Alright so this is how the review will work: my friend and I both have experience with the Ontario RTAK-II, and we've decided to write this review together. He’ll write about the knife itself, and I’ll write the knife in use. The pictures are from me.

RTAK-II Review!

Measurements:

Friend:

Overall Length Blade Length Edge Length Handle Length Width

17.125 Inches 11 Inches 9.5 Inches 6 Inches 3/16th

Me:

Here’s to put it in perspective.

And a comparison shot

Friend:

While shopping around for quality, hard-use knives on the internet, I stumbled across Ontario's RAT knives, a series of fully-flat-grind, micarta handled, 1095 or D2 knives in various sizes. The overall premise started with Randall's Adventure Training, a group that trains civilians and military in Jungle and Wilderness survival. In order to create and produce what they believed to be the ideal Brush Knife, RAT collaborated with Ontario Knives, with the final product being the RTAK-I, the longer, clip-pointed forerunner of my knife. From this beginning, the whole series of RAT knives (not to be confused with Swamp Rat knife works) were born. As these smaller models (like the RAT-5 and RAT-7) where made, various evolutions occurred in the over design of these knives, such as the conversion to a drop point design and the addition of a choil. When the time came to retrofit the RTAK, it was updated to resemble a huge version of the newer knives. And I must say, after using the RTAK II extensively, that these changes were all for the better.

First Impressions and basic design of the knife:

When I first saw the box, I thought “wait, this is TOO huge; there is no way that could be just one knife in there!

(Me: I left out the cardboard sleeve.)

Upon opening the box, I was presented with the almost laughably massive nylon sheath and below it, in a handsome cardboard sleeve, the knife itself. Whipping the cardboard off with a flourish, I began to inspect the knife. Unlike the black coating on most coated knives these days, the RTAK comes in a grey crinkle coating that closely resembles the feel and appearance of Rhino skin. Out of the box, the coating is VERY rough. This means that it creates more friction when cutting (something I’m sure many of you will hate) but it does increase the wear resistance of the coating. In principle, the crinkles in the coating will rub off first, before the coating itself starts to come off. In general, I’ve found this to be the case. After the first bit of work done with the knife, the coating along the parts of the forward edge had lost much of its roughness. But now, I’ll return to the knife itself. The handle is beefy; the section covered by micarta is 7/8 of an inch thick through its entire length. There is no contouring of the handle, meaning that it is simply a full tang knife with two, perfectly flat slabs on both sides. The edges of the handle are rounded for comfort, and the over all feel is pretty good, but not incredible, the back edge of the handle is not round quite enough and digs into my hand when I grip it firmly. But still, pretty good. On further inspection of the knife, I found proof that it had been designed by fairly smart people. The balance is about an inch forward of where your index finger rest, to help with chopping. However, if you use the choil the knife becomes perfectly balanced for finer work. Neat, eh? The blade itself is elegant in its simplicity, a drop point design with a completely full flat grind.

(Me: The fit and finish of this knife is like a Strider. There are no silicon based spacers for the Micarta. The micarta isn’t completely flush with the handle. However, this is a user and these small details really won’t hinder the performance. If you want a nicer RTAK, I suggest contacting Justin of Rangers Knives. He’ll whip up some sweet stuff for your RTAK)

The Sheath:

