I see all these different types of steels that make up knife blades and I have no clue as to how each one rates and why.  Is there a list of the poorest up to the best for knives?  Can anyone explain the pecking order of metals on knives and if you can why one is superior to another?  Any input would be great.

Thanks.

There's way too many to list all but S30V, S35VN, and ELMAX are going to be the most common you'll find in higher end folders. They are stainless and will be extremely corrosion resistant and hold an edge very well, although they can be a little difficult to sharpen which is the trade off.
Fixed blades often use carbon steels like 1095 and 420HC, which are very tough but are not very corrosion resistant so must be cared for properly. D2 is a common steel that is technically not stainless but very corrosion resistant, it provides a good middle ground between the benefits of the two different types of blade steels.

440C, 8Cr13Mov, AUS-8 are some common stainless steels used in cheaper knives.

There are a lot of charts and tables on the internet that compare the many blade steels.  Just google "blade steel chart" or variations thereof.  EXAMPLE

Blade geometry and heat/cryo treatment affect performance as much as the type of steel used.  Old-fashioned, inexpensive O1 steel can cut really well if you get those things right.

Basically the "harder" a steel is the longer it will hold an edge. But if it is too hard it will snap. This also makes it hard to sharpen.

A knife that is "soft" will bend and not snap. Will be easier to sharpen. But will dull quickly.

Some steels tend to chip at the edge.

You can really talk about steels all day.

Here is a screen grab from a Benchmade video that shows how powered steels have a more constant makeup.

Attached File


See how the S30V steel has a better mixture?

That makes for a more consistent steel.

If you can afford something with S30V or better, you should get it.
All microtech knives come with ELMAX steel now which is pretty fantastic too.
All my "working" knives are D2 steel because I have a habit of beating them to shit in about 12 months time so I don't buy uber expensive ones for work.
My hunting knives are S30 and S90v.

Don't rule out CPM  3V. Not a stainless but more corrosion resistance than 1095 etc. The best balance of toughness and edge holding ability at a RC of 60 - 62 . Ultra good stuff

The only blade steel I 100% trust comes from the Busse family.  Busse Combat, Swamp Rat, and Scrap Yard use SR101 (proprietary modified 52100 ball bearing steel) and proprietary INFI.

Their heat treat and -400 cryogenic treatments are second to none.

INFI is best suited for large (7" plus) while I'd take SR101 in any size.  

SR101 is cheaper and will take / hold a W I C K E D edge.  Just don't expect it to come from Busse with a suitable edge. Most of their knives are sent thick edges so you can rework as desired.  However, their factory convex edges are nothing short of scary.

Lots of info online about SR101 and INFI.

This.  While their steel isn't "magical" in that it is impossible to dull.........some guy on bladeforums ran over his B13 with a JD mower.  Made a hole in the deck of his mower and got flung onto a road.  

That's a heavy knife.....13" blade and profiled to be tip heavy.  The worst it got was the edge dinged up and the Res-C handle got cracked near the eyelet.   A little time and he could get it back into working order, and Busse offered to fix it for him.  

The only complaints I have about their knives is cost and availability.  Their cost isn't out of this world, mind you....but it is higher than people who aren't into the knife world are used to seeing for what they look like.  Availability is, well......they work on Busse time.  If you need it now, you are going to have to buy it 2nd hand.  If you can wait and like the current offering......best get in early on Wed.  And then wait.

And if you want one, I might have something coming up to sell.....dunno.  I ordered a mystery grab bag, so who knows whats in it.  

Now, if your application doesn't involve cutting things like a field knife/camp knife/chopping wood, or other "high-stress" work.......or you aren't opposed to sharpening more often....other steels can be quite appropriate.

Blade shape, blade geometry, and proper heat treat can do a lot for "lesser steels."  They won't ever compare to higher end steels like 3v, etc.....but 1095 is probably the lowest on the steel tree that I'd be willing to go.  I won't touch anything 440.  AUS-8 is OK for a light duty knife moreso because it's silly easy to get sharp, but its ability to hold an edge is.......not so great.  In soft substrates like meat, cheese, opening letters, or stuff like that.....sure....decent enough steel....if stainless is desirable and cost is of concern.

But if you want a knife with one of the better steels, cpm3v is a good one.  There are others, but others can speak better to that than I can, I imagine.

