Edge retention by hardness, carbon content and wear-resistant alloys

[Larrin]

It is getting really intriguing what Mike's SET testing of the A2 steel hardened to a range of HRCs will show.
The main lesson we've learnt so far is not to assume anything, yet I wonder if the A2 data will show similar pattern of equal initial keenness loss, but better long-run retention with the increase in HRC or not.
A2 is a high carbon and primarily Molybdenum steel, and if the pattern is different, it will tell us that what we've seen is vanadium-specific and shouldn't be generalized to other wear-resistant alloys.

A2 has a much lower carbide volume than Vanadis 10, M390, or Elmax so that would be expected to be a more significant difference than simply the vanadium content. M390 and Elmax don’t form much in the way of vanadium carbides but rather vanadium enriched chromium carbides. D2 has a similar carbide volume to Vanadis 10 but with chromium carbide instead. Though it is conventional rather than powder metallurgy so CPM-D2 would be a better comparison for vanadium vs chromium. Vanadis 4 would be a good comparison for lower carbide volume but maintaining the vanadium carbides of Vanadis 10.