I am generally a fan of thinner knives, as I've stated many times in the past, and yet I love the regulator, which is the second fattest blade I own. Why? Because the regulator is a fat knife done right. Just a few reasons...

-Full flat grind. When I see a big convex primary grind on a thick blade (think killa zilla), I facepalm. The knife is thick enough already, no need to push more material near the edge to ruin cutting performance. The same goes for saber grinds too, to a lesser extent. Full flat saves you weight and makes the blade a better slicer for its thickness. Unlike something like a hollow grind, however, the full flat grind is still a capable chopper and is great for batoning to split wood.

-Narrow blade profile. The blade isn't super broad (compare to, say, the Steel Heart series from Busse), and so again that cuts down on the weight significantly. In one sense, this detracts from the cutting ability, since it forces you to have a steeper grind to maintain the thickness at the spine, where a broader blade would be able to have a more shallow grind. However, on a knife this length, saving the weight is important too, so this is a good compromise IMHO. The narrow profile combined with the full flat grind also makes an outstanding splitting wedge for batoning, because it has less surface area to create friction with the logs, but lots of wedging action to force them apart.

- long clip with a tapered point. This might be the least appreciated but most beneficial part of the regulator's design. Not only doe the clip start about halfway down the blade, much earlier than many bowies, but this leads to what is effectively a taper as you approach the tip. That means that the area of the blade near the tip is quite a bit thinner than the spine at the ricasso, creating a knife that is a surprisingly good slicer when using the tip, and is also phenomenal for detailed tip work. Still, this long taper doesn't take the knife to a crazy level of thinness, so the point remains very robust, and effective for prying, drilling, and other aggressive tip work.

-Large handle with a hidden tang. This further reduces weight, and when combined with the weight dropped at the long clip point, leads to a well balanced knife. Since the handle is slightly more than a hand long, you can grab closer to the butt for chopping, to get an effectively blade heavy balance, or you can put your hand right up against the guard for detail work, ending up with a much more neutral balance. The choil isn't the most comfortable one in the world, but you can gain even further control by choking up on it for really detailed work.




The regulator has gotten such praise for good reason - it is a phenomenal hard-use all around knife. While some would disagree, I would say the Regulator is one of the most capable camp / woods / survival blades ever put out by the Yard. It is nearly the equal of the Son of Dogfather in terms of chopping and batoning, and FAR EXCEEDS the performance of the SoD in versatility for tip work and similar needs.


It looks like a fighter, it feels like a fighter, but don't let that fool you. The Regulator is a supremely well crafted survival knife that takes on all the usual survival tasks easily, while also having a few more tricks up its sleeve.