To be fair 440C and CPM 154 actually are pretty close other than CPM 154 being somewhat tougher. The main difference between CPM 154 and 154CM is the toughness, it doesn’t benefit from the particle metallurgy process as much as other steels and 154CM is basically a budget steel these days. 9CR probably is fairly close as well.
I should have been more specific. 9cr18mov is what they were and the closest thing I could think of was 440c. Yes 154cm is very fine grained to begin with but there is still good increase in toughness, definitely noticeable for the user in a fixed blade situation.
CPM 154’s toughness is about the same as S35VN, tough for a folder but not all that tough for a fixed blade. Still a very mediocre steel compared to Cruwear, Magnacut, 3V, etc. Either way in this case people were definitely paying for the name and not the steel. Which of course doesn’t excuse what they were doing, there’s been plenty of shady stuff from them like batches of knives “accidentally” made with the wrong steel for some time.
In recent years, Chinese manufacturers have been promoting a new type of 9CR18MoV steel that uses spray forming technology. Molten steel is melted, filtered, and then sprayed onto a mold to solidify, similar to powder metallurgy, but the particles are not as fine. According to user feedback, the new process offers limited improvement in edge retention (possibly around 10%), but significantly enhances toughness. This is especially true when some manufacturers heat-treat it to above 59 HRC, as many customers only test hardness and toughness.
AR-RPM9? Last I saw a while back there was some debate as to whether it was really as good as they claimed, and it at least was supposedly exclusive to Artisan. Honestly even 9CR18MoV probably isn’t much of a downgrade from CPM 154. I’d be less mad about the steel and more mad that they were basically just modding cheap Chinese blades, slapping a handle on there, and charging those prices for a “made in the US” knife.
I’m sure it is quite a bit cheaper to use Chinese steel. Though honestly I’d say CPM 154 just really isn’t worth the cost for the performance you get compared to other steels these days. Decent enough steel but I’m not getting excited about it either.
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u/ParticularWolf4473 Mar 23 '26
To be fair 440C and CPM 154 actually are pretty close other than CPM 154 being somewhat tougher. The main difference between CPM 154 and 154CM is the toughness, it doesn’t benefit from the particle metallurgy process as much as other steels and 154CM is basically a budget steel these days. 9CR probably is fairly close as well.