I had one of these knives. Rather than trying to tell you why you should pick this or that knife I will try and answer your question as best as possible. This is my opinion only from actually having owned and used the knife.

Good points
- excellent for chopping and slashing for its length(as intended)

- excellent for digging and scraping

- very strong tip

- good for light prying as the blade is fairly thick

- strong handle which fits the hands well(like all ka-bars do)

-excellent price

bad points
-the sheath sucks IMHO. It needs re-enforcing grommets to prevent the blade from slicing through between the stitching. Don't hold the sheath with one hand while you draw the knife unless you are paying attention. I think a hard sheath would be better suited to this knife.

- The finish wears off really fast with solid use. I hate black finishes but that is user preference.
- Its a bit too short for chopping some larger stuff. I know its not supposed to be an axe but for someone like me I use my heavy knife as if it were. An option of different blade lengths would be nice(like the cold steel kukri machete offers)This may have changed.

- The hand guards get in the way sometimes(personal preference once again)

- the pommel is kind of hard to use with the blade being so heavy. Using the back of the blade as a hammer works better for driving stakes etc but is does nick the metal a bit. You can actually drive a good sized nail easily like this. I use tools hard so I am more concerned with how it works over how it looks but other people fret about appearances. To each their own.

- If you get gasoline on the handle it will get all gooey. Not an issue for most people

- the edge tends to chip in extreme cold if you make it too fine. If you keep to a lower working edge then it will not be an issue. I haven't seen it chip in warm weather even with a fine edge.

These are only observations I made about the knife. I ended up replacing it with the Cold steel kukri machete for larger work or the Gerber LMF II as a light backpacking camp knife for my own reasons but the ka-bar camp knife when used hand in hand with a smaller blade for detailed work is a good choice. If you could ONLY have one knife then I would feel confident that this knife could handle most tasks with reasonable ease, even if I would go with something smaller.

As for fighting off Cougars or bears I think anyone who would buy a knife based off of those criteria will be in for one hell of a dose of reality should they ever happen across one. I guess a knife is better than a fist but I wont buy a fighting style knife in the delusion that I may be able to actually have a real chance fighting a bear with one.

What ever floats a persons boat I guess.