12C27 Sandvik steel

Range of use: This high performance steel is manufactured by the Swedish company Sandvik. Sandvik 12C27™ is Sandvik's premium knife steel with excellent edge performance that provides shaving sharpness, high hardness, exceptional toughness and good corrosion resistance. Its wide hardness range of 54-61 HRC makes this steel a good blade material that can be used in many different knives. Because of this, it is often used in particularly high quality chef's knives as well as hunting knives. 

Components: 

The 12C27 is a martensitic stainless steel (less than 0.025% iron companion), which belongs to the stainless steels by definition due to its chromium content of 13.5%. The chemical structure can be described as follows:  

Chromium 13.5% 
Improves tensile strength, cutting resistance, corrosion resistance and wear resistance.

Carbon 0.6% 
Improves wear resistance, hardness and corrosion resistance. Too high a proportion, however, reduces strength

Manganese 0.4% 
Improves hardness and brittleness

Silicon 0.4% 
Increases the strength of the steel

Sulphur 0.01% 
Improves machinability and brittleness

Phosphorus 0.025% 
Improves tensile strength, hardness, corrosion resistance and brittleness 

Properties: 

Cut resistance: 
Due to the high carbon content of 0.6% for a stainless steel and a hardness of 56-58 HRC on average, the cut resistance is excellent. 

Corrosion resistance: 
As the steel has over 12% chromium, the corrosion resistance is exceptionally good, making 12C27 also well suited for fishing knives. 

Wear resistance: 
With a carbon content of 0.6 % and a small amount of phosphorus, the wear resistance is high. 

Toughness: 
The high chrome content ensures good toughness. 

Grindability: 
Due to a combination of good hardness and toughness, the steel is comparatively easy to resharpen.