most likely stupid but wonder what the cost effectiveness of using something like titanium would be? I would assume that far outlast steel even if it did cost 10x's as much it could be worth it. buy once cry once!. I would assume someone like GMK is replacing there molds every 6 months to a year.. perhaps? They seem to be insanely popular!
Also JTK which I don't see a lot and am told its cause there legends are wonky! ((which typing on JTK now and really like them and can't find legend issues)) are they perhaps using b stock also?
I don't think that it would be worth it, for one titanium is not that easy to machine, and I think that if it was more cost efficient they would be using it already. Just because titanium is stronger that steel does not necessarily make it a better material to make molds out of. But I could be wrong, maybe it would be better.
I feel like gmk is probably not repacing their moulds every 6 months to a year, because as sneaky said they can last around a million cycles and I don't think that they would make that many of a given key per year.
Lets take Nautilus as an example, there were 1899 base kits sold, so lets just say 2000, even if there was a group buy of that size every week of the year (which there isn't), then they would be making 104,000 of a given key a year. At that rate they would wear a mould out every 5 to 10 years using sneaky's wear rating of 500,000 to 1,000,000 cycles.
I don't how many keys they produce using the cherry moulds outside of groupbuys, so if groupbuys are only 10% of the cycles on those moulds then they could get worn out in 6 months or a years time.