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87 requests
Product Description
A collaboration between SOG and legendary Japanese knifemaker Kiku Matsuda, the Kiku is equal parts blade and handle with a total length of nearly 10 inches. The AUS-8 stainless steel blade is a sight to behold: It features a long edge with a heavy recurve for slicing (especially rope, cord, and twine), and a tip with extra material behind it for piercing Read More
I am a butcher and use an AUS 8 knife as my main and seconday is vg-10. AUS 8 when heat treated well can be great for a gitchen knife with a good geometry, but still its more of a user that im not afraid to touch up with the store's steels than the other one. Good but not great and for $100 it could be a slew of better steels. Wait for the next kizer or WE fixed blade drop.
BenjaboolyYeah, there are many cheaper steels that could perform decently if hardened above 60 HRc with a fine microstructure and low retained austenite, but we tend not to see that in the cheaper production knives that use them. I do love the performance of thin-ground, high-hardness, low-alloy fine grained with custom heat treats. By the chemistry AUS-8 and even 8CrMoV series should be pretty tough at any reasonably HRc, but in practice I believe the purity is significantly inferior to Sandvik or PM steels, and corners tend to be cut in HT, with chipping prevented by underhardening, often below even the low-listed ranges.
I think this particular knife is designed to look tactical, to pierce, chisel, and possibly moderately pry at the tip as well as cut with the recurve, but the geometries are far from optimal for these applications either, with the hollow swedge and wide tip. Form appeal over function I guess. Yet Kiku does have many true hard use custom designs in good steel that I do find more appealing and efficient.
Damn.... I realllllly like the looks of this knife....but the last thing I need is another large fixed blade that will never see any actual use for me lol