The investigated composite material consists of a steel metallic matrix and 50 vol% of Ti(C0.5,N0.5) particles as a reinforcement phase. The composition of the steel is 6.2 wt% W, 4.8 wt. Mo, 4.1 wt% Cr, 1.8 wt% V and 0.85 wt% C, which corresponds to the high-speed steel grade M2, used as prealloyed powder. To study the effect of the carbon content, different amounts of graphite were added to the matrix leading to materials with composition [M2 + X wt% C] + TiCN 50 vol%, where X is 0, 0.5 and 1. The density and particle size of the starting powders are given in Table 1.