There are some good new steels out there. One of the best is s30v. Benchmade, Spyderco, Gerber and Buck are amoung the knife makers who have added s30v blades to their lineup. One good one for the money is a Cabelas exclusive. Its the old Buck 110 in s30v. They sell for about 60-70 bucks and are a real bargan. I bought one last time I was DRAWNNNN in to a Cabelas store.. Strange forces do that to me. Of course RH does not have that problem.