The purpose herein is to assess the impact of different combinations of cryogenic treatments and tempering regimes on tribological properties of Cr–V tool steel against a CuSn6 counterpart. Dry sliding wear experiments are performed using a pin‐on‐disk tribometer according to the Taguchi method. Tribological behavior is investigated under four process parameters at mixed levels: cryotemperatures (−75, −140, or −196 °C), tempering temperatures (170 or 530 °C), sliding velocity (0.064, 0.128, 0.1885 m s−1), and load (1, 5, 10 N). According to the analysis, the minimum friction coefficient is obtained by cryotreatment at −140 °C combined with 170 °C tempering, with a sliding velocity of 0.128 m s−1 and load of 10 N. For the minimum counterpart´s material adhesion level, cryogenic treatment at −196 °C followed by tempering at 530 °C, sliding velocity of 0.1885 m s−1, and applied load of 1 N are the optimum settings. The analysis of variance model shows that the load (39.2%) has statistical significance on the friction coefficient, while the load (59.1%) and tempering temperature (18.0%) have statistical significance on adhesion levels. The tribological behavior of the steel is explained by thorough microstructural examinations using scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy‐dispersive spectroscopy.