For years all I had for knives were cheap pocket knives with 440 steel.Easy to sharpen but you would lose the edge just looking at it.I never carried a knife everyday so I saw no need to pay more than $50 for one.Then one day I decided I needed to start carrying a knife.Not for protection, that's what my HK is for, but just to have one.I then decided to get something with good steel so I got a SOG Vulcan with VG10 steel.Now this was a major step up for me in price and quality of steel and I was amazed---a blade that I could use a few times and it was still sharp!!!!

Now VG10 is a very good steel but it's not a premium but to me it might as well have been some secret alien alloy.Then I found a zero tolerance with a Elmax blade and I stepped into the world of ultra premium steels.Once again I was amazed.I can cut several ropes/cardboard boxes etc and still shave the hairs on my arm.I just bought another ZT but this has a M390 blade which is a slight step up from my ZT Elmax.

The moral of the story is until you spend the money on a good steel you'll never fully appreciate what a difference there is and once you appreciate it you'll never settle for cheap steel again..

The problem with this question is there is no direct answer.  Any list of knife steels from "worst to best" would be at best misleading, because it's not a linear comparison.  A number of variables need to be taken into account, and those variables can become infinite, but for simplicity we can generalize them like this:

- Primary purpose of the knife: Pure cutter, Mixed task, Rough use/Chopping
- Environment/Care
- Cost

With those 3 considerations you can begin to come up with a list of steels from best to worst that will vary depending on what you as the end user prioritize.  The list for someone with #1 Cost, #2 Primary Use, #3 Environment/Care will look different than the list for someone who prioritized #1 Primary use, #2 Environment/Care, #3 Cost. 

So, because this would be a very lengthy discussion even this generalized, to go over every possible priority combination, I'll just pick one that's maybe most applicable.

#1 Primary Use - Mixed Task.  An EDC knife that will perform a wide variety of tasks.  You want it to support a good cutting edge without sacrificing too much toughness to achieve it.
#2 Cost - Affordable, but you'll pay to achieve #1
#3 Environment/Care - Lowest priority because you intend to clean it/care for it

My list, from "best to worst" would look something like this.  Assume they're all hardened to 60 RC, and all given similar edge geometry

1- CPM 3V, 4V, Zapp Z-Wear/Cru-Wear/Spectrum Wear, CPM M4
2- D2, A2, O1, 52100, 80CRV2
3- 10XX steels


There are no "stainless" steels listed because it's not a priority.  The steels listed in #1, at the same hardness and edge geometry, it would be very hard for an end user to tell the difference between them though there are some slight differences.  The difference between #1 and #2 becomes readily apparent to anyone with subjects to compare in testing, and again between #2 and #3.  The #1 steels will provide the longest edge holding and wear resistance, at a higher level of toughness than #2 and so on.  They're also the most expensive in material cost and processing cost.  #2 are less expensive, #3 the least expensive.  The lists aren't all inclusive, just based on steels I typically work with.

Contrast that with a pure cutting instrument (like a kitchen knife) and that list will change drastically.  Or a budget friendly chopper.  Or a saltwater resistant all purpose knife.

But most people aren't interested in the minutia of that whole discussion, and it's even less factor when buying a factory knife because in general you have no idea what the factory is hardening their knives to ("1095 sucks because my Becker won't hold an edge!"  Well, a Becker at 57 RC won't hold an edge like a 1095 knife at 60 RC, etc)  1095 doesn't suck, it's a price conscious option that can do many different things reasonably well.

So I would say if you're looking at factory knives, decide first whether you need stainless or not, and then you can segregate into tiers like this:

Best wear resistance, least toughness, non-SST: CPM 10V, A11 steels like K294, PD10
Best mix: 3V, 4V, M4, X-Wears
Good mix lower cost: A2, D2, O1, 52100, 80CRV2
Ok mix least cost: 10XX

In Stainless
Best wear resistance, least toughness: (not an equivalent SST to above group)
Best mix: S110V, S90V, Elmax, Zfinit, M390, CPM 20CV
Good mix lower cost: S30V, S35VN
Ok mix least cost: AEB-L, CPM154, 440C, CTS-B75P

The ultimate problem being people often compare apples and oranges and then decide they love/hate a particular alloy because of their experience.  Benchmade had a bad round of S30V heat treating, Asian "440C" knives gave the alloy a bad rap, production knives in 1095 are left soft to reduce breakage/warranty claims, etc.  Without knowing the hardness, the edge geometry, and the primary function, it's hard to compare them.  I'm not listing these groups to say they're the same.  There are minor differences in each group.  I just think it would be hard for end users of factory knives to realize a difference between the steels in each group.

all of this.  

define what you want, then figure out what works for your application.  

it's kind of like asking "out of all guns, which one is the best?"

