E Phillip Smith
Good to see my old friend doing OK. I ground the initial bevels on the 3V irons for Wiley and company. Just for reference this is the lowest carbon steel in the irons you are testing, CPM list the carbon content as 0.80% carbon, significantly below the carbon content of the other irons.

I spent decades in product development in the chemical industry. For pure products you can often define products solely on composition. But formulated products the end product is often defined by both composition and process. This is the case formulated (Steel which have high performance carbides which have poor solubility in the steel matrix) steels.

The process is what sets the particle steel apart from traditional steel of the same composition. Briefly the process entails mixing all of the components in a crucible to get a uniform distribution, then forcing the liquid steel through a nozzle to atomize the steel (think spray gun for paint) under nitrogen and quenching the very fine particles in LIQUID NITROGEN to instantly freeze the very fine particles (think talcum powder), the very fast quench causes the carbide particles to form in a very fine structure in the already small powder. The powder is then heated to forge temperature in inert atmosphere and pressed to consolidate the powder into a steel with extremely fine structure. The billets are then rolled to the desired thickness. THINK DEMASCUS STEEL on steroids.