Id imagine steel even if powdercoated would be suseptable to rust due to both parts rubbing on each other causing wear. The one i got is aluminium and looks decent quality but its australian made, ive never seen an american one in the flesh but they look plenty strong enough. What do you plan using it for?
I don't know what the ratings are for the hinge, or what exactly makes your use "abusive" but they are fairly strong. my hinge is not perfectly straight and therefore causes some binding issues. it functions perfectly still, but taking it on or off is a... challenge. my point is that the hinge is holding up to an imperfect installation with internal stresses caused by the binding locations. yet it still functions well.
The design seems to require the pieces be extruded, a process routine in aluminum but not steel. Steel is bent and stamped, not processes that lead to hurricane hinge profiles.
I believe that hurricane hinges are extruded. Aluminum is much easier and cheaper to extrude than stainless steel, particularly when extruding more complex cross-sections. Hurricane hinges are already "expensive" in the teardrop world. Would be interesting to see what a stainless steel one would run! $200?
What will you be using this hinge for?
EDIT: Hmmm ... I see somebody just barely beat me to the punch! :p
Interesting subject. I was wrong, ss extrusion is available but one company's site - which seems to do many extrusions - says " Complex custom extruded shapes can be fairly easily produced in aluminum, but are considerably more difficult in brass or bronze or copper and even more difficult in stainless. "
I think the market is just too small to justify they cost to start it. I'm sometimes surprised how easy it is for a small company to have an aluminum extrusion made.
I'm probably the only one that thinks this...but me, I prefer the older style hurricane hinge....with the dropped to portion on the body, you can hide a lot of the fasteners on it, overlay it with the top skin. As mentioned...they are an aluminum extrusion. I guess that corrosion is a lesser evil than rust. Doug