Ontario Rat-3

I just got mine yesterday from Cumberland Knife Works. The ergos are great, good factory edge, and the grey crinkle-textured blade coating is really cool. The fit and finish are also very good considering the cost of this knife. I haven't really put it to any real use besides paper, cardboard, etc. yet, but it seems like it's going to be an impressive little knife. :D
 
Hello,

i'm Michael from Germany and i got my RAT-3 today. The first thing i did was to take some pictures of this great little knife. Hope you like them.

CENSORED

The website the pix are on is now password-protected, and the persistent password popup was making this thread difficult to read. -Cougar :{)
 
thanks for the picts.. was thinking about getting one.. let us know how it performs!!
 
Anyone know if this model will be available in 1095?
I like that a lot.
 
Thanks for the comments.

I doubt we will ever make the RAT-3 in 1095. Due to the knife size there's just not that much cost saving to do it in 1095. With that said I know a lot of people prefer 1095 due to the characteristics of the steel, not just the cost factor. So, who knows, we may eventually do a 1095 version but it's not on the idea table at the moment.

We have been extremely impressed with the popularity the new RAT-3 has received since it first started shipping about a month ago. It was recently chosen as the official carry knife by a fairly high-speed group of folks. Not trying to sound spooky about this because it will eventually get out but I thought it was pretty cool that they have decided to go with our knife.

Jeff
 
OwenM said:
Anyone know if this model will be available in 1095?.
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As a small utility knife steel D2 tends to work really well, assuming a decent hardness. Why would you want 1095 over D2 in that size of knife? It looks a bit light to be a heavy beater.

Blade looks solid, same shape as the Howling Rat, handle design has positive and negatives in comparison. The Howler works better for heavy power cutting, and that style is better for precision work, especially in side grips.

Assuming it is 1/8" stock it is a different class of blade though. The Howling Rat is really heavy duty for its size. I'd prefer no index finger on that class of blade though , I like the way Boye grinds them :

http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/images/boye-hunter-side.jpg

The Deerhunter is an exception piece in that class range as well, as is the Mora 2000 per dollar. Nice design anyway, just function, no speed holes.

-Cliff
 
Cliff,

Not sure how you extrapolate a comparison of knives when you have never handled the RAT-3? I have been surprised many times by the difference between pictures and actual use.

Let's all be polite, and try to keep this thread on subject about the RAT-3 shall we? :D
 
Brian Jones said:
Not sure how you extrapolate a comparison of knives when you have never handled the RAT-3?
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Because I have used similar ones, shapes themselves have properties independnt of the hand who crafted it, which is why I said that style.

Of course you learn through use, and the more you use the more you learn, especially when you compare the knife to others.

-Cliff
 
This is the reason I rarely post here. No matter what, Cliff will always try to compare any knife to a Swamp Rat or Busse whether he's handled the knife or not.

With that said, I really like Swamp Rat and Busse products. They make an exceptionally good knife that I would not be afraid to take anywhere I haunt in this world. Eric Issacson (Swamp Rat) and I had some pleasurable conversation at Blade and I think the guy is about as honest as the day is long and interested in making something his customer can rely on. I HIGHLY recommend their knives to anyone.

However, this doesn't mean that ANY maker or manufacurer is the "end-all" or the ultimate benchmark for others to be compared.

Our philosophy is really quite simple: We build a good knife for the dollars spent. We make no claim to building the "best" knife. Our customer service is second to none. We fix our mistakes, we answer emails, phone calls, and other inquiries, and we stand behind what we promise.

Cliff has made it appear on some threads here that our defect rate is extremely high. Nothing is further from the truth. Every month I do the matrix for our line which includes every knife that is sold around the world, the rep that sold it, the dealer that sold it, and the return rate due to defects or ANY other reason. Now, either all these defects are not being reported or our defect rate is EXTREMELY low for the thousands of knives we sell on a monthly basis. For example, over the last 2 months we have had zero returns or problems.

Ontario RAT knives has a presence on the internet at www.ontariorat.com Any customer or dealer can call the numbers listed or email us with any complaint and it will be dealt with in very short order. Better yet, my personal home phone # is 256.570.0175 so if anyone has any problems they may call me at home and it will be dealt with.

I know this has gotten off topic and for that I apologize, but being that I rarely post here I did want to set the record straight about Ontario RAT knives.

I would also like to thank all of you for the past support and for believing in our product. Over the past few years Ontario RAT has created a huge following which includes outdoorsman, military, LEOs, and collectors. We will continue to support these people with a good product at a fair price. Every customer, no matter how big or small, is (and has always been) equally important to us.

Best regards,

Jeff Randall
Ontario RAT Knives
 
R.A.T. said:
Cliff will always try to compare any knife to a Swamp Rat or Busse whether he's handled the knife or not.
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Pointless exaggeration, I use lots of knives as common reference points, in the above post I actually I referenced four other knives, the Howling Rat, Mora 2000, Deerhunter and hunter from Boye, all for specific reasons.

The Howling Rat has the same blade shape in a more robust pattern, the Deerhunter is a more focused cutting tool, the Boye Hunter lacks the index finger cutout and has a similar blade and grip, and the Mora is a similar puukko styled blade.

Cliff has made it appear on some threads here that our defect rate is extremely high.
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I have used two machetes, one survival bowie, one bolo, khukuri, marine raider bowie and RTAK. Every one was defective in some way, some minor, some severe, the khukuri was even ground the wrong way with the edge thicker than the spine.

