Merkur Classic, 23c, HD, 38c Aggressiveness

[blue_titan]

I am a newbie to DE safety razors and I am confused about the differences between some of the merkurs.

It is my understanding that the merkur classic has the exact same head as the 23c, and the the HD has the same as that on the 38c. I thought the only difference between them was the length of their handles. The 23c and the 38c having longer handles than the classic and the HD, respectively.

If this is correct then I would expect that the classic and the 23c would have the same blade gap, and the HD and the 38c would also have the same blade gap.

However, the b&b DE safety razor wiki rankings tell a different story:
classic is at .56mm.
23c is at .64mm
38c is at .64mm
HD is at .71mm

What am I missing?

 

[JD.E.]

It's just a stab in the dark, but it could be a typical Merkur Quality Control/Inconsistency issue. They may have been designed to be the same, but just not made 100% consistently.

I'm not sure if multiple measurments were made for each entry in the wiki, but if there weren't, this could very well be the case.

~JD

 

[blue_titan]

I went back to the original thread from which the data for the wiki came. As far as I could tell the discrepancies are from multiple people posting different measurements for the same razor.