We demonstrate that high-energy ball milling of gas-atomized maraging steel powder followed by suitable thermal-treatment produces nanocrystalline maraging steel powders having improved magnetic properties, compared to the gas-atomized powders. Milling for five to eight hours formed powders comprised of, primarily, nanocrystalline martensite. The saturation magnetization (M-S) of the milled powders ranged between similar to 164 A m(2)/kg and similar to 169 A m(2)/kg, while the intrinsic coercivity (H-Cl) ranged between -4.9 kA/m and similar to 6.7 kA/m. At sub-ambient temperatures, from 60 K to 3901<, both M-S and H(CI, )decremented with the increment in temperature. The thermomagnetic behavior of the milled powders was somewhat reversible. At supra-ambient temperatures (500 K-900 K), both M-S and H-CI monotonically decreased with the increase in temperature. The thermally treated powders constituted nanocrystalline martensite and exhibited increment (by similar to 6%) in M-S and decrement (similar to nearly halved) in Ha compared to the milled powder, i.e., the powders exhibited improvement in soft-magnetic properties. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.