Reports of failures on the RTAK were common when they first came out, the edges were blowing out just chopping woods. How many Becker Combat bowies have suffered the same problems chopping wood? In comparion isn't the failure rate for Ontario massively high?

Really cheap knives also have low return rates because of costs. It would cost me more to return the machetes than to actually just buy new ones. Plus isn't the flood of such reports going to influence demanding users away from them cutting down on the return rate even if the quality remained exactly the same.

-Cliff
 
I knew I should have made this other point clear in my previous post: We had a couple of RTAKs overseas that broke. One was actually broke from prying sideways which was told to us by the user. The user DID NOT ask for a replacement and said that it was his fault. Anyway to make a long story short, we shipped both customers new RTAKs and DID NOT ask that they return the knives. The way we had it figured is it would cost the customer too much to return them and the breakage was not the fault of one of the users. In fact, my words exactly to the customer were: "Grind what's left of the old RTAK into a shorter knife and keep it." To take this further, there have been several occasions we have asked that the user send the knfie back so we could check heat treat. When I do that I always ask them to let me know how much the shipping charges are and I will refund that to them. I have yet to have a customer take me up on that offer, but it still stands today.

To your other point: Becker makes a GREAT knife and Ethan is a personal friend of mine. I have seen both a 7 and 9 break in South America. I don't know if the customers sent them back but they broke doing some very hard (abusive) work.

Jeff
 
BTW 7k7k99

The link that was posted to Knife Outlet is a dated photo of the sheath (my fault since we were running behind on getting sheaths in stock). Below is the actual sheaths available for the RAT-3. They come with a TekLok and boot clip and can be configured left-hand, right-hand, horizontal, or vertical. Also makes a good neck knife by removing all the retention devices and putting a cord through the bottom holes. The sheaths will also fit the Blade-Tech drop holster if someone wants to carry the knife beside their pistol.

sheath-group.jpg


Here's the RAT-3 carried on a drop holster:

1-8.jpg
 
Please Cliff....point us to concrete evidence of the "frequency of the reports..." Anything else is just hearsay and falsehoods.

Your comparison of the Howling Rat and the RAT-3 in your initial post here is of no value. It may be very true, since Busse/Swamprat knives rock'n'roll in every way. However, you could not possibly make the comparison statement above and have any credibility in this particular instance. Sorry. Try again.

Respectfully,

~Brian.
 
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Hi,
I had one of these RTAKs that broke during chopping. After mentioning this in the RAT discussion forum, Jeff had a new one immediately shipped to me. When it arrived, I had to pay quite a lot of taxes, which I wasn´t very happy about. After informing the sales department of Ontario, they told me they had no possibility to influence these taxes. Still they apologized and sent me a TAK 1 for free. I´d say, that this is more than an excellent service. You will find no better.
The Ontario knives I use now did withstand quite a lot of abuse and are still in perfect condition.

Best regards,
Markus
 
I am unaware of how anyone could make anything approaching an accurate statement on frequency of return rates unless you are an employee of Ontario Knife Company and have access to internal records. I suspect that ALL knife companies have some returns due to product failure. If I really did not like a particular company or person due to personnal reasons , not the product, then I could likely say anything I wished to try and demonize that company through wildly inaccurate statements and unproveable 'facts'. No experiment or comparison is going to have an honest result when you start it with a preconceived answer no matter what. For those that work that way I'll quote Sandra Day O'Conner's reading of a piece: "Put your hand in a bucket of water up to the wrist then draw it out quickly. Look at the water where your arm was. The size of the hole left in the water from your arm is about how much you matter to us." :):)

Fortunately I haven't met a company yet in this industry I didn't like no matter whether I thought their company was mediocre or producing at the top. Jerry Busse, Ethan Becker, Ken Onion, Trace Rinaldi,..and many more of ours peers in the industry along with the real everyday users as well as the most 'demanding' users overseas who trust their lives everyday with our knives....these are the voices I listen to and why Jeff and I can produce a really good, affordable knife for sale.
Ya'll have a nice day and thank you very much for supporting our industry and our knives. Mike PErrin
 
Brian Jones said:
Please Cliff....point us to concrete evidence of the "frequency of the reports..."
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Search the forums and find the RTAK problems, now do a search and find the same problems with the Becker Combat Bowie, Battle Rat and Trailmaster blowing out on 2x4's and other wood work. One of these things is not like the others. My RTAK went down to under 0.015" thick behind the edge at points, you can't expect stability with that cross section in heavy wood work.

[because I have not used it]

However, you could not possibly make the comparison statement above ...
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By the same logic you can't actually design a knife, because the performance can't be bounded before protoypes and of course past experience is useless as it is obiously on different knives. R&D would consist of just coming up with random shapes. Do you actually contend any of the points made? Do you think Ontario would support the D2 RAT-3 as a more robust knife than the SR101 Howling Rat?

In regards to the handle statements, the lack of an end hook on the RAT-2 makes it more versatile in precision cutting as it is easier to hold the knife in hand in a sideways pinch grip, for detailed carving, as well as point grip such as boning, whereas the end hook and longer overall effective grip length of the Howling Rat makes it a more suitable design for more energetic work especially hammer and other heavy grips.

-Cliff
 
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