What is the ULTIMATE super steel?

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S sharpknives23 , without any doubt the very best steel for a knife is the steel that’s in the blade of the knife in your hand when you really, really need a knife.

Well maintained 8Cr in the hands of a competent user is always better than neglected Magnacut in the hands of an idiot.

Try not to focus on the fine lines of the esoteric.
 
Hardest I can think of... s110v or maxamet.
Not the steel I would choose... but that's some hard steel.

Personal favorites, cruwear - hap 40 - s30v and lc200n for water sports.
 
There just aren’t any easy buttons here. Lol

There are however a ton of threads that cover the many different steels that are used in making cutlery. Search function is our friend but it is sometimes out of whack but hopefully soon they can have it fixed.

Dr Larrin Thomas / Knife Steel Nerds who is very knowledgeable and has degrees in metallurgy and developed Magnacut has in depth articles and links that covers all kinds of steel attributes right here in the forums and he even swings by to comment from time to time.

As others have said there are trade offs in different steels, hardness is just one aspect, then toughness, then geometry, corrosion resistance, ease of sharpening and probably others I’ve missed. Having high hardness also means the toughness is usually lower and chipping or breaking can occur when you encounter other hard or tough materials. So depending on what you want to use the knife for you can select a steel that has the properties that better meets the usage. If you’re only slicing and cutting then high toughness isn’t as needed and a higher hardness would probably perform better. But if you’re chopping, coming into contact with hard and tough materials then high toughness would be the better choice. Anyway there’s just to much information/ data and testing to cover in one post. But have fun chasing the information.
 
A san-mai of REX 121 and 3V.

Either that or a secret, forbidden steel known only to a monastery of mystical sword-wizards deep in the Himalayas, who have all taken a supreme vow of chastity like their fathers, and their fathers before them.
 
Honestly check out Larrins work over on knife steel nerds if you want specifics, but steels like S35vn, Elmax, m390 are some of the most well balanced (stainless) steels you can buy.
 
jbmonkey said:
well technically I am sitting in a rocker on the back porch smoking a cigar, so you're half right there.

no I was being honest , helpful and serious...I was trying to be clear and precise without being wordy like I am here in this post.......
Click to expand...

I dont think he was refering to you.

EDIT: Wrote the comment before I saw S sharpknives23 's reply. 😉
 
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Others have already given you the correct answer to this question, but you really should check out Larren Thomas at Knife Steel Nerds. You'll literally learn everything you need to know about knife steels there. Or at least everything us hobbyists should know.
 
Depends how you define "ultimate," obviously. Basically you've got three broad categories people look for in a knife steel:

1. Edge retention;
2. Toughness; and
3. Corrosion resistance.

As a general rule, the better a particular steel is with edge retention the worse it will be with toughness, and v.v. In other words, the more wear resistant a steel is the more likely it is to chip or fracture, and the tougher a steel is the more likely the edge is to round or roll.

So is the "ultimate" steel the one with the best edge retention, the toughest one, the most corrosion resistant, or ... the most balanced between the three categories? Balance is where Magnacut seems to shine. It doesn't have the edge retention of M390, but it's much tougher and more corrosion resistant. It's almost as corrosion resistant as Vanax and LC200N, but it's tougher than Vanax and has much better edge retention than LC200N.
 
S sharpknives23

Magnacut might be the best balanced knifesteel. Good edge retention, very very tough and almost perfect(stain free) corrosion resistance.

I dont think it has enough real life user testing on it yet, but from the few tests I've seen it looks good.

Here you can see it compared to other stainless steels:

3fRmcgi.jpg
 
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