I personally have not used any V4E yet but have used quite a bit of 4V, Z Wear, and PD1; I have to say that from my experience they are not similar in performance.
All steels mentioned were heat treated with high temp tempering, I am not a fan of the low temper protocols due to the slight loss in edge holding, to a final of 63 Rc.
The steels were also treated to a dry ice sub-zero treatment.
I will state that I feel that ZWear and PD1 have a higher toughness than 4V, but 4V has much higher wear resistance IME.
I am speaking from a competition chopper standpoint here, but this is a great avenue to put a couple steels against one another.
The first knife I made for my wife was from PD1 heat treated to 63 with dry ice treatment and high temper.
Her knife was noticeably duller after a single course run.
It would no longer cut newsprint and needed to be touched up after or before each competition.
Her edge geometry was very thin for a chopper as well at .010" BTE.
My 4V chopper though can go three or four competitions before needing to be touched up, it's generally around the fourth competition I start feeling it dragging through the big 2" rope.
At this point only about half the edge will still cut newsprint, and I am still using this same knife between competitions for practice.
My knife varies from around .008" to .012" BTE.
The 4V was heat treated to 63 Rc given a cold treatment and high temp temper.
IMO this is not necessarily real world testing but it is very hard on a knife edge.
I have compared low and high temp tempers several times and aside from the increase in stain resistance I am not sold on low temp protocol for any steel.
All that I have personally experienced with 4V in BladeSports is the same basic results others are getting with V4E.