*Golf clap*

Bravo sir, bravo.  

Sorry I got so caught up in that I forgot to address the actual question of why I might list one steel above another.

Those top tier steels are where they are in my ranking for a few reasons.  First, their alloy content.  They are high carbon, and contain relatively high quantities of Vanadium, Tungsten, Niobium, Molybdenum, and or Chromium.  Steel, in order to be steel, needs to be roughly 75-80% iron, and to be hardened to knife useful status, roughly .6% to 1.2% carbon.  So that leaves about 20% of the alloy content open to achieve different things.  Something like 1095 or W1 is going to be almost 98% iron and 1% carbon and 1% trace amounts of other elements.  That's why they're called "simple steels."  The number one rankings however, have relatively large amounts of those other elements.  Secondly, they're particle metallurgy steels, or powdered steels.  Steel smelted in this fashion (1st gen, 2nd gen, 3rd gen) are "cleaner" and have finer grain size than other traditional smelting methods.  It's also a significant reason why they're more expensive.

So what does that mean?  Vanadium, in my opinion, is the single biggest improvement that can be made to what would otherwise be a "simple steel."  A small amount of Vanadium has the effect of strengthening the grain boundaries in the steel.  This helps keep the grain size small, and also increases toughness.  When you get over 1% V, then it also starts to form Vanadium carbides, which are incredibly hard.  These carbides have incredible wear resistance.  So the addition of V increases toughness AND wear resistance, which is contrary to typical thinking - higher hardness is better wear resistance but more brittle, and a sliding scale down to lower hardness less wear resistance but tougher.  Adding Vanadium is getting your cake and eating it too.

Niobium, Tungsten are added to form carbides as well.  A knife with V, N and T is going to be hard to sharpen without a diamond.  But once it's sharp, it will stay sharp a long time.  These carbides are actually harder than a lot of the abrasives people normally use to sharpen with, and some people actually tear these carbides out when sharpening, which leads to poor performance and unmet expectations.  Use diamonds wherever you can on these high alloy steels.

Moly increases toughness and can also create carbides.  Chromium can alter toughness or form carbides, but they're less desirable than the others.  It's mostly there for corrosion resistance.  It takes about 13% Chromium to make something "stainless," so when you realize that you only get 20% or so to play with, you start to see why eating up over half of that with chromium may not be desirable if your priority is performance and not corrosion resistance.

The next group of tool steels and others have similar alloying components in different degrees, and are still high carbon steels, but are not powdered/particle metal steels.  A little less refined grain structure, a little less "clean" in alloy content, and maybe a little wider tolerance for the level of alloys.

And then the simple steels, or the last tier of stainless steels, these will make a 60 RC knife that's easy to sharpen and polish and less expensive to produce.  They don't have the alloying to help increase toughness or form any carbides outside of carbon carbides.  They are also the only steels that will produce a hamon, because their low alloy content makes them "shallow hardening" steels, they require a very fast quench, and because of that a maker can essentially freeze a transition layer between hardened and unhardened steel, and then bring that out with etching and polishing for a neat effect.

So that's the why to the best of my personal understanding, and I still learn something every day.  This is very generalized.  Someone like Kevin Cashen might look at this explanation and be able to pick it apart because by generalizing not everything I've said is *exactly* correct in *every* situation, but I think it's a pretty good generalization.

I generally agree with most of the above, except the notion that steel needs to be 75-80% iron.

CPM S110V (a particle/powder stainless tool steel), for example, is only 65% (or less*) Fe, and it's a ridiculously wear resistant steel with excellent corrosion resistance and good toughness to boot.

That's about 35% or more non iron alloy components by weight:

2.8% C
2.5% Co
15.5% Cr
2.25% Mo
9.0% V
3.0% Nb

*There's likely about ~1% of undocumented, Mn & Si (combined) as well.

