2-Piece Gerber Grey Pledge & Black Mullet Multi-Tool Set Expired

Various blade steels will really only get as hard as they are capable of according to their composition. Since Gerber does an okay heat treatment on the 7Cr17MoV they love to use in their knives, I doubt there is much more that can be done to harden the blade beyond that. 7cr17MoV is what it is. And if you did somehow make it harder, it would likely be brittle and stressed to the point of breaking. Remember that the harder a blade is the less tough it becomes due to brittleness, almost like glass.

8Cr13MoV is about as soft and low quality as I'm willing to go for an EDC folding pocket knife. It's the steel Spyderco makes it's popular Tenacious, Resilience and most of their Byrd budget like out of. Granted, Spyderco does a most excellent heat treatment on 8Cr13MoV to really get a lot out of it.

If you want a better quality knife that is a step or two up from a Gerber in 7Cr17Mov, I would suggest you look at the Ganzo Firebird line of knives they make with D2 semi-stainless tool steel. You can get one for around $25 and Ganzo's D2 has been tested to be in the 62HRC+ range. Ganzo also makes several nice knives in fully stainless 440C in the sub $20 range if you need more corrosion resistance, and both their materials and build quality are significantly better than Gerber's budget knives like the Pledge. The Ontario Rat I or 2 in AUS8 is another knife I'd recommend if you are willing to spend around $30ish dollars. But, chasing hardness and high edge retention above all else isn't the most important thing when choosing what steel you want your knife made out of. You have hardness, edge retention, wear resistance, durability, corrosion resistance, ease of sharpening and cost to consider as well. No blade steel can do it all, so you have to decide what's more important based on the intended use of the knife. This is a pretty good article if you want to learn more about specific blade steels. [knifeinformer.com]

All that said, A slim Gerber like the Pledge in 7Cr17MoV for $10 and change is a deal, IMHO. I like the design, blade shape, axis lock and 3" is a capable blade length without being huge. The Mullet tool thrown in is a nice bonus. All the Gerbers I've owned in 7Cr17Mov have sharpened up well without too much effort, and were well suited to the everyday tasks most of us use a knife for. But it won't hold an edge forever so you'll need to know to sharpen a knife. The $35 Work Sharp Guided Field Sharpener [amazon.com] is a great tool to learn to maintain your knives on, if you don't already have some kind of sharpener.

Sorry for rambling, but thanks for the opportunity to geek out over knife steels.

Murd3r lol 😆