A shot of the Ontario RTAK from the manufacturer webpage :
The review consists of :
A custom version of the RTAK was used previously, the Ontario production is also made from 1095) but doesn't have the differential hardening and instead is uniformly hardened to 57/58 HRC. It weighs 625 g with the balance right ahead of the handle. It has a full flat grind on two inch wide 3/16" stock with a full ten inches of sharpened edge. The edge dips down to under 0.015" thick at points which is likely the reason for the multiple reports of catastrophic edge failures on the Ontario RTAKs on Bladeforums with pieces blown out of the edge chopping various woods. These problems continued to be reported up to 2006.
UPDATE : the RTAK has been discontinued.
The initial sharpness is very low, t can slice paper in some regions not in others. It does not cut grasses and other light vegetation well and needs a full sharpening before it can efficiently do any fine cutting. Sharpening took a significant amount of time as the initial edge grinds are uneven and the edge was just shaped with a rough belt finish, left burred and ragged. The edge had to be completely reground on an x-coarse hone then progressively worked through a series of finer stones.
While the point has a long taper and swedge, the penetration is fairly low, it can only achieve a depth of 115 +/- 4 pages into a phonebook on a 50 lbs push, and 568 +/- 12 pageson a hard vertical stab. The tip sinks readily in woods, however the tip is very weak and after being stabbed on 1/2" deep stab into a piece of spruce, the tip just bent to the side and would not clear the wood when bent laterally. Newt commented on this issue when he made the Adventure Knife, which was a redesign of the RTAK which had too common tip breakages.
On a mixture of pine, fir and spruce. The RTAK had solid penetration, it chopped at about 67 (7)% of the ability of the Wildlife hatchet through a few dozen sections of wood. The RTAK however bound heavily even in clear wood and thus the overal efficiency is much lower than the chop ratio. Some knots were cut using the thicker parts of the edge and they held up fine however when one of the thinner sections of the edge hit a knot the blade dented severely. The dent extended 1/4" up the primary grind. The steel was about 0.040" thick at the base of the dent.
It was also used for some batoning to split some woods, while it has the length, it doesn't have the necessary stiffness. On three to four inch small rounds the RTAK bent in the wood through the main blade body, actually twisting with the grain of the wood. It wedges badly compared to a stiffer knife which will stay straight and thus exert more force driving the wood apart. The swedge on the tip causes a lots of wasted energy as it keeps cutting into the baton this is energy which would be better directed into the wood. The vibrations in the hand were high as well and combined with the square grip it got uncomfortable fast.
The RTAK was also used clipping off dead branch stubs and the blade rippled along the edge every each few impacts. The actual edge bevel as a whole would deform to the side, the blade is just far too thin for harder woods. The blade body is also very weak due to the thin stock, it would not support the weight of even a small man (150 lbs) and took a permanent set through the body of the blade.
The handle is squarish on top, nicely rounded on the bottom and the center swell isn't as heavily curved as it was on Newt's version which was so uncomfortable it had to be chopped off. There is little to no guard, and the rear end hook is also slight so the grip retention is problematic in extreme situations and heavy stabbing is a concern. With a few stabs there no problem holding onto the grip when it was clean and the grip strong however it is obvious to see why why Newt redesigned the grip on the cutom version as there is no way to keep retention if the handle gets comtainimated, there is virtually no guard. The grip is however really long, almost a hand and a half length. This allows a further back for more power as well as shifting ahead for a more neutral balance for precison work.
The sheath is pretty standard low end production, synthetic over a rigid backing. Stitching is a bit frayed in places, but is solid. Low ride rigging, plut other attachment points, no drainage hole, but a utility pouch.
The Ontario Rtak came with low initial sharpness and a badly burred and ragged edge, it had to be sharpened before it could cut fine vegetation. It was unable to handle even light wood working because the edge is far too thin, and the blade rippled readily. The handle is also squarish and uncomfortable. The Becker Combat Bowie from Camillus is a much higher quality version of a similar designed knife.
Comments can be sent to : cliffstamp[REMOVE]@cutleryscience.com or by posted to the following thread :
| Last updated : | 1 : 31 : 2006 |
| Originally written: | 10 : 22 : 2004 |