Good point.  IIRC it's only some PM steels that will exceed 20-25% alloy content, like CPM S110V, and it's the reason some of the super stainless steels will perform nearly on par with equivalent non-stainless.  S110V being roughly equivalent to the A11s.  My point being you only get so much alloy content to work with.  S90V, S110V and Vanax are the only ones that really push outside that 25% max as far as I know.

M390/CPM 20CV/CTS 204P/etc is another at around 28% alloy.

ZDP-189 is just under 26% according to Spyderco's chart from their 2016 catalog I have here.

3% carbon, 20% chromium and then some others.

Chris

CPM 3V is my favorite steel followed by A2 for the more budget minded.

@Star_Scream

He seems to know a little bit about sharp things

Kuraki pretty much nailed it. The only real thing I have to reiterate is that everything is a balance.

Cost vs edge retention vs toughness vs ease of sharpening (unless you use diamonds)  vs corrosion resistance

You can maximize one or two (maybe three)  of these but you'll have to pay somewhere.

This in spades

Reviewing the foregoing and understanding everyone may have different needs or be looking for something different, would appreciate some further insights.


I see a lot of love here for the tool steels.  I picked up a blade recently with M4 steel, admittedly with some hesitation (love the knife it is on now that I have it), because I felt corrosion resistance was an important factor for an EDC, its intended use.  

As an EDC for me, general duty, nothing too hardcore, I like the idea of edge retention/wear resistance so I am not sharpening all the time, but also minimal care for corrosion resistance.


So looking at the available metals, why would one not choose a high end stainless instead of a tool steel?  Put another way, would there be any significant reason one should pick a high end tool steel like M4, 3v, CruWear or even D2 for an EDC rather than M390, S110V, Elmax etc.?  It looks like edge retention is relatively equal among them, all equally as hard to sharpen. Is the biggest difference that the SS might be more prone to chipping than the tool steels so if you beat on your EDC in such a way it might chip, one of the tool steels might be the better choice? Other?


As an aside, looking at the comparison charts, CTS-XHP looks like a nice mix of characteristics.  Anyone have any experience good or bad? I haven't seen too many knives that use it...

Makers use materials they have tried and they like of the finished product. Steels vary by alloy composition as much as knife styles vary. I have a list of over a thousand types of steel for any type of project. It is like asking a guy which body wash he uses (or doesn't!!).

Dendritic Cobalt is not a steel but its corrosion resistance and its cutting ability is exceptional. Would you make a machete out of it? No. It has lower shock absorbance as a metal.

440C is an awesome metal for EDC. High corrosion resistance for a steel, cheap, known workability. Problems? Needs proper heat treat or it becomes a turd.

Your question could use a bit more specifics.

My favorite steels are cpm m4, D2, A2, the old Schrade 1095, and Spyderco's H1. For my EDC I carry either a Benchmade with D2 or CPM M4. For camping and hunting I have fix blades with A2 and 1095. For fishing there's nothing I've found that can stand up to salt water like Spyderco's H1.

However, if I had to pick just one steel for everything it would be CPM M4. That stuff holds an edge like nobody's business. It's not too hard to sharpen, and I've not experienced any rust issues with just a small amount of care. With my Benchmade Contego CPM M4 blade I cleaned 13 hogs in one session with no issues. I've never experienced a knife blade that could hold an edge like that cleaning hogs. D2 and A2 does pretty good, but CPM M4 did much better.

The knives I hated are ones with M390 and Elmax. Even when sharpened properly from the factory it sucked for my uses. I cut a lot of meat during the hunting season, and neither steel was good for me doing that. When used on animal flesh the steel didn't seem to have any bite to it, and just didn't cut as well as my carbon steels. Plus, sharpening both those steels was more difficult than I liked to deal with. So, all the knives that I had with M390 and elmax are gone, save one. I kept a ZT561 that my wife gave me for a retirement present.

I'd take a flat ground lesser blade steel over a hollow ground higher end steel. People think grind doesn't matter, but as someone else mentioned, it plays a huge part.

I'll be the outsider and say S30V totally sucks. So hard it's always going to be toothy with real world sharpening, and so hard it's brittle under hard cutting. It has great edge retention if you're cutting soft objects. Touch it to plastic or wood and it chips away like ice. Most over rated steel ever, and a good reminder that Rockwell hardness is about 25% of the overall equation.