Cody, I'm glad you're getting good performance. It's hard to screw up CFV I think, and that is why they made the stuff. To be easy to forge and heat treat, but give great performance! So go to town cutting!!!! I have done 1475, 1500, and 1530F hardening temps. The difference was difficulty in hand sanding. The higher the hardening temp, the more work it took to get to 600 grit. Not sure how much more wear resistance, if any, that translates to.
My recommendation with CFV is the following, if you have time/temp control. Well, temp control. Time is what it is!
Rough grind into shape (the stuff is seriously soft from Crucible)
Normalize at 1650F, just enough time to equalize the temp throughout the blade length, let it air cool
Thermal Cycle at 1550F, equalize, air cool
Thermal cycle at 1500F, equalize, air cool or quench
Thermal Cycle at 1450F, equalize, quench
Thermal Cycle at 1400F, equalize, quench
(you can skip one of those steps and just do three, don't skip the 1650F tho)
You can harden from here. If more grinding/drilling needs to be done... then hold at 1250F for two hours and either quench or air cool.
It's now ready to harden.
Get your oven up to 1475F (I don't do any 1200 pre heat at all), once the oven is stable, put blade in at 1475F.
Once the temp has rebounded up to 1475F, start your timer for 10 minutes.
Quench in 130F canola oil, or room temp Parks50 (no issues at all with P50).
Temper one hour at 350F and then quench in water.
Temper one hour at 375F and then quench in water.
Temper one hour at your final target hardness temp (400F or whatever), and then quench in water.
The reason for the 1475F is to put just enough carbon into solution to attain max hardness, and because of your normalization/thermal cycling that you did, it leaves the rest of the carbon to the carbide formation.
me2, you mentioned non magnetic in your friends oven is 1560F. I agree, consistency is more important than the numbers. But you and I know that with the carbon steels being discussed here, even allowing wiggle room because of grain size reduction, non magnetic starts around 1350F and ends more or less at 1414F. Not even close to what your friend is getting "in his oven".