Oh give me a break, Bruce - a guy who does nothing but safe queen his knives has absolutely zero business telling ANYONE how to use their blades. The knife's design is flawed. As much as it never affects you, Scrap Yard sells hard use knives, not pretty safe queens. You think a soldier who buys a fighter knife will never use it to pry a door open or punch through ammo cans?

I think I'm with most people here in that I prefer the TT version to the improved version. But my thinking is this:

If Dan uses blade blanks that are made of thinner stock and are saber ground then that means less material. If he through hardens the blanks then it's probably more cost effective. These things will probably result in a lower price. Also, keep in mind that a lot of us dogs have been asking for a less expensive knife from the yard. Maybe this it.

I think we should take the Regulator for what it is, a fighting knife that happens to perform well as a camp knife. Just my 2 cents.

+1 on the snag free choil.

I'm with MM on modifying the handle to put on a guard. Should make a fun project.

Maybe press to fit. If you put the blade in the freezer and heat the guard it will go on easier. But this means you'd be working with VERY tight tolerances. It's something I'll have to mess around with.

You'll also have to radius the opening of the guard since the tang to blade transition is radiused.

I'll keep everyone posted if I do it.

I'm deciding whether to mod the guard myself, or buy a couple of the release versions at the discounted test team price, and use the money from selling them to pay someone to make the change that should have been made in the first place <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif" alt="" />

I've thought about having someone else do it but I'll probably just do it myself. The fact that mine is a beater now makes me less afraid to experiment.

Wilco.