A 2.45-inch blade on a knife that costs $225 reads like a typo until you look at what the blade is made of. The MicroJimbo is Michael Janich's Yojimbo 2 cut down to a legally portable size, and Spyderco has now built it in five different steels. The sprint run in CPM 15V is the one worth arguing about.
The shape is all utility. Wharncliffe profile, 2.23 inches of cutting edge that runs almost straight to the tip, 0.145 inch stock, full flat grind, and a stonewashed finish. Overall length is 6.22 inches, closed length 3.80 inches, weight 2.9 ounces. Brown peel-ply G-10 scales mark it as part of the 15V family, and Shawn Houston's Triple B logo is laser engraved on the reverse of the blade. Compression Lock, reversible deep-carry wire clip, made in Golden. Dealer pricing sits at $225 for the C264GPBN15V.
| Steel | Vanadium | Chromium | Stainless | Typical hardness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPM 15V | 14.5-14.9% | 5.25% | No | 60-65 HRC |
| Bohler K390 | 9% | 4.2% | No | 63-65 HRC |
| CPM S90V | 9% | 14% | Yes | 59-61 HRC |
| Micro-Melt Maxamet | 6% | 4.75% | No | 67-69 HRC |
Where the 15V argument holds up
Vanadium is the whole story. At 14.5 percent, CPM 15V carries more of it than almost any steel Crucible sells, and that vanadium locks up into carbides hard enough to outlast nearly everything else at the edge. Dr. Larrin Thomas rates it 10 out of 10 for abrasive edge retention, the top of his scale, with toughness at 3.5 and corrosion resistance at 4. Spyderco's heat treatment protocol, developed with Houston, is part of the package rather than an afterthought.
On a knife like this, that trade makes a certain kind of sense. A wharncliffe with a straight edge is a slicing tool, and a slicing tool that holds an edge through months of cardboard, tape, and zip ties is doing exactly what its geometry promises. The 3.7 mm spine is unusually thick for a 2.45-inch blade, which gives the thin edge behind the bevel more support than the stock number suggests.
Where it costs you
Corrosion is the first bill. At 5.25 percent chromium, 15V is not stainless, and a knife that lives in a sweaty pocket will show it. Wipe it down, keep it dry, and accept that a week in a wet backpack is a bad idea. The second bill is sharpening. Vanadium carbides at this volume laugh at aluminum oxide stones, so diamond or CBN plates are not optional equipment, they are the entry fee.
The MicroJimbo lineup makes the steel choice unusually clear:
- CPM S30V in black G-10, the baseline and the cheapest way in
- CPM SPY27 in cobalt blue, Spyderco's own alloy with better corrosion resistance
- CPM MagnaCut in the Salt blackout version, the wet-environment pick
- CPM S90V in a carbon fiber sprint, the stainless high-wear option
- CPM 15V in brown G-10, the maximum edge retention option and the least forgiving
Put next to the S90V sprint, the 15V knife gives up stainlessness for a measurable step up in wear resistance. Put next to K390, it wins on vanadium content and loses nothing in hardness, which is why the 15V sprints keep selling out while the K390 models sit longer on shelves.
What nobody outside Spyderco can answer is whether 15V stays a sprint steel or becomes a catalog option. Every run so far has been small, brown, and gone in days, and the steel's reputation grows each time one sells out. If Golden ever puts it in a standard production Para 3, the sharpening industry will have a very busy year.