I don't know why so many people think D2 is tougher than S30V. If not properly heat treated, S30V can be chippy, which shows a lack of toughness. But properly treated, it is tougher than D2 by a fair margin.
In addition, S30V has superior wear resistance, is finer grained and has much better stain resistance. The only area where D2 has an advantage over S30V is in ease of manufacturing. S30V can also support more acute blade/edge geometry, which improves edge retention, cutting performance and ease of sharpening.
D2 is an excellent knife steel. S30V is better.
I think the main issue with S30V for me is that the vast majority of companies seem to have a good amount of trouble making the heat treat consistent, so you often end up with a blade that IS more prone to chipping that D2. In my experience, about 1/10 knives I have seen with S30V have seemed to have the right amount of toughness in them for what S30V claims in its specs. The rest of them were prone to have immediate issues with micro-chipping and eventually lager chips in the blade.
I like both steels, but I honestly won't get S30V on a knife at all if I can help it, just because of all of the issues I have had with it in the past on my own knives, and in the knives of the people I know, as I am the only one in my area that has a full sharpening system, and get stuck sharpening and fixing their blades when they start to chip out.
For my money, I would go with D2, not because it is a better steel, but because it is morel likely to be the steel it is
supposed to be from more manufacturers.
I have also found that D2 is much easier to sharpen in my experience (and gets to a finer polished edge more easily because it does not have Vanadium in it), though neither D2 nor S30V are particularly hard to sharpen at all when you have the right tools for the job.
S30V has small carbides and D2 has large carbides . Therefore S30V will be sharper [ keener edge ]. Part of D2 wear is the breaking out of large chunks of carbides making D2 'seem to ' wear better.
And for the record, generally D2 is not going to have larger carbides than S30V, but the carbides are more likely to be somewhat unevenly distributed in the steel. Vanadium, which produces very large and hard carbides, is very abundant in S30V compared to D2, but the carbides are more evenly distributed because of the CPM process used to make S30V.
If you compare CPM-D2 and S30V, you will find that the carbides in CPM-D2 are notably finer overall, and the steel takes a very keen edge. The difference we see in normal D2 and S30V is the difference between ingot and powdered steels for the most part.
There is a reason why Sebenzas and other high end knives come in S30V and not D2...just saying. S30V is the nicer steel.
The main reason that S30V was developed was largely to reproduce the performance of a steel like D2 in something that was highly stain resistant. The same can be said of CTS-XHP as well, which was originally described as a stainless D2.
Chris Reeve himself has said on many occasions that one of his main concerns in the steel on his blades is how corrosion-resistant they are, as he wants to make his knives available for as many people as possible, in as many different types of environments as possible.
And I have seen several higher-end knives in D2, including a large number of custom knives.
