YFungN690 is a great steel and the knife as a whole is great. It's definitely not m390 or s35vn but it's still great. It's far above that of budget steel types and most people won't be able to tell the difference in cutting ability. It's easy to sharpen too.
Tbo people don't realize that the higher end steels don't show much performance gain above other steel because the blade stock and blade geometry is too wide.
If you take vg10 with a thin slicing blade and do a test between it and say m390 with a thicker blade geometry the vg10 blade will cut far longer. So essentially your paying more for a material that's not at its optimal geometry to get its maximum performance.
The raid ops is designed to be a decent slicer and will cut a long time vs say a zero tolerance with its thicker blade stock even Tho they are using a higher end steel.
BoxBladeAlot of south african customs use n690 and they are mostly all amazing knives. A custom knife will always be more expensive regardless of steel type.
anonomousAnonomous and Spidey, you are right on the Begg $2,000 range midtechs. They are in N690 (kind of surprising for the cost). Those knives were never touched by Todd himself. I have the prototype Glimpse that is being made by WE in RWL-34 (just the prototype). The prototype was hand made by Todd himself. Todd is suing the California operation headed by his brother Mark and has disassociated with them. This news just broke this weekend. I'm not sure if the WE version of the Glimpse in G-10 and carbon fiber will go forward. The knives actually made by Todd start at around $5,000 and there is a multi year wait. Sorry for the mix-up. It is all pretty confusing with the Steelcraft series, the California midtechs and the actual customs.