MagnaCut Steel Guide: What Makes It Different?

MagnaCut is a powder-metallurgy stainless steel engineered to balance edge retention, toughness, and corrosion resistance, three properties that traditionally forced a trade-off in blade steel selection.

MagnaCut was developed by metallurgist Larrin Thomas of Knife Steel Nerds, who modeled and tested the alloy specifically for knife performance rather than adapting it from an industrial application.

MagnaCut is usually heat treated between 58 and 63 HRC. Lower in that range (58-60 HRC) favors toughness and easier field sharpening, while higher (61-63 HRC) favors maximum edge retention.

MagnaCut generally matches or beats S35VN on edge retention while offering higher toughness and corrosion resistance. Against M390, it gives up a small amount of peak edge retention in exchange for significantly better chip resistance.

MagnaCut requires minimal maintenance: rinse and wipe down after use, oil for extended storage. Its fine, evenly distributed carbides make it responsive to standard sharpening equipment, including diamond stones, so field resharpening is faster than with harder-to-sharpen steels like M390 or S90V.