A hole in the ice: RAK or RAT 7?

J

Joe C

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Jun 16, 2005
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There you are, thirsty in the winter, the water is under the ice. You must make a hole in the ice to get the water. Which knife will be less likely to break its tip while making a hole in the ice? A Ranger RAK or a RAT 7? Both are about the same size, 1095, 3/16" thick. Which has the stronger tip?:confused:
 
i would say the ranger hands down, i have broken two rtaks from ontario and do not trust the heat treat at all....
 
drinking ice cold water in a survival situation would bring you that much closer to hypothermia by reducing your core temp. Therefore, you'd want to heat the water.
If you have the means to heat the water, you don't need to get through the ice. You just need to gather some ice. Break off the thinner pieces near the edge and melt/boil it. If you can't do that, use the knife to scrape the ice or gather snow off if it.

In short, get the Ranger! :D
 
+1 for the ranger
Although, I never had any issues with my Rat-7. It might as hit or miss in the heat treating. I guess I was lucky too.
 
Smashing through frozen ice I would rather go with a Scrapyard Knife, nothing beats SR77 for impact resistance !!!
MtWork040.jpg
 
Make sure you use a lanyard !! The was a 'survival show' where the idiot didn't use a lanyard - if he had lost the knife in the hole he would have been in big trouble.
 
Ice is far softer than steel, even annealed mild steel. It should not pose any problems for either. The only worry would be rocks or other inclusions frozen into the ice. I have an old drywall hammer I use everyday to chop ice in the winter.

However, ice chopping is a good test for handle ergonomics, hanging onto a knife cold, wet handle under hard imapcts with numb hands will test ergonomics in a most significant way (especially if you slip!)

As to your question, I like the RAT-7, there is a review on this forum somewhere that I wrote a couple years back, actually has some ice chopping in it.

Justin of Ranger knives is great to deal with though, and I have used the heck out of an RD9, it is my "garage" knife and is basically used a prybar/woodsplitter/destroyer of things that need to be destroyed to fit in the trash knife.
 
light a fire nearby ice and throw rocks into fire once fire heats up rocks throw rocks onto ice.

pending i'm not about to die from dehydration its the fire method would be what i'd take..

interms of knife choices i'd take the ranger
 
Well, we've had a lot of opinions here...and one guy who has actually done what you are asking about. It seems to me that the RAT-7 works just fine for what you would want it to do.

Ron
 
This thread is a great example of why you need a blade you can beat on and trust under torture conditions.

I have done it many times as water has frozen and no snow is on the ground to melt. You might as well be in desert conditions.

Skam
 
Heating the water takes a lot less fuel if this is an issue. Going from solid state (ice) to liquid state (water) takes a lot of extra energy. So if fuel is scarce chop a hole in the ice.
 
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