Thread: Anyone Played with 80CRV2?

80CRV2 is gaining in popularity these days among the knife forging guys. I was thinking of trying it and was wondering if anyone had experience with it on razors. If so, any tips thoughts or opinions would be appreciated.

I'm done "chasing" steel types since in the past 30 years I've tried a number of different steels that were the current "darlings" and I always keep coming back to my old standbys. However I don't mind playing with new things for fun.

From what I have read about it, it would seem to fit the bill, though I haven’t used it. I’ve been using 1095, thinking about 1084 or 1080 if I can find it for the next steel order. I was planning on some 80crv2 but for use in knives instead of razors. Had a friend make one from 1075, but I haven’t had a chance to hone it or shave with it yet.

Please update if you decide to go the 80crv2 route, would love to hear your opinions.

Will do. What has attracted me to it is that is supposedly has small grain size and is forgiving in the forge.

I have heard the "noise" too, but no experience on maker end or user end.

Old thread resurrection but since there is not activity here……
Just about finished with my first couple 80crv2.
Will post results.

A few minutes of google reading left me with the impression that it is an easy to heat treat small grain structure steel. On the other hand it is known for toughness (not a high requirement for straight razors). Kind of recommended for survival knifes. Seemed to not reach the hardness of some of the higher hardness razors, but probably way harder than a lot of the W&B and Dovos that I've run into. I look forward to hearing your impressions.

I've made a couple outdoors knives from it, works very well. Heat treat is similar to something like 1084, 1075, etc, the vanadium is going to keep the grain size in check if you happen to overheat a little during austenizing although I use an Evenheat so not an issue if you also use a knife oven and not a gas/coal forge. I'd recommend using an anti-scale compound when austenizing as 80CrV2 seems especially prone to decarb imo. Also if you purchase stock from NJSB I'd do some normalizing and grain refinement as the steel seems to come heavily spheroidized, at least the stuff I've had. Before I started doing that I had made test coupons that didn't fully harden. AKS 80CrV2 is ready to go so might be a better option if you don't have a way to accurately gauge temperatures.