In today's world, all too often the verbiage "High-Performance Blades" is used as a catch phrase, or a sales pitch.
Right now the world if filled with so called "knifemakers" who have watched a couple of episodes of Forged In Fire, and are self made experts.
Now, more than anytime in my 30+ year career as a Bladesmith/Knifemaker, it is a buyer beware environment, simply because of all the upstarts we are now seeing.
I recently saw a Knifemaker website who was calling their knives "high performance", and in the same line stated that "All are blade are produced from high quality A36 hot rolled steel"........ for those who don't know, A36 steel is structural steel, that is basically the lowest grade of steel available, with no specific analysis requirement.
What does all that mean? It means that potential knife buyers need to do their homework to avoid being ripped off! In general, I would recommend sticking with Bladesmiths that are members of the ABS (American Bladesmith Society), and for the highest assurance of quality, stick with those individual who carry a JS (Journeyman Smith), or MS (Mastersmith) rating. I would also include those Makers who are members of the Knifemaker's Guild. Even sticking to those makers is no guarantee, but those makers are the ones who take knifemaking very serious.
Directly to your question.... "High-Performance" is nothing more than words. Those who truly produce "high performance" blades/knives generally don't advertise with those words, because the term is so often used as a sales pitch. As to where they are used? You can find true "high performance" blades in either environment. Once a person uses a true "high performance" knife, they quickly realize just how the market is flooded with sub-par blades.
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