Crucible Powdered Metal’s MagnaCut steel is, perhaps the best performance steel on the market. It is certainly the hottest!
Dr. Larrin Thomas, its inventor, thought there should be a steel that could be optimized to give small grain steel with tiny, supper hard carbides capable of reaching Rockwell 60+ hardness without brittleness and still be rust resistant.
I’ve taken a very short step in to metallurgy and perhaps the first thing you learn is you simply can’t throw elements into a pot and get a great outcome. Metallurgy is complicated, heat treatment is a specialty, and you just don’t plunge a red-hot knife from the forge into oil and get a great outcome.
MagnaCut was the result of serious study and testing which culminated with a single hit or miss lot of steel. Larrin got one bite at the apple and he was successful. The story of its development is here: https://knifesteelnerds.com/2021/03/25/cpm-magnacut.
It has been fun to watch MagnaCut’s rollout and eventual takeover of the EDC market. I still haven’t had time to really put the Knafs Lulu through its paces. I have been remiss.