Types of steel

[peterk123]

S30V, S90V, magnacut, ball bearing steel and 1,000 other choices. What have you found to be the best balance, of strength, edge retention, ease of sharpening, and price?

 

[Rocky Mosasaurus]

1095 steel is great for edge retention. Source: I enjoy watching Forged in Fire.

 

[BobR51]

I like D2

 

[Parker Schreiber]

Are you forging or buying commercially made knives?

 

[Golddiggie]

Depends on what the knife will be used for. Pocket knives are different than kitchen knives.

 

[Mountain]

Peter, you are way too active in the outdoors to consider anything but an alloy with good to great corrosion resistance. I have some opinions on a variety of alloys based on my use of knives made from them. Not including any standard carbon steels as either of us would regret having one in the field when there are way better options.

• 440 - A common stainless knife alloy. Good but not great.
• 420HC - Love my old Bucks. They are tough and corrosion resistant, but that alloy doesn't hold an edge as well as others. If you are like me, you'll want scalpel-like sharpness for cutting up game and unfortunately I don't think this one is the best for that.
• S30V - Great edge retention and you can get a razor sharp edge. They say harder to sharpen than Magnacut but I think there's no difference.
• Magnacut - Haven't had it long but seems to be what I want- able to get a great edge and it keeps that edge a long time. I wanted to improve on the factory edge and spent some time getting it in good enough shape for final stropping. Personally I thought it was a PITA to sharpen in contrast to all the buzz. PITA to sharpen comes along with that edge retention.
• AEB-L - I have a Dauntless Work Knife in this alloy have have been using it as the daily workhorse. Great corrosion resistance and pretty good edge retention.
• CPM 3V - I have a couple self defense knives in this. Supposedly very tough. Not a true stainless but 'good enough' corrosion resistance. I haven't had any problems. Not bad to sharpen. I would not hesitate to carry into the field.
• CPM 154 - Another powder metal alloy like Magnacut. Very good edge retention. I have a couple folders in this and one of them has had some heavy use. Holding up great.
• D2 - Decent edge retention, somewhat corrosion resistant. Nothing wrong with it but I think some of the others are better all around choices.

Honestly, for general use, game processing, and something to carry in the field for a few days, any of the above that I underlined will be as good or better than I need. All of them are good. I'd pick a knife for its design and quality over whether or not it had one or the other of these alloys. If I were doing a long trek or going on an extended hunting trip I'd go for the higher corrosion resistance options such as CPM 154, AEB-L, or Magnacut.

 

[Golddiggie]

I have some pocket knives in S30V as well as ATS34 plus a few more stainless alloys. I get my pocket knives in stainless so that I don't need to worry. I've not had anything in 440 in ages (40+ years). Mostly because there are other alloys that are MUCH better. I've not had my Microtech OTF knives long enough to have a more long term opinion of them. But, so far, they're good. I also use a sharpening system that has diamond stones, so sharpening pretty much anything is pretty easy.

Almost all of my kitchen knives are one of the VG alloys. IIRC originally they were VG10, now it's called VG-MAX (Shun Classic line). I know a couple are AUS8. All but three in my knife block are Shun. Two of the others are a Henckel and Dalstrong (break slicer). The last is a steak knife that I made out of 5160 (from a coil spring) back when I was forging blades.

I've been a bit of a knife steel nerd for decades. Goes back to when I started making knives in the mid 90's. Never really lost the steel'tism bug.