The sheath is fairly standard, and fairly mediocre. However, it is an improvement over the RTAK-I sheath, which I head didn’t have a belt loop. This new model is made out of black ballistic nylon, and comes with a nice belt loop, MOLLE loops and straps, and two lashing holes at the bottom (the knife will flop all over the place without a tie-down). It also contains a very nice gear pouch for a sharpening stone, folder, flashlight, etc. That’s the good stuff…now the bad stuff. The kydex liner for the sheath seems tough enough, but there is no friction fit! This means that if you forget to strap the knife in (via a snap, more on that later) the knife can fall out. Also, because there is no friction to the sheath the knife also rattles…no good. The next problem is the snap closure, which does a fairly good job of holding the knife into the sheath when it’s closed. However, the snap frequently jams and won’t come open (Me: I actually haven't had too many problems with mine). This is a REALLY huge pain in the ass. You can tug on the strap until your hands get blisters, and it still won’t come undone. The first time this happened, I had not strapped my knife on yet, so I grabbed the sheath both hand, took the strap in my teeth, and strained my entire arm strength on it until it finally popped open. The next time it happened I had already put the knife on, so I had to use the false edge one of my other knives to pry the two halves of the snap apart. Imagine if had I been in an emergency, or in the military, and absolutely HAD to use my knife right then. I’d be in deep sh*t. Sometimes though, the snap works just perfectly, so I don’t know what makes the difference. Point is, if it could go wrong, it WILL go wrong, and probably when I least want it too. If you have the money, but a better sheath. (Me: Yes buy an Eagle Sheath or the Soft Sheath from TOPs Knives. However, there are ways to form the kydex. I'm sure all of you are aware that heat softens objects. Boiling.)

The knife in Use:

Friend:

Out of the box, the knife was very sharp, about as sharp as most benchmades come out of the box. It could slice through paper about as easily as it could slice through air. Scary sharp, by my standards, and it also shaved very easily. Like most of you, I own a lot of knives, in a myriad of sharps and sizes. (Me: I wouldn’t consider it scary sharp, but it could shave with out touching skin. On the paper cutting test, the knife occasionally nicked. It ain’t like an R.J. Martin) Since I always carry a very sharp folder (Me: Now, my friend's Griptilian is one sharp son of a bitch), I’ve never had occasion to do much fine work with the RTAK, though I have done some whittling.

Me:

Ahhh. My Turn.

One key necessity in survival is wood. It’s creates fire. The RTAK is that wood gatherer.

(Each test was completed with gloves.)

My friend and I found a series of cedar saplings out in the forest, each with a diameter of 2-3 inches. The RTAK made very quick word of each sapling. It would take only 3-6 swings to fall a sapling. Some took just two. A few 1 – 1.5 inch saplings took only one swing. Each stroke was done at a 45 – 65 degree angle. This displayed the awesome momentum generated by the blade and the keenness of the factory edge. A good 6 inches of the knife contacted some part of wood. My sweet spot is typically 1 inch from the choil and 2 inches before the tip. My friend's sweet spot is 5 inches from the choil and 1 inch before the tip.

We did far more than just three these saplings. Our total amount of saplings would sum up to 9+ saplings. (Anyone got spray paint, we need to mark our knives with trees :D :D )

The last test was a cedar tree that had grown lop-side. There would be no danger in chopping it down (damn, I wanted to say “TIMBER!!!”). The cedar tree was around 5 inches thick. We began at the curvature of the tree, as that position provided us with a plethora of good chopping angles.

It took us around 15-25 minutes to severe the tree. Cedar is a very tough wood, not to mention, it’s also very sticky. The knife would occasionally get stuck. However this was still done fairly quickly due to the fact that we would take turns chopping. All in all, my friend and I: 1, Cedar Tree: 0.

Upon our inspection at the house, there were no visible damages to the edge. No rolling that we could see. The coating, however was coming off. On my knife the highest amount of wear resulted in 1/8 inch coating removal from the edge 4 inches from the choil. However the knife was still very sharp. It would cut paper still the same, an occasional nick. Shaving was still effortless; shaves were made on the part that was used the most.

My friend decided to touch up on the edge just a tid bit. A ceramic rod was used. It took 6 strokes on each side to get a very sharp edge (this was truly unnecessary, but was still completed to show the ease in which 1095 can be sharpened) . Touching up the RTAK was very quick.

The RTAK, I believe, is an epitome of a survival knife.

(I forgot to mention, before the felling of trees began, we went through about 12 wooden stakes. Very quick and easy.)