S30V Stainless: New Steel for Chris Reeve

Spearheading innovative advances in the knife industry yet again, Chris Reeve Knives is proud to announce that brand new CPM S30V will be the steel used for Sebenza, Umfaan and Mnandi blades. S30V is a specialty stainless steel made by Crucible Steel in Syracuse, New York. Crucible Steel is a company that is as passionate about the steel they make as Chris Reeve is about the knives produced by his company!

Over the past year, Chris has worked with Crucible Steel pursuing the challenge of creating a new blade steel that is tough, corrosion resistant and readily workable. The product of their efforts is S30V, a stainless steel created with the knife market in mind, alloyed to accommodate specific capabilities and manufactured to ensure clean, uniform steel. Unlike traditionally cast and rolled steels, S30V is made using the powder metallurgy process, a process that reduces molten alloy components to minute balls – or powder – which results in every grain comprising the exact composition of alloy elements. The powder is compressed under significant force to a homogenous, solid state and the steel is rolled to required stock size. Molecules are uniform, inclusions of impurities are insignificant and the development of large chrome carbides is a thing of the past!

In recent years, advances in specialty steels have been incrementally small and every advance is more of a “tweaking” nature than a “great leap” nature. The blade steels that we have used in the past, ATS 34 and BG42, are excellent steels; the use of S30V is a move forward and represents an alliance of two dynamic companies. It is an advance that will again raise the standard of folding knife performance – a standard already set by Chris Reeve Knives.