I recently bought an Ontario RAT 3. I have some larger knives like the Ontario Marine Raider Bowie and the Kabar Fighting/Utility Knife but I was wanting something in a smaller package yet more substantial than the ever praised Mora. My intended use was general camp use and an EDC knife for my bag. For general camp use I wanted a full tang knife that could withstand batoning firewood and other lesser chores. I was disappointed by my Kabar recently when I noticed that it now has a slight curve to it from batoning through firewood. This really only makes sense since it is not a full tang, but rather a rat-tail tang knife (i.e. the metal runs the full length of the knife but only a slimmer portion than the main blade). As can be seen in the pic below, the RAT3 has a full tang - it is one solid piece of metal with micarta scale handles attached to it. Overall the handle portion of the knife should be even stronger than the blade.
The blade length is a little over 3.5 inches (or a little over 9cm) from the handles, with the actual cutting edge being just over 3 inches (or 8cm). The overall length is about 7.5 inches (or 19cm). I won't go into all the specs as they can easily be found elsewhere. Although I find it amusing that Ontario adds an extra centimeter to their described length. As I stated I just got this knife and wanted to share a couple of things I found so far in my limited experience.
The first thing I noticed was that this particular blade came extremely dull from the factory. I had no danger at all of cutting myself as I ran my finger down it's "edge." There seem to be mixed reviews from others - some getting theirs extremely sharp, others finding theirs dull. This is an unfortunate quality control aspect from Ontario. We get knives and expect them to be sharp - period. A dull knife is pointless. In working to sharpen it I found that I needed to work on reprofiling the edge a bit. I use a Spyderco Sharpmaker and the angle of the RAT 3 simply would not work well for this system. I used a hand stone and made a bit of a finer edge then worked it over on the Spyderco. I can now cut hair with it, but find that I still have a bit of a struggle with the curved portion going up to the tip.
The second, and more troubling, problem came when I was using this knife to baton some pre-cut kindling for my wood burning stove. The knife cut beautifully, as I was certain it would. The full flat ground edge made short work of my kindling turning it into the pencil-sized and smaller pieces I was looking for to start my fire. My problem arose when I set the RAT 3 on my lap and found that two of the three screws that hold the handle scales in place had fallen out. In order to shorten my story let me say that I had a bit of difficulty putting the screws back into the brass inserts and getting them tight enough without stripping them. I did strip out one a bit and bent another, but was able to get them back together and was even able to add some blue locktite yesterday. Hopefully this will solve my problem.
On the plus side, I immediately emailed Ontario and got this reply yesterday,
I am sorry for the problems you encountered with your RAT 3 Knife.
We will send you out some replacement inserts and screws.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Diane
I am very impressed so far with their customer care. I will write more later if/when they send me the inserts and/or screws. Good job Ontario!
My plan now is to keep these extra screws with me in my pack so that I can fix the scales on the go if I need to. Also to that end I added the allen wrench to my sheath with a bit of gorilla tape so that I can fix the knife in the field.
As can be seen in the pics the black powder coat finish is wearing off, but I expected that (although not so quickly after so little batoning) and I actually like the way it looks. I got this blade for use, not as a show item.
The powder coating is ground off on the blade and a chip or two on the spine from whacking it with a small log :) - but the blade is in perfect condition.
I added a small piece of paracord to the butt so that I could loop this around my pinkie allowing me to choke down on the handle so as to get better leverage for a swinging/chopping application. This is a very small blade so it's obviously not the best chopper in the world.
I don't have very large hands so this smallish knife fits well, and yes, I cut my knuckle with the RAT 3 and that's why I have a bandage on it (obviously that was after I sharpened it).
Despite these setbacks I am overall quite pleased with this knife. I'd rate it an 8 out of 10. Hopefully after continuing to use it I'll be able to raise my rating to a solid ten. Only time will tell.
Get out there!
~Rhyno
