There can be endless options when it comes to choosing steel for your knife blade. What you choose will depend on how you want to use the knife. Have a look at some of the most common steels used by leading knife brands and find out which one among them is right for you.

Knife blades can be made up of dozens of different types of steel. There are three main factors that differentiate the oodles of steel types from one another- corrosion resistance, hardness and toughness. Corrosion resistance is the ability of the steel to protect itself from rust; hardness determines the steel’s edge holding and bending properties and toughness is the ability of the steel to bend without breaking. What type of steel you choose for a particular application will depend largely on the properties of steel. Here are the different types of steel and their properties:

420:

420 steel has very low carbon content, probably less than 5%. As a result, this type of steel is very soft and cannot hold the edge. It is highly resistant to stain and is therefore ideally used as a diving knife and a utility knife. Most often, this type of steel is used in low-end and inexpensive knives.

420 HC:

This is a high carbon version of the standard 420 stainless steel. The most important characteristics of this type of steel are corrosion resistance, edge retention and the ease with which it can be sharpened. 420 HC also has high chromium content which when combines with the carbon in the steel gives it edge retention and abrasion resistance features.

440A, 440B and 440C:

These are some of the most common stainless steel used today. Carbon content is these steels are 0.75%, 0.9% and 1.2% respectively. While 44A has the highest rust resistance, 440C is known to have the lowest resistance to corrosion. There are other things the latter is good at. Known for its hardness, edge holding, toughness and stain resistance, 440C is one of the most popular high-end stainless steels available in the market.

AUS-6, AUS-8, AUS-10:

These are Japanese stainless steel that have carbon content of 0.65%, 0.75% and 1.1% respectively. AUS-6 is almost similar to the low-end steel like 420. AUS-10 and 440C have the same level of carbon but the chromium content in the latter is more than that in AUS-10. This makes AUS- 10 less rust resistant but tougher than 440C.

ATS-34:

Back in the 90s, ATS-34 was considered to be the most popular high-end stainless steel. The steel is mostly known for its toughness and edge retention, but is not as good in rust resistance as the 400 series. Leading players in knife manufacture like Spyderco and Bench made use ATS-34 stainless steel in most of its knives.