Hey everybody this is JJ and today what I
wanted to do is to give you guys a quick look
at the Ontario RAT 7. Now I have owned this
knife for about a year now and I just haven't
had a chance to get it out and get it in the
field and test it out. I used it the other
day in a video on How To Cut down a tree with
a knife, but today I wanted to give you guys
a little closer look at it.
It is made by Ontario Knife Company, this
is the sheath that it comes with as you can
see it can integrate with PALS webbing or
MOLLE webbing and it has the nice big pocket
on here that can fit a Leatherman Core, you
can also put your own survival kit or whatever
you wanted down in there. It has a nice buckle
to keep it closed. Then it has two snaps for
the handle to keep the Ontario RAT 7 in place.
I don't really have a lot of bad things to
say about the sheath other than the plastic
insert where the knife blade sits you can
kind of get a little bit of jiggle. So that
is not my most favorite thing about it but
the Ontario RAT 7 fits securely once it is
snapped in place. It isn't like a kydex sheath
but the snaps are going to hold it. It isn't
going to come out or anything like that.
So as far as the Ontario RAT 7 knife goes
itself the knife has a lot of features that
I really like for a wilderness survival knife
and that is exactly why I picked it up.
The Ontario RAT 7 knife blade is about 3/16"
thick which I think is just about perfect
for wilderness Survival, not too heavy and
not too thin as well. I always advocate using
a 3 knife system and the Ontario RAT 7 would
be the larger of the 3 knives. As far as this
knife goes you can see that it has a coating
over the blade. Im not a super huge fan of
the coating but as time goes on and that wears
down it doesn't bother me so much. When it
is brand new and it catches everything in
it I don't really like it a whole lot. The
Ontario RAT 7 knife has a micarta handle on
it. Micarta feels good in the hand and then
you have got a lanyard hole in the end and
then a little bit of a pommel down there as
well if you wanted to bang some stakes in
or something you could.
But the real strength of the Ontario RAT 7
survival knife comes in the blade. Like I
said 7 inches long is about ideal because
then if you are cutting through a 3 or 4 inch
piece of wood trying to d a split wood fire
of something like that then you still have
enough blade length leftover to go ahead and
baton down through the wood. The other thing
that I like about it is that the Ontario RAT
7 has a nice and flat spine as far as for
battoning goes that is a good thing. You don't
want necessarily want a double edge on there
because then you are just going to cut up
the baton that you are using.
The Ontario RAT 7 has a little bit of jimping
right here which is nice and it does have
a kind of a choil where you can get your finger
up on there and you can get up and do a little
more fine work up on it too.
I like all of those features and those are
all great features. It has a full tang that
goes all of the way through the handle. But
these are all great features for a wilderness
survival knife.
SO with that lets go ahead and get down here
and split up a little bit of wood and I have
got a couple of pieces that I am going to
baton down through and then we are going to
use the Ontario RAT 7 to split up some kindling
and feather sticks and we will go ahead and
do some shaving for tinder as well so stick
with me and we will get going.
Ok guys so here we have got a nice big chunk
of wood as you can see this is right where
the Y was in a tree it has some knots in it
and all of that kind of stuff so this is definitely
not a perfect piece of wood. it is going to
take a little bit to beat down through it.
with that lets go ahead and get going. This
is kind of what I am saying is that you can
see how there is plenty of blade length leftover
and you can get a good forearm or bigger chunk
of wood and you still have plenty of blade
length left to actually hit the baton with.
and that really makes life a lot easier and
keeps you from having glancing blows and stuff
like that and it just works well for split
wood fires.
Like I said this is going to be a tough piece!
There we go.
Alright so it made pretty easy work of that.
LOL. sort of.
Get a bigger beater stick!
The Ontario RAT 7 survival knife can definitely
take some abuse!
Alright no problems with that. Lets see how
it does with splitting up some of the smaller
kindling and that kind of thing.
It does good. The point is actually thin enough
to actually penetrate through that wood and
helps with the twist splitting a little bit.
Even on some bigger pieces the Ontario RAT
7 knife does well as well.
Alright so it seems to do OK, as far as the
kindling goes. Now lets see if we can get
some feather sticks out of this.
Ok, so I think it does a pretty awesome job
at making feather sticks. The blade profile
is thin enough that it actually allows you
to get down there and you can make some pretty
nice little curls so that is kind of nice.
The other thing is that having that longer
blade allows you to kind of grab this other
side and control the Ontario RAT 7 Survival
Knife blade as you are going on down and doing
your feather sticks. So 
that is good too. Definitely seems to have
good controllability and puts out some nice
feathery curls.
Now we will go ahead and do some real fine
curls with this one.
Ok, and it does a pretty good job on the finer
curls as well.
Now lets go ahead and do some shavings.
See I am holding 90 degrees to the stick.
OK, so the Ontario RAT 7 survival knife actually
makes really really good heartwood shavings
as well.
Again like I have said a couple of times that
is just the benefit of having a bigger blade
like this with a nice and wide blade. You
can grab it and use it almost like a draw
knife with 2 hands.
The Ontario RAT 7 knife just has a really
good blade profile for the wilderness survival
type stuff.
Ok, guys so that was a real quick look at
the Ontario RAT 7 Survival knife. Like I said
I have owned this for about a year or so and
I just haven't had a chance to get it out
here in the woods a whole lot.
But I got to do a little testing with it today
and in that other video as well where I was
cutting down a tree with the Ontario RAT 7
knife without an axe or a saw or anything
like that just by battoning through it.
As far as a rating goes on the Ontario RAT
7 Survival Knife goes I have to say I think
it is about a 9.5 out of 10 stars.
If I was going to add or change anything about
this survival knife I probably would only
change is that I would want a smoother finish
on the blade. I don't like the rough textured
edges on the finish. It just holds all of
the crap in it.
With time the finish will wear off and that
isn't that big of a deal.
Other than that I might put a few finger grooves
where they match your hand right down here
inside the handle. But again that is a pretty
small thing.
Overall I think the Ontario RAT 7 is a very
solid and if you are looking for a larger
wilderness survival type blade I think this
one is definitely going to do it for you.
For the bigger cutting tasks and battoning
down through stuff and it is also going to
work for the smaller fine feather sticks and
carving and that kind of thing. SO not too
bad at all!
Anyway the blade is plenty big enough and
strong enough and durable enough that you
could also dig with it you could chop through
Ice and that kind of thing. It has a pretty
fine edge on it though so if you do those
kind of things, you can expect to have to
straighten up the edge. because it is not
going to be a super durable edge because it
is a thinner profile blade at 3/16".
I will throw in all of the specifications
as well so you guys can take a look at that
too but overall my impression is that the
Ontario RAT7 is a very solid knife and think
it will work great in a wilderness survival
type setting it could also work good on a
War belt or tactical belt or something along
those lines.
The Ontario RAT 7 survival knife is a pretty
solid knife all of the way around.
Anyways guys as always I certainly appreciate
when you click the thumbs up button and when
you share it with your friends on Facebook
twitter and google plus.
And don't forget the 6 Ps. Proper Prior Preparation
Prevents Poor Performance. Stay safe guys.
Let me know in the comments below what knife
in this style category, the 7 inch size blade
is your favorite blade.
Take it easy guys.
