Ontario Knives....

calyth

calyth

#!/bin/sh of a man
Joined
Feb 23, 2002
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I just went to visit jjcoolay (he's at the knife shop, Spyderco just replaced his knife and it was shipped to my house cause we thought they'd ship it with my Vesuvius), and I saw the Ontario knives....
:barf:
Those spec plus is the ugliest knives I've seen so far. There was the LST, Bolo, Tanto and a Bowie there, and only the Bolo and Tanto looked ok. Workmanship is pretty much not there IMO.
Then I saw the worst of them all...... the M9 Bayonet. It was evident that the burr isn't even buffed out yet. :barf: And the US Army is using these as Bayonets? *looks away*
Ugly... plain ugly.. that's all I could say.
 
I have a couple Ontario knives; A Spec-Plus Frontiersman and a Spec-Plus 8 inch Tanto, and both seem ok to me. It's true that they are not up to the quality of my SOG Trident (my favorite knife), but for the low price I paid for them, I think I got my moneys' worth, and then some...:).
 
I hear ya calyth...
The crappy part of it, is that the shop replaced Cold Steel with these Ontarios. so no more recon tantos, srks, kukris or master tantos to play with when you come by.
 
Yeah but they're cheaper and it doesn't take too much effort just to touch the edge up a little and de-burr it.

I have heard of bad heat treatments on batches of these so I'll be on the lookout for that but other than those batches they seem okay to me.

I'll withhold judgement on performance since I haven't tried one yet.
 
Well I suppose they would do ok on the performance part, but for me, the Spec plus is already bad enough, and the M9 uses this strange coating (parkerizing / black phosphorizing), and they're coming off... and the clip point... it's only ground on one side.
Well CS is OK, but I wish they would replace them with Camillus.
BOLO: who are you? you seem to work in HOK.
 
Bolo is some ass who leaves me to deal with all the irate warranty customers.:D
 
The polishing on the quarter master is not up to snuff.The coating is a a bit cheap on the other knives and the blade on the m9 was horrid.

The edge on it would make it a crime in the eyes of the Geneva convention. It is a crime under the Geneva convetion to sharpen the bayonet for fear that it would make the bayonets edge chipped, causing wounds that would not heal cleanly. The edge that it has now would probably get whoever had it in the army in trouble.
 
Thats right Cal. Another HOKer turned knife knut.

BOK-
Exactly. i couldnt say it better my self. I am an ass...well... about 1/4 ass. Mine is pretty big so it takes up that much of my body. :D

BOK is the warrenty KING. Why do you think he sometimes refers to himself as "Master BOK". It makes him feel important.
 
ummm.. what about the Ontario-Randall RTAK? Think its quite alright.. :cool:

Sam
 
Originally posted by jjcoolay


The edge on it would make it a crime in the eyes of the Geneva convention. It is a crime under the Geneva convetion to sharpen the bayonet for fear that it would make the bayonets edge chipped, causing wounds that would not heal cleanly. The edge that it has now would probably get whoever had it in the army in trouble.
Click to expand...

That don't make sense...

can you find the regulations that state that?

All I can remember is that we got a ration of crap if we didn't keep our bayonets with a nice enough edge.
 
MelancholyMutt,

I think jjcoolay was just being sarcastic about the QC;)

regards,
Glenmore
 
my hope is that sooner or later we'll carry some of them Bagwell Bowies. that will make me much happier.

jjcoolay,
you know more about me than you know... call the store on fri sat or sun while u work... Ill be there.
 
While the quaility of ontario, for the most part, is unquestionably poor. I used the same ontario f/u knife for the 8 years I was in the military, 6 months of it in DesertStorm/Shield. They are made to be used and expendable. And as far as the parkerizing, it does where off with use. It was cheap, introduced during world war 2 and did what it needed to do, cut down on glare, and provide some weather resistence. with all that said Im not a big fan of ontario, but they do work (for the most part).
 
Originally posted by icarian
MelancholyMutt,

I think jjcoolay was just being sarcastic about the QC;)

regards,
Glenmore
Click to expand...
We're not being sarcastic. We're just reporting the finish on that particular M9 that JJ got in the store. The wire edge/burr is still left on the edge, and it's folded over on either side. I have to take a ceramic steel to try to clean it up. The edge is so damn rough I doubt it will give a clean cut on paper.
I seriously hope that the RTAK would be a lot better than that. :barf:
 
I have a Spec Plus SP8 machete. I don't trust it as much as my BK&T knives. But, for a scraping, prying, digging beater to toss in a vehicle, it is fine. Nice to have in the winter and in muddy or sandy conditions.
 
I bought a Ontario Spec Plus Fighter a while back and can say it will take a beating. I've chopped through heavy wood and thrown it against a tree about 200 times without failure. This knife fails because the edge is just insanely thick. To really get any type of true cutting performance, I would have to do a lot of work on it. Most of their knives have numerous, obvious flaws...uneven grinds, etc. But, what can you expect for such a small price.

I do however really like the full size Machete Ontario makes. It cuts well, is very strong and shapens up easily.
 
Yeah I was not being sarcastic. It was a really bad edge.

Sorry, what I meant to say was the bayonet is not suppose to be jagged.


Bolo: I think I know who you are. You use to work in a store within the same area as me, correct?
 
I have one that I bought a couple of years back and it is a very nice rendition of Bill Bagwell's customs. Nowhere near as well done, but costing about 15% - 20% of what the customs cost and without the waiting period. My only reservation about mine was that the false edge had not been sharpened, but my suspicion is that that was more a question of complying with state laws against double edged dirks than anything else. Besides, it sharpens up quickly enough.
 
FullerH
thanks for the info....ill go check it out when i get a chance.

jjcoolay
dats right!...you got it...
 
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