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Medium-carbon, microalloyed forging steels represent a cost effective replacement of quenched and tempered grades. Their strength properties are derived from precipitation during cooling from the forging temperature. Because of the relatively high carbon content, vanadium is the most suitable addition to achieve precipitation strengthening. The effectiveness of vanadium is enhanced by the presence of nitrogen. For components subjected to impact loading, improvement in toughness is achieved by refining austenitic grains, pinning their boundaries by means of dispersed titanium nitrides. Precipitation strengthened ferrite-pearlite steels exhibit superior machinability compared to that of quenched and tempered alloy steels. As a result, the total machining costs are substantially reduced compared to the costs of machining heat-treated steels. The frequency of tool breakage and tool changes decrease dramatically, virtually eliminating line scrap and unnecessary downtime.