Today's Popular Knife Steels

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NoRap4Me

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Mar 25, 2009
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I haven't kept up with knife steel developments in the last seven or eight years. Have there been any new knife steels introduced? And for mid and higher priced knives, what are the more popular steels these days for folders and fixed blades?
 
I’m still trying to catch up learning about all the other steels invented. How does Magnacut perform?
 
There's this weird new one called CPM-440V, that uses a whole new process than the normal steels you and I are used to, like 1095, 440C, Alox and Tru-Sharp...
 
you joined bf in 2009, a full 13 years ago and now your first post is about recent knife steels? :)

lol

welcome back?

I Tested the Edge Retention of 48 Steels

Recently I was able to acquire a used CATRA machine, so I heat treated just about every knife steel I had, made 57 knives with the help of knifemaker Shawn Houston, and tested them all to see which cut the longest. For a few of the steels I did multiple heat treatments to look at a couple...
www.bladeforums.com www.bladeforums.com
there is a sticky thread (look up ^) about steel & edge retention, read about them
 
NoRap4Me said:
I haven't kept up with knife steel developments in the last seven or eight years. Have there been any new knife steels introduced? And for mid and higher priced knives, what are the more popular steels these days for folders and fixed blades?
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Glad you're back
 
I must confess, I have no knives in Magnacut. Yet. I just wanted to throw a good answer out early. And I don't generally like to do someone else's research. But I know a little bit about the theory of metallurgy, and Magnacut seems to have the potential to be one of the better all-around knife steels available, if not the best. But it's not the only good steel out there.

There are quite a few good steels that have found their way into knives. S35VN and 14C28N are a couple of very good stainless steels used in production knives these days. What they have in common is good to above-average corrosion resistance, ease of sharpening, better than average edge-holding, and above-average toughness for stainless alloys. I carry both of these steels every day, they make really easy work of everything I've thrown at them.
 
NoRap4Me said:
I haven't kept up with knife steel developments in the last seven or eight years. Have there been any new knife steels introduced? And for mid and higher priced knives, what are the more popular steels these days for folders and fixed blades?
Click to expand...

Read this to catch up on the last 7-8 years:

Testing the Edge Retention of 48 Knife Steels

And then read this about Magnacut which is the most recently developed steel of note:

Magnacut The Next Breakthrough in Knife Steel

That should bring you fully up to date.
 
RugerNurse said:
I’m still trying to catch up learning about all the other steels invented. How does Magnacut perform?
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It's still pretty new but early user reports are excellent. As you'll see from the links above, MagnaCut was thoughtfully designed for the right balance of properties. It seems to be a success. I only have one knife in MagnaCut (so far) but it's effectively a woods knife and I haven't been out much since I got it.

Otherwise, we've seen S35VN and M390/20CV become the norm for more premium production knives. Heat treatments depend on the company. The more recent S45VN had been filtering out into American production knives but MagnaCut seems to be stealing a lot of the wind now.

On the budget front, several Chinese companies are now using 14C28N. (Remember when that was exclusive to Kershaw? Ironically, they're still stuck using crumby old 8Cr13Mov in their Chinese-made knives while the guys next door are putting together better knives in 14C28N at competitive stateside prices.) We're also seeing N690, 154CM, Nitro-V, and 10Cr15CoMov (a Chinese analog of VG-10) in the $50-100 range. Heat treatment obviously matters but there seems to be a growing number of reputable Chinese companies now. Speaking of, Civivi and Sencut (both sub-brands for WE) do an excellent heat treatment on their 9Cr18Mov. Overall, those are probably "best bang for the buck" under $50.
 
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Two of the most popular steels in mid- to higher-priced folders are CPM-S35VN and M390/20CV (the latter two are equivalent). In the fixed blade world, good old 1095 is still probably the most common, but CPM-3V is popular in higher end fixed blades.

Dr. Larrin Thomas of Knife Steel Nerds was mentioned above. He has great articles on most of the steels I mentioned.
 
Modern super steels are like F1 race cars - they certainly push the envelope and bring great innovation to the table, yet are an overkill for almost all daily tasks that call for a knife. For EDC, I still stick with 1095 in traditional patterns, and S30V, 154CM, and S35VN in modern folders. In my experience, heat treat is far more important than the actual composition of steel.
 
choombak said:
Modern super steels are like F1 race cars - they certainly push the envelope and bring great innovation to the table, yet are an overkill for almost all daily tasks that call for a knife. For EDC, I still stick with 1095 in traditional patterns, and S30V, 154CM, and S35VN in modern folders. In my experience, heat treat is far more important than the actual composition of steel.
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You are certainly right, but new steel with good heat treat will be better in some ways than let's say 1095 with good heat treat. It's matter of laziness or low experience with new steels that makes them comparable or worse than traditional steels sometimes. I think that the new steels are way more complicated in their composition sometimes so the manufacturers doesn't really know what could go wrong.
 
Along with MagnaCut and S45VN, Vanax is also a relatively new high-end steel. It's rust-proof (a saltwater steel), very high edge-retention, and reasonable toughness.
MagnaCut, an even newer steel, has ended up taking over a big part of this niche - it's slightly less stain-resistant, but edge-retention is similar and toughness much higher compared to Vanax. Probably a bit cheaper too.
 
Magnacut, Vanax, maybe 3V, are not popular steels. They are new and advanced but not so popular as S30V and the rest of the used left and right steels mentioned earlier - M390/20CV, also CPM 154, D2 and 1095, I’m sure I’m missing some more popular steels - Sandvic, VG-10, the list with widely used steels is long.
 
Thanks for the responses. I have knives made from many of the steels mentioned, even elusive (counterfeit) Rostfrei :). Perhaps I'll pick up one in Magnacut, a steel introduced after my knives were acquired.

Among those I've used so far, I prefer CPM D2, CPM3V, CPM154, and A2. S30V is OK. I have knives in some of the other steels mentioned but haven't used them enough to evaluate them for my use.
 
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