As is beginning to be discussed here, tool steels are made from many different recipes of alloys.
The purpose of these choices is to try and combine multiple physical properties we want in a single piece of steel for a specific edged tool.
For a knife we want it to get sharp and stay sharp as long as possible while being able to use as a prybar if needed. These are two distinct and seperate physical properties.
Stain resistance is important to "sharp". We can lose the edge on a non-stainless knife without ever using it if your in the right geographic location like a warm marine or tropical climate.
If we pick any single steel designed for a single trait, there will be many other steels that do the other traits better.
These are some of the things we have to think about when choosing a tool steel for extreme use knives.
We haven't spoken about "particle metal steels" yet (CPM S-30V is one of them)... this stuff is gonna get like science fiction, only better.
