Toughest stainless?

there's nothing magical about stainless, lower carbon, finer carbides, lower carbide volume, more toughness. 12C27M is tougher than 12C27, which is tougher than 13C26/AEB-L, which are tougher than most. There's no reason to compare Elmax to 3V or S7, seems terribly unfair to list hypereutectoid against hypo-, particularly when it also has a ton more alloying elements and carbide fraction. 420, AUS4/6, and other stainless are not all that impressive with edge holding, but neither are the lowest alloyed carbon or tool steels, but they are tougher.
 
hardheart said:
there's nothing magical about stainless, lower carbon, finer carbides, lower carbide volume, more toughness. 12C27M is tougher than 12C27, which is tougher than 13C26/AEB-L, which are tougher than most. There's no reason to compare Elmax to 3V or S7, seems terribly unfair to list hypereutectoid against hypo-, particularly when it also has a ton more alloying elements and carbide fraction. 420, AUS4/6, and other stainless are not all that impressive with edge holding, but neither are the lowest alloyed carbon or tool steels, but they are tougher.
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Correct me if i am wrong, 12C27M is basically a swedish 420HC, the standard steel used in US-made Buck and Gerber knives. 12C27 & 13C26 adjust the carbon (up) & chromium (down) to increase hardness & wear resistence but decrease toughness (and corrosion resistance) slightly. If someone is achieving satisfactory toughness with AEB-L, they'd achieve SUPERIOR toughness with a Buck knife of 420HC but slightly lower wear-resistance. But this is indeed silly to discuss when NONE of these are "tough" steels, not designed to be, the range here is so small.
 
Elmax and CTS-XHP are the toughest stainless steels I know of and have worked with. I have and will put them right up against more common carbon and tool steels (1095, O1 and 3V) for toughness in cutting and chopping applications... and they'll keep their edge much longer in the same tests at the same hardness (58Rc in my testing). You get to prying with and hammering on them, yeah at some point you're going to see the difference.

M390 is reported to be very close to Elmax and XHP for toughness but I haven't worked with it yet. I'm just getting into using AEB-L and hope to be trying out some other low-carbide "razor steel" stainless alloys in the same family soon. They sure look good on paper...

ETA: indeed the Sandvik stainless alloys mentioned above are not considered "sexy", and some folks even scoff at them for being "cheap". There's a big difference between cheap and inexpensive, but well-designed and well-made ;)
 
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chiral.grolim said:
Correct me if i am wrong, 12C27M is basically a swedish 420HC, the standard steel used in US-made Buck and Gerber knives. 12C27 & 13C26 adjust the carbon (up) & chromium (down) to increase hardness & wear resistence but decrease toughness (and corrosion resistance) slightly. If someone is achieving satisfactory toughness with AEB-L, they'd achieve SUPERIOR toughness with a Buck knife of 420HC but slightly lower wear-resistance. But this is indeed silly to discuss when NONE of these are "tough" steels, not designed to be, the range here is so small.
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Close enough for government work. The M is for modified, and the carbon content is reduced over 12C27. Which really means it technically shouldn't be called 12C27, as the naming convention is 20 times the carbon percentage and twice the chromium. 0.6% C & 13.5% Cr is 12 & 27, but 12C27M is 0.52% & 14.5%
 
welcome to the party James... I've always thought the same thing: there is a huge difference between cheap and inexpensive, and there's a point where you get diminishing returns on your money for that latest greatest steel. I don't want to get into a huge "knife fight" on here about the endless steels and end up in a metallurgical maze so I'm going to turn to cars as a metaphor. Sure, the Lamborghini hurrican is a newer, sexier more powerful car than last years model, but exactly how much performance does the end user need? lets say you have a Subaru STI by comparison (or a Camaro for you "I only buy US" guys". It's way faster than you could ever really use in real life and it's performance limits are usually Way above what the driver could reach... so why go out and spend Lambo money to get something you really can't use when the Subaru is more practical? That's why I choose to use 12c27 for my base stainless... it's not that sexy but it's usually more than enough for anyone sensible, and it's affordable.
 
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rustyrazor said:
Thank you Mike

I've recently switched to 12c27 myself for this very reason... just didn't mention it because i had always understood that Elmax was the king of toughness for stainless and nobody seems to think the sandvic steels are sexy enough to merit conversation. I'll caveat that by saying that prior to 12c27, i had used 440c for 10+ years with absolutely no problems... and on 3 tours overseas and multiple training missions, I have thouroughly used and abused some of my 440C blades way beyond what most people would consider "acceptable use" for a knife and i never damaged one to the point where it wasn't still there for me when i came home. All kidding aside, most steels will do more than enough for most people if the heat treat and geometry is designed for a given task.
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I think from what I've read about ELMAX is that it is more really suited to be able to be ground and shaped up in it'd final hardened state. This is probably one main feature if you like about the properties of this PM steel. So if one is a knife maker then this I figure could be something desirable to have, whether you are a custom knife maker or some large manufacturer.
 
This answer may not pleases you as much as you hoped for, but I'm guessing the toughest stainless (>13% Chromium) steels are 420, 440 and 12c27 (variants). In the case of stainless steels I guess tough is almost an exact opposite of wear-resistant.
 
Mikael W said:
FCCBCT,
Interesting thoughts and I agree, I have seen Indonesians using their big carbonblades and they sure know what they are doing!


Regards
Mikael
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Hi, what i didn't say there was that we actually had two parangs made for us at one of these forges from a truck leaf spring, which they forged in a charcoal fire for some time. Damn good blades.
 
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