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1095 gives more problems than just about any other steel out there. Other than maybe W2...and both steels require an extremely fast quench. And W2 has HALF the Mn that 1095 does!!! (Aldo's steels).
Why use it? Hamon. Other than that....meh. If you don't have P50 or similar fast oil, you'll run around trying to figure out the issue, which is usually it's hardenability. If you keep re-heat treating 1095, you're going to cause the hardenability to get the the point nothing will harden it, in which case a normalizing would need to be done to re-set the steel.
Aldo's steels in the past where heavily annealed from the mill, which required normalizing to get them to harden properly. He has indicated that his current spring steel stock (1095) is ready to harden as received, however. I wonder if normalizing this steel at 1600F, cycling at around critical a few times (1525, 1475, 1425), then harden at 1475 would yield better results. Also, I would do interrupted quench....brine for 3 seconds, then finish off in 130F canola. (P50 is one of the best purchases made in my shop....I use it for all carbon steels except A2, of which I use canola...as I don't have plates)
The anti scale/anti decarb stuff from Brownells (at least one of them) is called ATP-641. A must have. You can also buy it directly from Advanced Technical Products. This will virtually eliminate decarb issues, which cause false failed hardness tests.
The 1080+, 80CrV2, is great steel for toughness (basically a fine grained 1080), and is a little bit more forgiving in quench speed than 1095. Mn count is about the same as 1095, which is the biggest contributor to hardenability, as far as the elements go, besides the carbon. There is a bit of Cr in there, which helps hardenability as well.
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