the cast steel hawk crank is the same material as the cast steel 9000 scat crank.
If I could find were i read it at I will post it but it state that scat, cat, hawks rpm ohio and eagle are all made in the same factory in china, but the finihing and polishing of the journals is done in the own companies factory and that is the only difference.
back in the mid 90"s i remeber scat getting the same bad rap that these new ones are and that turned out to be bogus, people just weren't into buying china made stuff. Now that scat has seemed to have been decent other companies are following in the footsteps.
I have spoke to a few that hae hawks cranks and rods for a few years and none have had problems yet so that is the reason for me purchasing them. I got feedback from some customers before buying them.
If I had the money I might have gone the eagle route but for cost I went hawks...