In 2020 Artisan Cutlery decided to formulate and manufacture our own steel due to an overwhelming demand for higher-performance steel for our value-oriented products. Rather than switching over to premium steel and significantly increasing the cost of our products, we sat down and discussed the merits of designing our own steel from the ground up that could meet the needs of our consumers without the high cost of most premium steel on the market. The result was AR-RPM9.

AR-RPM9 is powder-form stainless steel with properties that make it ideal for daily-carry knives. Boasting high hardness and superior toughness thanks to the powdering process AR-RPM9 stands toe-to-toe with several premium steel varieties and surpasses many of them in overall durability and corrosion resistance, but the biggest secret of AR-RPM9 lies somewhere else. We have done a huge amount of testing on AR-RPM9 in various forms both at our main facility with sophisticated machines and in the US with a variety of physical and chemical tests ranging from the mundane to the extreme. The thing that became most apparent about AR-RPM9 over the several months of testing was it's exceptionally sharpenable, even after rigorous tasks that dulled the edge entirely it only took a few minutes to bring the blade back to a razor-sharp edge, but unlike most other steels that exhibit this trait, AR-RPM9 maintains that sharpened edge for an extraordinarily long time, meaning that this steel can be quickly sharpened and maintained in the field and be ready for a whole day of work without dulling out. We are always happy to see that our hard work designing and testing a whole new material has paid off so well, and we always look forward to hearing what our customers think when they try AR-RPM9 for the first time.