CPM S60V - Is it any good?

Alex p. Schorsc · Dec 7, 2005

I know CPM S30V is a great steel but I found a dream knife in CPM S60V and wanted to know what you specialists think about this steel. Basically I would like to know if, when properly heat-treated and Cyro-quenched, is this steel tough and will it hold a good edge. I want it for a camp knife with a lot of food prep and occasional fire tending (wood chopping). Thanks in advance for the opinions which I know will be pertinent. Cheers, Alex.

tidefan · Dec 7, 2005

I 'm not sure, but I think S60V is the new name for CPM 440V. Excellent steel! Holds an edge very well but can be a bit difficult to hone. Hope that helps...Jim

Cliff Stamp · Dec 7, 2005

Alex p. Schorsc said:
... is this steel tough

No.

...and will it hold a good edge.

That depends on what it is used for, it is usually fairly soft <60 HRC, and it is brittle os it doesn't resist rolling or fracture well.

It does however have a high wear resistance so would do well slicing (not push cutting) cardboard for example.

As a camp knife it would be one of the worse choices for the blade material as it is optomized for nearly the opposite set of properties.

-Cliff

Satrang · Dec 7, 2005

S60V is typical of the stainless steels as far as properties. It can make an acceptable camp knife but the design must be a little more forgiving to compensate for the toughness of stainless. There a many better non-stainless steel choices but if you want a stainless and can accept the properties of a typical stainless, you will be ok.

Danbo · Dec 7, 2005

Never liked the stuff myself. Too hard to sharpen, and I really never could get quite the same type of scary sharp edge I like. Too brittle also. There's a reason Crucible stopped making it, and switched to S30V.

Carl64 · Dec 7, 2005

Here is Crucibles info:
http://www.crucibleservice.com/eselector/prodbyapp/stainless/s60vs.htm

Toughness is listed, compared to 440c and D2. It looks like s60v basically sucks in that regard. Not a scientific comment I know, but look at it. Too bad they didn't specify 440c at higher hardness.

They use a different toughness test in their s30v info, making it actually look much better than 440c:
http://www.crucibleservice.com/datash/dsS30Vv4b.pdf

They don't say what hardness that was at though.

I don't see a data sheet with a recommended hardness for s60v any more (the pack above lists ranges, but doesn't actually say what they recommend). I am certain I was able to find it just recently and they recommended lower hardness for s60v than s30v. So it's weaker and softer.

Alex p. Schorsc · Dec 7, 2005

Your thoughts don´t seem very positive so far. Maybe I'll have to wait for one in another steel.

bquinlan · Dec 7, 2005

I have several blades in S60V (440V) that I like a lot. As long as you don't intend to chop or pry with it the stuff works beautifully. My experience is that it holds an edge better than S30V and seems to cut better as well. I suspect it produces a "toothier" edge at the microstructure level.

Given a choice I'd take S60V over S30V for any general-use pocket knife in the 4"-or-less range.

--Bob Q

GarageBoy · Dec 7, 2005

If its brittle, why bother making it softer? Why not just give it a full 60+ RC?

Cliff Stamp · Dec 7, 2005

GarageBoy said:
If its brittle, why bother making it softer? Why not just give it a full 60+ RC?

At the higher hardness there were apparently with edge retention as it was chipping. In general this is very rarely a good idea, switch steels instead.

-Cliff

Carl64 · Dec 7, 2005

GarageBoy said:
If its brittle, why bother making it softer? Why not just give it a full 60+ RC?

Because it can always get worse.

Look at the "impact toughness" chart:
http://www.crucibleservice.com/eselector/prodbyapp/stainless/s60vs.htm

At 60 rc, s60v is about half as tough as D2 at just one point less.

Dropping it to 56 still leaves it weaker than D2 at 59 (by a lot) and still a little weaker than 440c at the same hardness.

I guess you could harden it all the way since it's not going to be a toughness wonder anyway. I guess that's not a bad suggestion. If the steel can't do one thing right, why not make it at least good at something else? But D2 at any hardness beats it, so the real question is why even make the stuff? And, apparently, they don't.

Cliff Stamp · Dec 7, 2005

It was primarily intended to replace 440C where wear resistance was a problem, and is does have much greater wear resistance. It has pretty much been directly replaced in knives by S30V/S90V and few people are using S90V since S30V came out. It will be interesting to see what CPM-154CM does to the use of S30V.

-Cliff