizes the production of huge amounts of those steels for its industries.

Vote

Qwervy

464

Mar 9, 2020

reswrightI was mostly kidding around but your previous post was extremely informative, kudos to you!

reswright

3850

Mar 10, 2020

QwervyFigured, but as you may also know, there's people out there who fricking LOVE 9Cr18MoV for its ruggedness. A lot of people still love 440B for work knives and 9Cr18MoV is an incremental improvement of 440B the same way Sleipner is an incremental improvement over D2. I think 9Cr18MoV is the first Chinese made steel that I ever heard get a genuine, non-backhanded compliment from an American knife guy and until a couple years back it was still the best knife steel made in China. I tend not to abuse knives and I like them scalpel sharp so I myself usually prefer PM steels with high Rockwell hardness; to me 9Cr18MoV is a decent budget steel that I have to sharpen a little more often than I want to sharpen a pocketknife. But if you're more of an all-rounder, let alone someone who's batoning wood and prying stuff and stabbing grizzlies and whatnot, doing all the stuff that can damage a blade, you're concerned with strength of the blade, not just hardness and keenness of the edge. And when it comes to torture testing knife steels, 9Cr18MoV is one of those dark horse budget steels that finishes in the top three and sometimes even wins. It takes a beating and doesn't crack or chip.

Qwervy

464

Mar 10, 2020

reswrightI totally agree, my first knife is a Civivi Baklash and thats got 9cr18mov on it. But I would appreciate the extra hardness of something else though just like you said. I was actually looking at trying to make a knife out of 1095 or 1084 or 1075 and then hardening it myself and then putting a scandi grind on it simply for crazy sharpness plus more edge retention.

reswright

3850

Mar 10, 2020

QwervyYou almost have to make one yourself to get one with a real Scandi grind these days. Everyone wants to modify it with a secondary bevel, when the entire point of that grind is that you can lay the entire grind edge flat on the whetstone and get it razor sharp very quickly without mucking up the grind angle at all. I gotta hand it to the Scandinavians. They always have a different way to do stuff and it's usually an improvement.