All About Pocket Knives

General Question:

Can anyone tell me anything about Handmade White Tail Cutlery?

I believe there made in Pakistan....

J R that is too much info already

BIGHEAD wrote:J R that is too much info already

I have a Barlow made in Pakistan - man it is really a piece of junk. The blade appears to be made of wrought iron. I see the brand is carried by Frost Cutlery, maybe even made by them. They appear to use 420J2 stainless which comes from Japan. http://www.discountcutlery.net/en-us/dept_21268.html and it looks like White Tail Cutlery is still made in Pakistan.

420J2 stainless can only be hardened to about 52 Rc (carbon 0.15%) and was never intended to be cutlery steel. It is very cheap and very very corrosion resistant, so they won't break and should make a decent dive knife.

Isn’t that the same steel they make buildings out of

lenny357 wrote:Isn’t that the same steel they make buildings out of

It is regarded as the least acceptable tier of steel for blades and it is used for stainless steel liners because of it's resistance to corosion (if you can find it here, I like 410 myself for stainless). 440A used in Steel Warrior and Rough Rider is a much better steel, really nothing wrong with 440A. It gets a bad rap because Chinese makers put 440 on the tang of knives and folks think 440C. Which is a deliberate marketing strategy. There is only so much you can do with 440A though, because of the higher carbon levels 440B and 440C will ALWAYS be a better steel than 440A with the exception of faulty heat treating/tempering.

IIRC, Randall used 440B in some knives. Someone will need to verify that for me, Randall is out of my price range.

Actually this has been an excellent question.

Off track a bit but, Randall uses 440C, ATS34, and even some S30V (just started using this over the last year or so). The primary problem I've found with the Rough Riders, and most other Chinese knives, is the average Rockwell is around 48, even with 440A. It's not the steel as much is it is how it's treated/tempered.

Knifekid wrote:Off track a bit but, Randall uses 440C, ATS34, and even some S30V (just started using this over the last year or so). The primary problem I've found with the Rough Riders, and most other Chinese knives, is the average Rockwell is around 48, even with 440A. It's not the steel as much is it is how it's treated/tempered.

I have heard of the bad heat treat/temper on Chinese 440A knives. I have a few Rough Riders in the shop and those blades are a bit easy to scratch with a file - kinda like a backspring more so than a blade. Just curious, but in the past (distant?) did Randall use 440B, I read about it but do not know if that was a typo.

Sorry for the delay...I missed this thread over the weekend somehow. Anyway, Randall does still use a small amount of 440B but, very little. They used to use it almost exculsively but, now the majority is 440C.

On a side note, I just took on another job. Randall used to use their retired shop foreman (Pete Hamilton) to authenticate their knives. Unfortunately Pete passed away a coulple of years ago. People are constantly calling the shop and want their odd or old Randall authenticated. Randall simply doesn't have the time to do it, they're busy making knives. Anyhow, they asked me if I would take on doing authentications for collectors who needed one. I, of course, said yes. I know threre aren't many Randall collectors here but, if you have one, I can provide the service. I'm in the process of adding a page on my web site to offer the service but, have been too busy to get it finished.