What is the attraction of s30v and family of steels?

Any CPM-3V fans ? The Bark River 3V Canadian Special is available now.

Yesterday's fad steel or today's trendy collectable ?
 
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my lil' canadian was bought last year & performs very well. the earlier bark rivers were 57 or 58 in hardness. koster was picked up by k-- & his 3v is said to be 60 which should make it cut longer than the early b.r.s --dennis
 
Any CPM-3V fans ? The Bark River 3V Canadian Special is available now.

Yesterday's fad steel or today's trendy collectable ?
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Well captain, 3V is too old already to just be a fad, or flavor of the day. It's been around longer than S30V, which initially was supposed to be a stainless version of 3V. It's roots go back to Vascowear ( call it 3V's uncle) which was getting put on Gerber Sportsmen 2 knives starting in about 82 or so as an upgrade steel. They called it "V" steel.

So, It's just starting to get the mainstream attention it deserves. More and more companies are willing to go the non stainless route and climbing the performance ladder there will bring you to 3V as an upgrade to D2 class steels.

Good stuff!

Joe
 
It seems more academic then anything.. real world use prolly won't show much difference unless you are trying to find it.. I mean this for most of the higher end steel alloys.. I was mostly used to 440 back in the 80s.. didn't care about anything else as 440 cut fine.. but then ATS34 was introduced to me and I definitely noticed the difference in edge retention and supposedly being able to get it sharper won me over.. Still to this day I think ATS34 is awesome.. my old BM AFCK (with ATS34) hasn't let me down in over 13yrs of use..

lately I'm more into collecting a blade with all the steels just so I don't feel left out :P
 
The Mastiff said:
Well captain, 3V is too old already to just be a fad, or flavor of the day. It's been around longer than S30V, which initially was supposed to be a stainless version of 3V. It's roots go back to Vascowear ( call it 3V's uncle) which was getting put on Gerber Sportsmen 2 knives starting in about 82 or so as an upgrade steel. They called it "V" steel.

So, It's just starting to get the mainstream attention it deserves. More and more companies are willing to go the non stainless route and climbing the performance ladder there will bring you to 3V as an upgrade to D2 class steels.

Good stuff!

Joe
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3V is a huge upgrade to D2, it's at least 2x as tough and has more wear resistance. :thumbup:

http://www.alphaknifesupply.com/Pictures/Info/Steel/CPM3V-DS.pdf
 
SteelSnob said:
I have always hated S30V and I've said it for a long time. Doesn't hold a good edge,chips and is a pain in the ass to sharpen. I'll take CPM154 if (HTed properly) over any steel I've tried yet.
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I'm not a fan either, but unfortunately a lot of really great designs are only available in it.

I wish Spyderco wasn't using it for the Para 2 or Sage series. I would have been perfectly happy to see them in VG-10 or 154CM depending on country of manufacture.

S90V, on the other hand is a fantastic, almost magical steel. I carried and used my 90V Manix over a year before in finally needed to touch up the edge...and I used it a lot. I'm not much of a steel snob but even I can tell that it's superior stuff.
 
But what's all the fuss about?
It's only that these steels are difficult to work with (wear resistance only?!?) ???
 
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