Why is the Seal and/or Tigershark better than a Kabar, or vice versa ?? I'll be "objective" since I don't really have a clue.
I'll first offer these technical details. I took a caliper to the Kabar and the blade thickness at the hilt measures 0.169". The Seal measures 0.233". The Tigershark measures 0.248". All measurements are nominal and are +/- 0.001" since I got differing values depending on exact location and personal technique.
Personally, I'm in the "thicker is better" brigade.
The second technical detail is the height of the blade at the hilt. The Kabar is 1.234" and stays that way out toward the point. The Seal is 1.093" at the hilt but gets taller toward the point, up to about 1.276" just in front of the serrations. The Tigershark is 1.191" at the hilt and gets taller to about 1.500" toward the point.
Only the Kabar has a blood groove (both sides) which reduces the blade thickness and therefore bending strength in that area during prying (yeh, so, like, who pries with their knife anyway ??).
The third technical detail I'll offer is sharpness. I just ran all three over my sharpening steel.... each then easily contributed to the deforestation of my left arm. That to me is plenty sharp.
The fourth technical detail is the pommel. On the Kabar it is a metal "plate" and can be used to pound.
The Seal and the Tigershark do NOT have a metal pommel so I wouldn't recommend pounding.
Fifth, the Kabar is lighter than the Seal. This would probably mean more hand shock when chopping with the Kabar.
And lastly for this exercise, the Kabar feels great in the hand. So does the Seal. So does the Tigershark, and even though the Tigershark weighs the most it still has great balance (other postings around the SOG Forum attest to that).
Summary: I've gotten "hooked" by thick blades, and the SOG brand in particular. Other than that, I don't know what else to say.
Cheers,
Carl