I even contacted hilti and they weren't able to give me any information on the alloy either. Anyone have any insight on what it might be?

I'll answer both parts of that question individually.

1. I even contacted hilti and they weren't able to give me any information on the alloy either

The reason Hilti can't give you any information on the alloy, is because they simply don't know. The reason for that is for a couple of decades now, the manufacturing sector has used what is called "Spec Manufacturing". Where at one time designers/producers of products would specify that a given item, be made of a specific alloy (steel). In order to cut costs and increase profit (Yep! its all based on greed, and how to spend less, and make more profit) "Spec Manufacturing" became the norm. In general, engineers design a product based on its use, and decide what the "life span" for that product should be, then they give those specs to those who produce the item, with the caveat to use the least expensive material that will meet those specifications. What this means is that a wide variety of different types of material (steels) can be found in the exact same item, not only from year to year, but from shipment to shipment. There was a point in time when a specific item generally indicated a specific steel type....those days are long gone.

2. Anyone have any insight on what it might be?

Based on the information you provided, it appears to be a "mild" steel, with the Cr added in for a measure of toughness (considering that its use is as a jackhammer bit). The Mn content indicates that IF there were enough carbon present, it could be hardened (but you don't list any carbon content). My guess is that you could locate a 1/2 dozen of those bits, read each one of them with the XRF gun, and no two are going to be the same. Therein lies the problem these days with "salvaged" steel...... even the same items are not the same steel from one to the next.....which is why the majority of us are always recommending to just purchase new, known steel. Even if you spent all the time and effort to figure out how to make a knife from that jackhammer bit (which is generally considerable) you'd very likely have to start the process all over with the next one, even if you found the same item again.

I suppose thats OK if you like that sort of thing, and there is certainly nothing wrong with experimenting, but I just can't afford the time, effort and frustration of doing everything it takes to turn out a blade, and then find that all those efforts were wasted and/or not repeatable.

|quoted:

I'll answer both parts of that question individually.

The reason Hilti can't give you any information on the alloy, is because they simply don't know. The reason for that is for a couple of decades now, the manufacturing sector has used what is called "Spec Manufacturing". Where at one time designers/producers of products would specify that a given item, be made of a specific alloy (steel). In order to cut costs and increase profit (Yep! its all based on greed, and how to spend less, and make more profit) "Spec Manufacturing" became the norm. In general, engineers design a product based on its use, and decide what the "life span" for that product should be, then they give those specs to those who produce the item, with the caveat to use the least expensive material that will meet those specifications. What this means is that a wide variety of different types of material (steels) can be found in the exact same item, not only from year to year, but from shipment to shipment. There was a point in time when a specific item generally indicated a specific steel type....those days are long gone.

Based on the information you provided, it appears to be a "mild" steel, with the Cr added in for a measure of toughness (considering that its use is as a jackhammer bit). The Mn content indicates that IF there were enough carbon present, it could be hardened (but you don't list any carbon content). My guess is that you could locate a 1/2 dozen of those bits, read each one of them with the XRF gun, and no two are going to be the same. Therein lies the problem these days with "salvaged" steel...... even the same items are not the same steel from one to the next.....which is why the majority of us are always recommending to just purchase new, known steel. Even if you spent all the time and effort to figure out how to make a knife from that jackhammer bit (which is generally considerable) you'd very likely have to start the process all over with the next one, even if you found the same item again.

I suppose thats OK if you like that sort of thing, and there is certainly nothing wrong with experimenting, but I just can't afford the time, effort and frustration of doing everything it takes to turn out a blade, and then find that all those efforts were wasted and/or not repeatable.

Wow! Thanks for the great reply. I had no idea the type of steel would vary like that for those types of applications, very good insight. Knowing that now, I think I'll just use it for something to practice on and stick with known steel for my blades lol. Thanks again!

The use of yard sorting guns for analysis has created some confusion for some time now, I myself have bought materials that where not correct because all the chemistry was right except the carbon content. You can pick up a handheld gun type unit for around $20K and that is what most scrap yards and steel warehouses use due the economics. The problem is that the chemistry is analyzed through its spectrum based on elements present. All of the typical metals and alloys are conveniently in the same area of the spectrum, but carbon is in another range and so not within the typical programming of a gun type unit. To read both the alloying and the carbon content you need a bench top spectrometer more in the range of $50K to read it all. So very often folks use yard sorting guns and get the alloying and then just assume it is O-1, S-7, L6 etc... based on the alloying alone.

A few years back a steel outlet had several pallets of O-2 that they were selling. I bought one massive bar and told them that if it passed my tests I would buy everything they had. My tests revealed that although the alloying was correct the carbon content could not have been more than .35%, so obviously the deal was off. The chemistry did allow me to use what I did buy for fittings Damascus but it was worthless for blades.

We have all been there and done it, but most often it is too true that "free" or cheap salvaged steel is the most expensive material you can work with. When you add up all the fuel in forging, belts in grinding etc... and then your hours on top, only to have a blade that doesn't work, brand new, known, steel is about the best deal going. I did a cost analysis on a typical knife for a talk I did at the Ashokan seminar one year and while I knew steel was cheap I had no idea how little the cost of steel was when all of the expenses were figured. Even with fairly expensive alloys, the steel is literally mere pennies compared to every other part of making a knife; unless of course you get a mystery steel that doesn't work out, in which case its price skyrockets up to the cost of every other factor that was wasted on a blade that didn't work out.