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Ok now you guys have done it, since I don't want to get caught being wrong too often, I hiked out to the shop and grabbed some steel references. Since Maas has experience with some pretty exotic steels and I failed to answer part of his question, "where does ATS-34 fit in with his group", I'll try again. ATS-34 has 1.03% carbon, .25% Mangenese, .40% Silicon, 13.75% Chromium and 3.56% Molybdenum. This makes it a fairly straight forward tool steel with the minimum threshold of chromium for stainless steel characteristics. To compare it to D-2: D-2 has 1.50% Carbon, .40% Mangenese, 12.0% Chromium .80% Molybdenum and .90% Vanadium. Here are some important points between the steels, D-2 has more carbon resulting in the possibilty of getting this steel much harder. The Chromium content of D-2 is just under the stainless threshold which means it will have some stain resistance but will stain and rust in bad conditions. The vanadium in D-2 is just enough to aid in grain refinement and heat treat ability (hardening) but not enough to form vanadium carbides. D-2 was designed as a die steel and has a bit too much carbon to have high toughness when sharpened to an acute edge angle. If the knifemaker knows this, D-2 can still make a very good knife. I've also used a lot of D-2 in the past and am mostly happy with it. The only problem I've had is when I heat treat for best edge holding and some user chips the blade doing something really stupid (from my very narrow knifemakers point of view) with the knife, like using a folder to pry apart the hip joint on a bull elk, instead of cutting the connecting tissues. ATS-34 falls below the particle metal steels (CPM's) when it comes to ultimate performance in a knife blade. As knifemakers we measure performance in toughness (pry bar strength), edge holding (hardness of carbides and the steel matrix that holds them) and of high importance, (even to The Reaper except he doesn't know it yet...) is stain resistance. Salt atmosphere can take away the sharpness of a knifes edge without the knife ever being used. Time and humidity can do the same. Hope this helps, Bill
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