The guard serves its purpose, which is to keep your hand from sliding forward.

However, the guard is not sturdy enough to stand up to the "hard use" that we expect out of scrap yard blades. Batoning is the most obvious place the res-c guard could be damaged, but many other tasks could do so as well - digging and prying and carving up car doors - all of these are places where the unsupported guard could be easily chewed into nothing.


And I've just gotta <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> at the "right tool for the job" excuse. If we were only using the right tool for the job, we wouldn't buy extremely hard use knives like those from scrap yard in the first place. Dan wouldn't have had to demonstrate that the 154cm on the mud puppy could be hammered into a pipe without damage, if these things were supposed to be limited to the "right tool for the job".

Unless you're doing nothing with your regulator but slicing veggies or sticking it in a safe, you're likely to come across a task that could easily damage the poorly designed and implemented guard.


And tell me, what exactly *IS* the right job for the regulator, hmm? I sure don't plan on killing too many people any time soon, so what job should I be using a huge, obscenely thick Bowie knife for, if not chopping and splitting wood? Surely you don't expect me to believe that Dan is offering a dedicated fighting knife, and anyone who doesn't stab people should be making it a safe queen?