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If I have some time this weekend, I'll follow up with more break tests after various stages of working to see how the forging and annealing process changes the grain, starting from factory annealed...

I think you misunderstand. This was not supposed to be a hardened blade.
This is just what was there after the blank was forged, without annealing or proper normalization.
In other words, you see...

Last week I accidentally broke a razor I was working on. I thought I had annealed it, but evidently I was wrong. :) There was a slight kink between the tang and the blade. I thought I'd tap it...