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
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| One of Spyderco's MagnaCut folders: |
Let me be honest with you. The article is written for steel nerds,
people who enjoy technical data, like hard science fiction and enjoy reading
about science. I’m one of them.
The upshot is MagnaCut, due to its
properties, when processed properly is an amazing steel. The high-end knife makers jumped on it like
white on rice. This quickly worked its
way down to EDC knives.
You can Google MagnaCut and any
knife company and get a hit.
Here’s the formulation: Carbon
1.15%, Chromium 10.7%, Vanadium 4.00%, Molybdenum 2.00%, Niobium 2.00%, Nitrogen
0.20%.
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| Kershaw Launch 4 in MagnaCut |
The amazing thing, all the chromium
is available for corrosion resistance.
The carbides are all vanadium and
niobium.
We could talk about Charpy C-notch
test, Edge Retention (CATRA Testing Relative to 440C), salt spray corrosion
test, but you can find that yourself.
The important thing is to realize this steel helps makers use a better
blade geometry for improved cutting while ensuring extended performance. And while performance doesn’t come cheap, this
steel is worth it!
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| Bestech's Swordfish in Magnacut |
You’re going to see a lot of MagnaCut in the future.
