CPM 15V, a love letter

Why 15V Steel Might Be the Pinnacle of Knife Blade Performance

In the world of high performance knife steels, it is rare to see something truly groundbreaking reach the mass market. But 15V steel, a powder metallurgy marvel from Crucible Industries, has broken that mould, offering edge retention and cutting longevity on a scale previously only available from elite custom knife makers. Thanks to the combined innovation of steel expert Shawn Houston and the production daring of Spyderco, we now have access to one of the most impressive production steels ever released.

SEM photograph of the factory edge of a Spyderco Manix in 15V, courtesy of Science of Sharp. The bumps you can see are Vanadium Carbides, the drivers of edge retention cutting performance. These Carbides are harder than alumina particles found in conventional abrasives which emphasises the importance of sharpening 15V using diamonds or Cubic Boron Nitride (CBN) stones.

What Makes 15V Steel So Special?

At its core, CPM 15V is all about vanadium carbides. With a staggering 15 percent vanadium carbide content, 15V has the highest vanadium carbide percentage of any widely used knife steel. These vanadium carbides are incredibly hard particles embedded in the steel matrix, and they are directly responsible for 15V’s legendary edge retention. If edge retention is your priority, if you want your knife to keep cutting long after others have dulled, then 15V is in a league of its own.

What is truly remarkable, however, is that 15V does not sacrifice toughness in the way one might expect. It still offers a level of resilience comparable to high end stainless steels like CPM 20CV or Böhler M390. That balance of extreme wear resistance and usable toughness is something really quite special, conventional metalurgical wisdom dictates that these two traits are largely mutually exclusive but 15V is able to walk this line like no other steel.

The indomitable Spyderco Military 2 in CPM 15V Sprint Run, if you can find one, buy it.

The Shawn Houston Effect

Behind the scenes of 15V’s success is Shawn Houston, a Youtuber, custom knifemaker and steel performance specialist who saw the untapped potential in this overlooked material. Shawn did not just suggest using 15V, he developed a custom heat treatment protocol focused on optimising the steel’s matrix to best support and hold together its high concentration of vanadium carbides. Without a well structured matrix, these hard carbides would be brittle liabilities rather than performance assets. Shawn’s protocol made sure 15V could be taken to its maximum potential.

Shawn’s curiosity was sparked by a paradox in the knife community, fans loved CPM M4, which has a cult following for its performance and sharpening characteristics, but its spec sheet looked oddly similar to CPM S30V, a stainless steel now considered fairly basic by most enthusiasts. M4 is not even stainless, yet it gets glowing reviews. Why?

The key difference, Shawn discovered, was hardness. M4 can be hardened to a much higher HRC rating, and this higher hardness translates to sharpening responsiveness – the way a steel loses and regains an edge. M4, despite its raw numbers, performs better in real world use because it is more sharpenable, more responsive to stropping, and more satisfying for those who maintain their own edges.

So Shawn set out to find another underutilised steel with a similarly high hardness ceiling and much greater wear resistance – and that journey led him to CPM 15V. 

A Big Brown Bear, courtesy of The Knife Joker.

Spyderco’s Role in Bringing 15V to the Masses

The final piece of the puzzle came from Spyderco, a company long known for taking bold risks with cutting edge materials. Working with Shawn Houston, Spyderco implemented his exacting heat treat protocol at scale, something no other production knife company had attempted with this steel.

The result? Knives like the Spyderco Native 5 in 15V steel that deliver custom level performance at factory level pricing. This is a blade that holds its edge for an absurdly long time, yet still sharpens easily, strops quickly, and performs consistently. This was once the domain of custom knives only, now it is in your pocket.

A Finite Steel with an Uncertain Future

There is, however, a bittersweet footnote to this story. The sole producer of 15V, Crucible Industries, is now insolvent, and the future production of 15V is highly unlikely. The steel requires extremely high atomisation temperatures during manufacture, a capability only Crucible possessed. When the existing supply is gone, it may be gone for good.

So if you are a steel aficionado, a performance enthusiast, or simply someone who wants the absolute best in your EDC rotation, the time to act is now.

Own a Piece of Knife Steel History

We are excited to announce that we have just added the Spyderco Native 5 in 15V steel to our shop. This is your chance to experience the future of knife steel before it becomes part of the past. Supplies are limited, and when they are gone, they may never return.

https://arcticknife.com/spyderco-native-5-brown-g-10-cpm-15v-sprint-run/