Quote Originally Posted by John C Cox View Post
Actually - they are Sheffield steel (they used to advertise EN31 - a UK version of 52100).. And they are way better than I thought they would be. I am seriously considering hacking off the handle + 50lbs of inter-handle steel and mounting the iron on a proper wood handle. They would probably make a decent butt chisel...
Yeah, I have a set of those that I keep as "beater chisels" to loan out to people. As you say they're not horrible, but I don't think they're great either. The irons are also overly thick, so you'd still have that to deal with even after chopping off the handle.

Given what they did with the tang I'm surprised they didn't make the iron out of S7 or something like that. That "through tang" is a recipe for shock.