I should know better than to climb into these threads, but there's a fair amount of misinformation flying here. A knife blade is the composite result of the steel used, the manner in which it is processed, resulting chemistry from that processing, blade geometry, and the purposes for which it is built. All of these are interrelated. Perception of the final result is based on empirical observations which may or may not be related to what the knifemaker/company had in mind when he/they made the blade.
S30V is an excellent steel, substantially superior in every measurable way to any other stainless made. With 4% Vanadium it has greater wear resistance at Rc59-60 than other stainless steels, and many nonstainless steels regardless of their hardness. It's fine grain structure compared with other stainless steels, the result of particle metallurgy and chemical composition, allows it to be sharpened to a finer edge. And it posseses higher lateral impact toughness than most steels, especially other stainless steels. That said, all these relate to chemistry. What remains is how they are processed and geometry.
S30V is highly susceptible to heat treating failures which will cause it to be much softer than the published heat treating schedule suggests. Factory production of S30V blades is challenging to do properly, since it is extremely difficult to quench a thousand blades as efficiently as just a few, resulting in lower hardness which adversely effects both hardness and impact toughness. Lower hardness may actually be less tough, an anomoly compared with most high alloy steels. To realize the best performance from an S30V edge it must be properly finished; rough edges will not stand hard use, nor will they wear well in normal cutting.
Why is S30V a good steel? Because it is an effective balance between the attributes that make a steel good for knife blades. It offers good toughness, a high level of very hard carbides, and a fine grain structure. Add that it is also stainless, and you have a steel that is ideal for most of the reasons that people buy knives. Does that make it best for everyone? No. Individuals have their own, highly subjective take on what they want from a blade, and depending on that subjective demand other steels might better serve.
Just for the record, what Crucible Steel has discovered from some years of actual use in high volume stamping dies, CPM-3V (3% Vanadium) is outperforming CPM-10V (10% Vanadium) by a substantial margin. What was revealed is that the issue of wear resistance is also an issue of impact toughness. Microchipping is a major component of "wear". The same is generally true of knife blades in "normal" use.
Knifemakers are a fairly chatty community. we share information regularly, and amass a LOT of data both from our own individual testing and that of our customers. Concensus, measured by the performance of hundreds of knives in dozens of applications, is that S30V is an outstanding steel. I can promise you that NO knifemaker works with S30V because he likes to. It's a b*tch to work.
And we haven't even touched on geometry...
The bottom line though is that if you think the message on S30V is hype, buy something else. It's your knife, and most knifemakers and companies make knives of lots of different steels. The choice is entirely yours.
