Ontario 8604 RAT-7 Survival Knife - Tan Fixed Blade Tactical Knife for Outdoor Camping, Hunting & Bushcraft

This quickly became my favorite medium-sized fixed blade knife. It came sharp out of the box, but not as sharp as I keep my knives. Just a few minutes of work was needed to make it scary sharp. This is a truly really great knife design for the niche that it fills. It's not going to be the best knife at batoning, because it's not very heavy and it's not very thick, although it will do it easily. It's not going to be the best knife for killing zombies, because it has a thickish drop point blade, but it would get the job done. It's not going to be the best knife for chopping wood, because it isn't heavy enough and quite frankly it isn't an axe. It's not the best knife to carve a wooden fork or spoon either, it's too big. There are other knives that will do those things much better. However, if you're looking for a mid-sized camp knife that can create feather sticks like your cutting butter, grind a divot in a piece of wood, sharpen tent stakes, cut rope, trim branches, carve a notch or chop out a flat spot on a log, then this knife is one of the best around.The micarta scales are very comfortable, with good traction even when soaking wet and the knife is very well balanced in the hand, making it seem more nimble than it should for a 7 inch blade. If you're looking for a knife that looks cool and you can hang on the wall and admire, there are lots of better knives for that too. However, If you're looking for a larger camp knife, that will do it's job, take some abuse and that you won't hesitate to actually use for camp tasks because you're not afraid you'll get it all scratched up, then this is a good knife for you. It's a work horse and can be trusted.