Steel choices....soooo many!

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Doglover404

Joined
Dec 8, 2016
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I haven't been paying attention to knife steels in the recent past and have just recently realized how many "super steels" have come out recently. Does anyone know if a list of steels exist...ranking in supposed performance from highest to lowest?
 
It's not that black and white. Some steels have excellent wear resistance and others have fantastic strength. A super thin knife in 10V may be "super" as a fish slicer and get spanked by a D2 scandi blade in wood processing. An M4 blade with a thick edge and 64 RC might hold an edge for a long time but be a nightmare to sharpen without specialized tools.

The metallurgy of the steel, design of the blade and handle, thickness of steel, and edge geometry will define whether something is really "super" or not for any given application. Don't let the amount of vanadium carbide determine whether a knife is going to really suit you.
 
Very true....I have recently noticed I like my thin bladed knives the best for all of my cutting tasks. I'm starting to realize I don't really need any of these thick bladed tacticals for anything I do...they just look cool as heck!
 
Hi Doglover,

Welcome to our forum.

Steel is a small doorway which opens up into a huge cavern. Much knowledge here on this forum and these steel Junky's are willing to share. Think "All good, just different" and you will have a good approach to the wide world of blade steels.

sal
 
Doglover404 said:
I haven't been paying attention to knife steels in the recent past and have just recently realized how many "super steels" have come out recently. Does anyone know if a list of steels exist...ranking in supposed performance from highest to lowest?
Click to expand...

First you have to define "performance". You could want to rank them in terms of edge-holding, sometimes known as wear resistance. Or you might want to know which is stronger, or which resists corrosion the best, or which is easiest to sharpen. There are tradeoffs between some of these qualities. Spyderco uses a lot of good steels but some steels are not as suited to every potential use.

Edge-holding would seem to be easy to test but in reality the tests are difficult and the results can vary. And the test is just cutting one type of material which won't help you as much if you cut something else. And the blade geometry and how it is sharpened will influence the tests as much as the steel composition itself will. There are tests of cutting rope with rankings of some steels so that is a place to start, the best we can do right now.

Each of these little points can generate a lot of discussion and a lot of research- pick a place to start and jump in.
 
I would say some of the best in wear resistance are S110v or S90v. M4 is also very good in this department while being tougher and resisting chipping better than the Sxxv steels.

3v seems to be the hot steel for toughness right now. However alot of carbon steels are also very tough while being easier to sharpen.

M390, Elmax and D2 are great steels for all around use. M390 being particularly wear resistant while I have had good experiences sharpening it. D2 is not really stainless as it is a semistainless steel.

In terms of super corrosion resistance nothing seems to beat H1. There are other high nitrogen steels which are also highly corrosion resistant but H1 seems to be girtually impervious to rust.

There are so many great steels out there. The Sandvik steels have extremely clean grain and this are easy to take to a razor edge.

You have to decide which properties are super to you.
 
A useful tool i thinks is an app called 'knife steel compositions'. Of course it doesnt tell you about real world use of the steels, but gives you a break down of the steels makeup, some definations, various info. Handy tool for sure, and will let you know what steels are similar to one another.
 
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