What's the toughest powdered metallurgy stainless steel?

Lets ask Elliot at Ferrum forge who loves to read about steel. Everyone's answers vary but the large factor is the heat treat, so in there natural state would be best to compare them or all of them with the same HT to compare. Comparing all these steels from different companies differentiate due to their different Heat treats which affects the steels performance tremendously.
 
A 6-inch blade is not a huge chopper, so you may not have to optimize the steel for toughness, which would mean losing wear resistance. Elmax is quite a bit tougher at 57-59 HRc that at 60-62 HRc, but it has a considerably better wear resistance at the harder level. So if your chopping demands are not overly high, you could step the hardness up a bit to get a very tough blade that also has excellent wear resistance.

It's difficult to compare the steels of different makers. Bohler would say that Elmax is its toughest stainless powder steel.

Crucible says its own toughest powder stainless steel is S35VN; and with that toughness, you also get excellent wear resistance.
 
No numbers or anything to really back this up, but VG-10 has shown itself to be surprisingly tough for me. Maybe it is not that tough compared to some others, but it has surprised me. VG-10 is what Spyderco makes the Schempp Rock out of and it is a big 6 3/4" blade touted as a camp knife. Otherwise, I have always heard ELMAX and XHP (XHP is said to be a SS D2) as well. I would not consider S30V or ZDP-189, those would be last on my list. I am assuming you are just playing with some ideas and wanting to try this idea out. Otherwise, I would personally not request a custom to use any SS in a 6" knife I plan to chop with.
 
Elmax at HRC 60 and 13 degree per side can cut nails. Wanna try that with S30V? Elmax with an edge thickness before sharpening of only .025 can be driven point first through a cinderblock. Name another stainless steel that can do that. And at 1.7% carbon and 3% vanadium it's not just tough, it holds an edge in abrasive materials and has good fine edge stability. What's not to love?

[video=youtube_share;NO3pmcyr8wA]http://youtu.be/NO3pmcyr8wA[/video]

There are a few big manufacturers using it and doing the HT themselves and at least one of them isn't doing a great job. If you've tried Elmax on a production knife and weren't impressed you might try a custom, it will blow your mind.

S30V isn't even in the same ballpark.
 
S30V being promoted as a "tough" steel initially was one of the worse things to happen in the knife community.
 
ALLHSS said:
Why do you say that?
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Because it was part of the reason why you have people saying that it is a "meh" steel. It is designed for retaining low sharpness while cutting abrasive material, not to have high edge stability or impact toughness. Why Elmax and 3V so popular now? Because they realized that S30V isn't the best steel for a sharpened prybar. Neither is 154CM for that matter.
 
How about BG-42 ? I'm not too familiar with it but have read good things
 
I'd say Elmax for a SS, but why would you want a tough chopping knife made out of stainless?

I'd just go with A-2 and keep it oiled.
 
Bugout Bill said:
Because it was part of the reason why you have people saying that it is a "meh" steel. It is designed for retaining low sharpness while cutting abrasive material, not to have high edge stability or impact toughness. Why Elmax and 3V so popular now? Because they realized that S30V isn't the best steel for a sharpened prybar. Neither is 154CM for that matter.
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Back in the day tough actually meant tough, not "the choice of people that do silly things the tool wasn't designed and built to do". Times change I guess.
 
RevDevil said:
Back in the day tough actually meant tough, not "the choice of people that do silly things the tool wasn't designed and built to do". Times change I guess.
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I just feel like as a stainless steel, s30v should be pretty tough per its make up. Am I wrong?
 
AntDog said:
I'd say Elmax for a SS, but why would you want a tough chopping knife made out of stainless?

I'd just go with A-2 and keep it oiled.
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I have most steels. I wanted something different and I'm actually leaning towards a 7.5 blade length now
 
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