Well I was looking at knifes, tools, and machetes the other day and I notice that most of them are made out of stainless steel. The Camillus Carnivore machete is made out of 440A stainless steel, the SOG Fusion Jungle Primitive knife is made out of 420 stainless steel, the SOG Tactical Tomahawk head is made out of 420 steel and so was the SOG battle axe and some other Tactical Tomahawks. It got me thinking so, I looked up other knifes that fall in the 440 steel classes. Cold steel has many knifes like the boar hunter and OSS that are made out of ASU-8 and SOG also has many too like the 18’’ SOGfari Machete and others. Now, when I was looking at a good cheap machete, I was told the SOGfari Machete was a good deal. I did some research on it and I found out its breaks/ chips real easily. In fact here part of a review of it “chipped mine about 2 minutes after getting it out of the sheath, chopping wood (no nails) and am somewhat disappointed. This is too short to chop weeds with (18' or bigger) and the edge is just too brittle to chop wood with. Save this one for the Zombie Apocalypse. (but it does look good hanging on my wall; ignore that ugly chip in the blade.)"
Now I have here 2 blades my United Cutlery Black Ronin Ninja Sword/ Slimline Machete that they said it’s made out of temper AUS-6(I have an old one so it could be carbon steel like the ones from cabelas) and my heavy machete that made 440C (it’s said that on the blade but it also said Japanese steel so it could be AUS-8) and I have used both on wood with no chipping of the blade. I looked at the cold steel blades there were AUS-8 and most were 0.185039 inches in thickness. I looked at the carbon steel latin style machete’s at tractor supply CO, Wal-Mart and some other places around town and there were few there were stainless steel but, both had a Thickness of 2.00mm which is 0.0787402 inches. My Slimline Machete is 3.1mm or 0.122047 and my heavy is 4mm or 0.15748 and both are full tang construction and were made out of one piece of metal that was cut and shaped.
So, what the point I am saying? Stainless steel if it’s more than 3.0mm thickness (all the cold steel combat knifes were 4.7 mm and there machete which are all 1055 Carbon Steel are only 2mm) are good tools and are not trash. If they were then it would seem to me all the SOG, cold steel and others would not sell very well and would cost a lot less than 30$ (boar hunter and OSS both start at 100$). Now I am not saying there survival tools, no for that a would have a very good carbon steel blade but ,what I am saying is for gardening, yard work, camping or as a hiking blade for cutting brush or blade work there great. I think were all the bad things I have hear about Stainless steel comes from steel that was made bad(like some of the made in china stuff. Like the Winchester bowie knife) or the blade was made too thin. I cut a lot of green hardwood 1" to 1/2" limbs, chopping up bamboo and other hard stuff and i have never had any problems besides rust spots with the heavy machete.
