What a carbide spec sheet is actually telling you.
Pick a grade and see how TRS, HRA/HV hardness and grain size trade off against each other — the same three numbers every mill certificate leads with, decoded against real published figures for YG8C, YG11C and CERATIZIT CTM17-BC (BC20).
Read a Grade Like a Metallurgist
Three numbers decide whether a carbide tip survives a rebar strike or just looks hard on paper. Pick a grade to compare.
What "Won't Crack on Rebar" Actually Means
Absorbs a direct rebar strike without fracturing. This is what "rebar-rated" actually means on a spec sheet, not a marketing adjective.
Why the Same Grade Carries Two Numbers
HRA and HV measure the same thing — resistance to indentation — through different mechanics. HRA presses a 120° diamond cone under 60kgf and reads depth; Vickers presses a diamond pyramid and measures the indent's diagonal under a microscope. In the 87–93 HRA band where every hammer-drill grade lives, HRA's scale is too coarse to separate close grades — 89.5 and 90.5 look almost identical but perform differently in the field. That's the resolution Vickers buys, and why European mills like CERATIZIT report HV alongside HRA.
The Wear-vs-Toughness Trade-off
Larger WC grains mean a thicker cobalt layer between them, which absorbs impact energy and blunts a crack's path before it can propagate through the whole tip — at some cost to wear resistance. This is why YG8C and YG11C, the two grades built specifically for rebar contact, both move to coarse grain.
Source Data
Where These Numbers Come From
Every figure in this tool is pulled from CERATIZIT's own published CTM17-BC/BC20 catalog data and the Chinese GB/T 18376.1 / GB/T 3848–3851 grade classification standard — cross-referenced in our full CTM17-BC vs. Chinese carbide grades breakdown.
Read the full grade breakdownNeed a Grade Spec'd Into an RFQ?
Send your rebar exposure, expected impact duty, and target bit diameter — we'll confirm which grade and head geometry the production line actually runs at that spec.