>>827420>I disagree. Properly heat treated CPM154 or s35VN are superior blade steels, but they're very expensive.In general, I don't think it makes sense to talk about blade steels in terms of superior and inferior. Typically, each blade steel represents a different set of compromises between wear resistance, strength, toughness, apex stability, corrosion resistance, and cost.
To describe s35vn as "superior" to 52100 is like saying that a marathon runner is "superior" to a sprinter, i.e. comparing apples and oranges.
Also, the finer grain structure and higher apex stability of steels like 1095, 52100, O1, Aogami, Shirogami, and AEB-L as compared to higher carbide volume, coarser grain structure stainless steels like s30v, s35vn, etc. are well established empirically and not a matter of opinion.
For clarification, apex stability is a little known property of blade steels that describes the tendency of a blade steel to resist microscopically chipping or rolling at the apex, meaning necessarily in very thin sections. As the apex stability of a steel increases, steels become better able to take and hold very thin high sharpness apexes, and become better at retaining their high sharpness (since micro-chipping and micro-rolling are the primary mechanisms by which the "razor sharpness" of an apex are lost).
Conversely, the coarser grain structure and high carbide volume of high carbide steels is typically associated with low apex stability, meaning those steels are highly prone to losing their "razor sharpness" very quickly, but then afterwards retaining their "working sharpness" for a long period. It also means that thicker edge angles are recommended to stabilize the apex as much as possible against micro-chipping through carbide tear out.
Again, these comparative properties of blade steels have been established by published, peer reviewed research, though much of the work is not well known.
