Better Than M390

M

Mrs_Esterhouse

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Apr 9, 2019
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I suspect it is better than M390 for edge stability, toughness and maybe wear resistance due to higher hardness (64hrc). What is everyone's experience with SRS-15?

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Why would you say it's better than M390, just because it might be tougher? M390 isn't a favored steel just because of its toughness.

The formula looks like S30V with some vanadium replaced with tungsten. I'm a bit skeptical of the 64HRC value Zknives is quoting:
  • Vanadium carbides are harder than tungsten carbides; S30V has more vanadium
  • S30V maxes at 64HRC before tempering, per Crucible's data sheet. That would probably make it quite brittle at that hardness. Not sure how SRS-15 would achieve that without sacrificing a lot of toughness
Edit: should add, it might be that the hardness quoted by Zknives is correct, but the chemical composition is off. If that's the case, then who knows.
 
Last edited:
tyyreaun said:
Why would you say it's better than M390, just because it might be tougher? M390 isn't a favored steel just because of its toughness.

The formula looks like S30V with some vanadium replaced with tungsten. I'm a bit skeptical of the 64HRC value Zknives is quoting:
  • Vanadium carbides are harder than tungsten carbides; S30V has more vanadium
  • S30V maxes at 64HRC before tempering, per Crucible's data sheet. That would probably make it quite brittle at that hardness. Not sure how SRS-15 would achieve that without sacrificing a lot of toughness
Click to expand...

I'm not metallurgy expert, but I was going to talk about the distinct lack of vanadium in SRS-15 but you sort of beat me to it. Vanadium seems to be a wonder element when it comes to cutlery alloys, probably due to the ridiculously hard Vanadium Carbides. Can we also talk about the trace of nitrogen in S30V?
 
MarkN86 said:
I'm not metallurgy expert, but I was going to talk about the distinct lack of vanadium in SRS-15 but you sort of beat me to it. Vanadium seems to be a wonder element when it comes to cutlery alloys, probably due to the ridiculously hard Vanadium Carbides. Can we also talk about the trace of nitrogen in S30V?
Click to expand...
Per Larrin (link) the nitrogen addition should help increase the potential hardness of S30V, if you hold everything else equal. Which further leads me to think there's something wrong with the Zknives listing. Probably the formula, I'd guess.
 
I looked it up on my knife steel app, they reported the same or similar chemical comp to the graph shown here.
Definitely an interesting mix of elements and they also reported the steel being used in Japanese kitchen knives.
At this point I think I want a Delica in each of whatever steels they are making Japanese kitchen knives out of.
If it's good enough for them it's usually a nice blade steel in my experience.
VG10, ZDP-189, VTOKU 2, Super Gold II have all been killer steels for the Delica and when I looked them up
they were used for Japanese kitchen knives.

A lot of these high end Japanese chef knife steels can sometimes be a bit chippy but they are always insanely sharp and develop
interesting patinas if left with minimal to no oiling and used everyday. They are IMO the prettiest in san mai with a stainless jacket.
 
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