I thought someone might bring up that idea bjbm, but in practice the thumb ramp seems to provide enough extra resistance to protect the handle. No, the wood doesn't close back up but there are generally enough irregularities / splinters that the ramp doesn't pass into the cavity left by the splitting wood.

I don't mean to pick at you continually, but IME a splinter will NOT stop such force. Then again, I don't experience such rotational problems when batoning.

I'm not talking about ramming into something solid and stopping it dead - I am talking about slowing the thing down enough that it isn't dragging along the res-c and carving out chunks.

Okay. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> I'll just hop off this thread here.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/chill.gif" alt="" />

I had a dream last night that the Regulator took a hog down. I have never hunted hogs with a knife, but if I did I think this is the one I would take!

You do that Jeff and we're going to change your username to Rambo jr. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Bruce, I don't have the same definition of batoning correctly as Dan does, so I can't help you there. If my blade is 10.5 inches long, I will baton logs up to about 9 inches in diameter. As long as I've got more than an inch of tip to whack with a baton, I'm good to go.

And I don't need to smack on the handle to do that.

There certainly are plenty that would support my technique - ie every fixed blade I have ever owned that isn't called "regulator" <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I have never had the handle of a knife angle up into the wood much at all while batoning. Certainly not enough to wreck a handle, even Res C.


I just push down on the handle as she drops through the wood. Sometimes you have to push hard. No sweat.