Crucible 154CM Knife Steel
Composition Analysis Graph, Equivalents And Overview

154CM(Crucible) - Developed by Crucible, circa 1970 for jet engine turbine components, which is nowhere near the knives, unless you make some sort of connection between turbine blade and knife blade. Famous knife maker Bob Loveless started using it in knives. Then Crucible stopped producing it, but Hitachi started making ATS-34, which was a copy of 154CM. Then Crucible started making it again, finally making CPM version of it CPM154. Other steel makers produce it as well, under different names, which you can see in reference section. In 1990 Benchmade and other knife companies started using it as their top of the line stainless steel. 154CM was considered #1 stainless steel for cutlery for more than a decade after that. Still one of the premium steels. Used in all kinds of knives, from small folders to hunting and filet knives. At max hardness makes a very decent high performance cutter. Works quite well in larger, heavy duty use knives too. Versatile steel, with good all around performance. Obviously, PM versions offer even better characteristics and performance in knives. As for the Tungsten(W) and Vanadium(V) listed in the composition. Most of the sources including Crucible's own datasheets do not list either one. However, Niagara Specialty Metals, one of the largest distributor does list both, as Max 0.40%, in other words can be 0, or anything up to 0.40% depending on the batch. I did inquire about the presence of those two elements, and the answer was that neither alloying element is present intentionally, more like trace amounts. That is also strange, since 0.40% Vanadium is quite significant, in many other alloys 0.10-0.30% Vanadium is listed and it's added intentionally, alloy is promoted as Vanadium steel, etc. I am not sure how do you end up with 0.40% unintentionally, but that's the answer I got.

Manufacturing Technology - Ingot

Country - United States(US)