About the N695 Steel Used in Joker Knives’ Bushcrafter

Bushcraft knives must be both tough as nails and highly utilitarian. Unlike other knives like skinners and filet knives, they cannot be overspecialized or else they will not be as versatile in the hand of a survivalist, or any outdoorsman for that matter. 

As a result, bushcraft knives should be more like generalists. They should be able to split small logs, carve camp furniture, prepare food and process harvests, and strike a fire, among other things. 

But they should also be tough enough to hang with unforgiving conditions that demand a lot, and in part that requires a steel suitable to exposure to undesirable conditions, but one that is physically tough, able not just to take, but to hold an edge without being too hard to resharpen. 

Take, for instance, the Bushcrafter from Joker Knives. It’s not just the basic drop point profile that is highly utilitarian and therefore practical, but the fact that it is forged from Bohler N695 steel. Let’s take a closer look at this alloy. 

Bohler N695 Steel Under the Microscope and What It Means for a Bushcraft Knife 

Bohler N695 is often referred to as a “hard chrome-alloyed stainless steel” which, without being familiar with the steel chemistry, doesn’t really tell you much. 

In some ways it is a variation of N690; both are made by the same company but they offer slightly different things. 

In N695, the emphasis is more on the overall toughness of the knife, which is reflected in its slightly lower carbon and chromium concentrations. In N695, the carbon concentration sits at 1.05% and the chromium at 16.7%. 

This has a few consequences for the finished steel alloy and for the knives made from it. First, this is a lot of carbon; significantly more than tool steels like 1095. This gives the steel the ability to take a pretty solid heat treatment for good edge retention. 

The higher chromium concentration also makes this a surprisingly corrosion-resistant steel. Anything over 10% could probably be considered stainless, and the N695 used in these Joker Knives far surpasses that. 

Contrasted to N695’s cousin N690, there’s a greater emphasis on edge retention and corrosion resistance and less on toughness. It has a higher carbon concentration at 1.07% and a higher concentration of chromium, too, at 17%.

These aren’t really significant differences, but what really sets N690 apart is that it has a good amount of cobalt in it, at 1.5%, which really makes a difference in edge retention. This is because cobalt forms carbides with carbon in the steel matrix, which improves the hardness and thereby the wear resistance of the alloy. 

There is no cobalt in the N695 of Joker Knives’ Bushcrafter, so ultimately what the alloy offers you is generally improved toughness with no really significant loss of hardness, wear resistance, or corrosion resistance. 

All of which are highly desirable traits in a knife that will actually be used for bushcrafting. First, let’s consider the importance of corrosion resistance here. A knife that’s actually used for survival-adjacent chores is likely to be outside and kept outside for days if not weeks at a time.

That means exposure not just to rain, high humidity, and potentially snow, sleet and ice, but possibly exposure to blood, fat, and other reactive substances as well. A knife could be exposed to all of these without proper maintenance, which would not bode well for an alloy that had no chromium or other corrosion-resistant elements. 

So there’s that, but beyond that, the concentration of carbon, which is slightly lower, enables the alloy to take a heat treatment that keeps it hard enough to maintain an edge without making it so hard that it responds to impulse and abuse with brittle qualities. 

Overall, this makes N695 steel - such as that featured in the Joker Knives’ Bushcrafter in question - slightly more tolerant of abuse. This is a knife you could use as a wedge or for splitting small rounds of firewood and it would be well suited to those tasks. 

Not to suggest that N690 wouldn’t be, just that, as the attributes of steel break down, N695 is a hair tougher and more tolerant of hard use that might make some other, harder but more brittle alloys, flinch. 

All in all, it is a relatively low maintenance steel that is well-suited for use in bushcraft knives like the aptly-named Bushcrafter.

Explore These and Other Joker Knives Here
The Bushcrafter is just one of the many great Joker Knives we sell here, and there are many more in our catalog from other brands that are made using both N690 and N695 steel. Explore our collection and if you have any questions about any of the models we sell, or any of the steels they’re made from, get in touch with us directly and we will be more than happy to help.