GOST 11M5F Knife Steel
Composition Analysis Graph, Equivalents And Overview

11M5F(GOST) - High speed tool steel. No direct western analogs. Strangely, this one has Cesium in its specs. just 0.15% but, still, what's an alkaline doing in the steel I have no idea. Cesium is too rare to be residual, obviously it's in there on purpose. 11M5F was invented circa 1988, in Russia. According to the published paper, the goal was to produce high speed tool steel matching the performance of conventional high speed steels, but containing much less Tungsten, Molybdenum and Cobalt. The R6M5(Russian equivalent of the popular AISI M2 steel) and R18 steels are specifically mentioned in the paper as the basis for comparison. All of those alloying components are rare and expensive, so in the end it was done to reduce the cost of the alloy. According to the same paper 11M5F had better machinability due to reduced Vanadium content, and few other properties which are all related to decreased production costs and ease of producing. Also, according to the same paper, 11M5F max working hardness, strength and impact strength are not surpassed by the R6M5 high speed steel characteristics, although there is no mention of how does R18 steel compares to 11M5F. In the end, it's not clear how 11M5F is better than AISI M2 steel when used in knives. Abrasive wear resistance apparently is reduced, but impact resistance is the same. I've only seen it mentioned once or twice, and not really sure if ti was in a mass production. I do know R18 high speed steel is really in a short supply in Russia, for decades, may be 11M5F was some sort of solution back in 80s.

Manufacturing Technology - Ingot

Country - Russia(RU)