Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Ontario Rat 1. A woodsman folder

Ontario Rat 1
A woodsman folder

3.5 inch plain edge blade
Knife Closed Length: 4.5-Inch
Knife Open Length: 8.5-Inch
Weighs 5 ounces
Made of AUS-8 Steel


Grading criteria: 1-really bad-10-excellent

Today we will be looking at a folder with excellent value
The Ontario Rat-1

Overall: 8.8/10
steel: 8
ergos: 9
Fit and finish: 8
Price to performance: 10
EDC: 9

TLDR:
Best sub 50 dollar folder out there. Buy 1... or 2... or 3

Steel:8
Aus-8 is a Japanese stainless steel similar to american made 440 line of american steel.  The edge retention and toughness on this blade pretty good.  Resharpenablity is also very good it was easy to reprofile and draw back the edge.




Ergos: 9
Not much to bad here to say.  i have medium sized hands and the knife fits me great.  Even carving up some really hard wood was not a big deal.  No major hot spots or blisters developed







Fit and finish: 8
The fit and finish on this knife is what you would expect on a knife of this price point: Not perfect but nothing that would make me not want to use the knife.  No side to side or up and down play.

Price to performance: 10
These knives can be had for around 25-30 dollars on amazon.  At this price point this knife is amazing.  decent steel, rock solid lockup, quick manual deployment, comfy handle.  I personally decided to carry this knife more that my Para 2 on most occasions.  I think this knife is a great first knife for a kid, a cost conscious boy scout, a beater EDC, secondary woods knife(to a fixed blade),  minimalist backpacker, the list goes on an on.

EDCablility: 9
This knife is a great EDC knife.  With its .110in thick 3.5in blade and relative light weight this blade is a decent cutter out of the box and can be a laser beam when you thin out the edge a little bit.  It is also easy to carry with other things in you pocket, it is not too thick and does not get in the way.  The price point also makes this a very attractive EDC option as you can beat the heck out of it and it wont really matter if you mess it up.


A woods EDC: The attributes that makes this knife a great woods folder is that is has a good amount of belly for slicing and making feather sticks and such.  The grip is comfortable and it is easy to deploy one handed.  This along with the decent steel and very reasonable price point makes this a very very good knife to take out into the woods.

More pictures incoming as i dig them up
Thanks for reading
Feedback is always welcome
Yall gear up for a awesome axe review coming out in the next week or so
you get fake internet points if you can guess it.

Best regards,
Thomas


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