It's very light weight for it's size. Everyone who ever asked to see/handle it remarked on how light it is. I could never carry it comfortably in regular clothes but it was a perfect fit for the sap pocket. Honestly, a big part of my motivation for carrying such a large blade were the reactions (smiles, "whoa's!", laughter, Crocodile Dundee references, etc...) I got from people. Almost without exception they were positive, especially from kids when they saw see me use it to cut fingerprint tape, crime scene tape, or whatever. I actually kind of started a small trend of fellow deputies carrying large Cold Steel knives at a couple different stations at which I worked. It wasn't many, maybe three or four (we have 2000+ personnel), but I'm still happy to have introduced some people to the wonderfull world of ridiculously large Cold Steel knives!
No rationale was offered, though it's certainly concern over public image and not wanting the public to perceive the knife as a weapon. It's actually a very good idea to have policies on authorized equipment, especially something that most would consider a weapon. A coworker who was on the commitee that wrote the knife policy told me he thought of me when they decided on the size of the knife, so my carrying such a large knife may have contributed to restricting the authorized blade length. Our old policy said something to the effect of "may carry a folding knife with a blade capable of being locked in the open postion", so it was really broad. And while people may think a 4 inch blade is still a big knife, we are limited to 8 inches in overall knife length, so if one opts to carry a folder (which is 99.99% of us), the blade actually has to be UNDER 4 inches in length to fit in the handle. My Griptillian fits the policy size perfectly as it's overall length is 8 inches, even though the blade is under 4 inches in length. The Grip is a completely adequate knife, but I do miss carrying my X2 pocket sword......
