S30V vs S60V

P

paulwesley

Joined
Sep 5, 2005
Messages
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from looking at the steel charts it looks like s60v might be a tad higher grade than s30v......anybody know???......thx/paul
 
CPM® S30V®
CPM S30V was designed for cutlery and offers the best
overall combination of hardness, corrosion resistance
and wear resistance
CPM® S60V® (440V®)
CPM S60V was the first high wear stainless produced by
the CPM process. Its high vanadium content gives it
superior wear resistance while maintaining the corrosion
resistance of 440C.​
 
S60V was used by Kershaw and Spyderco a few years ago. It was much more fragile than S30V and the like, so they had to run it much softer, around 55 HRC, but at that hardness the edge rolled constantly. Some love that steel, but the majority not.
 
paulwesley said:
from looking at the steel charts it looks like s60v might be a tad higher grade than s30v......anybody know???......thx/paul
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Paul -

Good question. Alot of the CPM steels seemed to have been renamed over the years.

Here is a techy link to knife steel designed more for the maker. However it has some good comparisons and info that may be of interest.

http://www.ajh-knives.com/metals.html

Page down about half way and you will see the section on CPM steels.
 
S60V is supposed to be harder to sharpen, holds it's edge longer, and is prone to brittleness(don't know hat RC the brittleness happens at though)
 
S60V was well liked for hunting knives and similar and there were several reports of very high edge retention, as in dozens of animals. Once the hardness was dropped to make it more tactical it quickly fell out of favor due to problems with lack of strength.

-Cliff
 
I have ordered a Scott Cook Lochsa with S90V, dual thumb studs........ This will be my first S90V knife. Scott said he would sharpen it for free.
 
TheKnifeCollector said:
I have ordered a Scott Cook Lochsa with S90V, dual thumb studs........ This will be my first S90V knife. Scott said he would sharpen it for free.
Click to expand...

I've got one on order too, but I hadn't decided on the blade type. That's why I was curious.
 
S30V in fact has a higher hardening capbility than does S90V or S60V. Both S60V (440V) and S90V (420V) were designed for use in plastic injection molding tooling where high wear and corrosion resistance are needed. Neither grade was designed with knives in mind. 440V was the first of the family designed by crucible and problems with corrosion resistance and the need for more wear resistance lead to the development of 420V which was better balanced and even though the Cr was lower the corrosion resistance was higher due to better attention to alloy balance. Some of the Cr in 440V was tied up as chrome carbides thus making less available to form the passive oxide film necessary for corrosion resistance in stainless steels.

As far as wear resistance is concerned the higher the number the higher the carbide content and the more wear resistant. Since 420V and 440V were designed for tooling applications no consideration was given to ease of heat treatment since most toolmakers have access to very sophisticated heat treating equipment. Most knife makers do not so when S30V was designed (by me) I contacted Paul Bos to see what kind of equipment he had and made sure the alloy we designed could be properly heat treated with Paul's equipment. The result is S30V is not only easier to heat treat but can attain a higher hardness than the other two grades. The lower carbide volume will make it tougher then either of its higher alloy cousins. 440V (S60V) was discontinued by crucible due to shift in demand from it to S30V which by many reports back to Crucible was superior in use and easier to work with.

I hope this clears up some questions

Dick Barber
 
In regards to hardness, S30V is ran as low as 55 HRC in some knives and few have it past 60 HRC, most have it at 58/60. S90V and BG-42 was ran harder by some and ZDP-189 is harder still in general.

Are the full hardening responces available for S30V/S90V, the data sheets for S30V show a max hardness of 61 HRC with oil and cold (coming from 2000F), and Wilson's S90V knives were harder still.

Do you have a perspective on the high frequency of reports of chipping problems people are experiencing with S30V?

-Cliff
 
I think I wanted this thread to be s30v vs s90v once I started looking at the charts I now realize it was s90v that I was comparing to s30v not s60v, oh well I almost bought a Kershaw tactical blur at wally world the other day and its only 440a but I liked the AO mechanism. Bought another super tight Native though.:thumbup: ..This ones F&F is grteat....................:thumbup:
 
Cliff Stamp said:
In regards to hardness, S30V is ran as low as 55 HRC in some knives and few have it past 60 HRC, most have it at 58/60. S90V and BG-42 was ran harder by some and ZDP-189 is harder still in general.

Are the full hardening responces available for S30V/S90V, the data sheets for S30V show a max hardness of 61 HRC with oil and cold (coming from 2000F), and Wilson's S90V knives were harder still.

Do you have a perspective on the high frequency of reports of chipping problems people are experiencing with S30V?

-Cliff
Click to expand...


Not having the opportunity to investigate any of the actual blades which were said to have chipped it is not possible to offer a meaningful evaluation. Anything I might say would be a guess. What I would be willing to offer regarding potential causes for chipping or brittleness I offered in another forum yesterday. Heat treatment and grinding abuse are both common causes for tooling failures. Grades with high volumes of vanadium carbides offer more resistance to grinding and can be overheated more easily. Overheating of a thin section like a knife blade is a relitively easy proposition given the small volume of material and large contact area. There is simply no place for excessive heat to go other than raising the temperature of the blade and potentially reaustenitizing the metal.

Heat treat errors can and do occur either by lack of control or in commercial heat treatment, mixing of grades and cycles to try to increase throughput and ending up with a compromise cycle that is not optimum for anything in the charge but can result in the aim hardness.

Again it is impossible offer a definitive analysis without the ability to examine the patient.

i hope this helps

Dick Barber
 
Dick,

Welcome to Bladeforums. I'm glad to read your posts. Please stick around and continue to share your knowledge. :thumbup:
 
Crompal said:
Grades with high volumes of vanadium carbides offer more resistance to grinding and can be overheated more easily.
Click to expand...

I have seen a few people propose this arguement, however isn't the machinability of S30V superior to D2/M2? In regards to heat treatment, this is always a possible problem, but S30V was promoted as being easier to heat treat than 440C so it is hard to see why heat treatment would be more of a problem for S30V than other cutlery stainless grades.

-Cliff
 
Paul, I made a lot of knives out of S60V and eventually worked the hardness up to about RC 58 and settled for that as a good compromise between ductility and strength. S90v was introduced as an upgrade for 60V by Crucible for use in the plastics industry. I fought that stuff for a few years untill I finally built a furncace that would go to a high enought temp to heat treat it correctly. I can now run it at 2100F + and get great HT response. I have settled on RC 60 as the optium for this grade. If I make a flexible fillet knife and flex it hard it will bend a little before it breaks. I like S90V for utility hunters where wear resistance and corrosion are the main criteria. S30V in my opinion is the nicest of all the CPM to use. It heat treats like a dream, holds a great edge and is reasonably ductile at RC61. 10V is a great steel for where edge holding is the primary critera. It also is easy to heat treat but at about the same temp. as 90V. It seems to have great toughness even at hardness around RC 63. All of these guys benifit from a cryo treatment and multiple tempers. Hope this helps.. PHIL
 
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