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A CRKT A G Russell designed Ringer 1 neck knife with factory Kydex Sheath

Actually they won't quite do the same thing.



And to make you even more contrary, I don't carry two knives, I carry three.....this one in the pack.



Just don't want to be without a knife or a means to make a fire, have 3 of those too!!

max

I am with you on the fire. Not sure why you want a block and blade, but I am OK with that. Guess my needs are different. What is of more value, the blade or the shed?

Heck, I've prolly got 4 or 5 little pocket knives on me on any given day when not hunting...

Greg,

What's the ONE knife that you pack? I'm just curious, my Irish ass isn't even picking a fight here.

Dan,

I doubt I have the "best" knife, but this is the one I have in the pack. I am not worried about breaking it or losing it.
http://www.cadcutlery.com/boning/40514.jpg

No worries, you can start a fight....at the end of the day it is just an opinion. We are all smarter than hell.

I'm sure I could get by with just one, probably could get by with one arrow to but I like options.

Now that is just silly...but you know that.

Over the years I've had a lot of knives that I've used. I'm not a knife junkie by any stretch. I guess I've always been looking for one that can "do it all"

For years, I had a fixed blade Gerber that was about a 4" blade, real traditional drop point pattern. I couldn't even tell you how many critters that thing took apart. It was heavy, but it touched up easy on a Lansky crock stick (the gray ones) Which is probably why still to this day I keep a gray crock stick in my possibles. I usually rob one out of a Lansky "sharp box" and put the green ends on it from one of the shorter "dogbone" pocket sharpeners. Anyhow, my brother had one JUST like it, we bought them both within a month of each other (sibling one-upsmanship be damned, it was a good [bleep] knife) Well, he lost his, and I gave him mine because I work a lot of OT and it gave me a reason to spend money.

So I wound up with one of these....

it reminded me a lot of that Gerber I gave away, and some really smart guy on the internet said D2 was GREAT steel. I hate the [bleep]... There's no touching it up in the field, and after two critters taken apart with it, I KNOW it doesn't hold an edge any better than vastly inferior steel. The Kydex sheath was a prototype my brother made that didn't work out, but having a grey crock stick in the sheath, and a way to utilize it safely is still a GREAT idea.

Then, I got ahold of this'un. I'm actually surprised that Jim Riley isn't famous on the Interwebs too. In NW Montana he's the local version of Gene Ingram. He used to work for Track Knives when they were in Whitefish. Anyhow, my employer (Plum Creek) buys them a dozen at a time and then gives them out (after lazer engraving) for employees that get an attaboy. I LOVE this knife, but it's 8 ounces and I'm afraid to [bleep] it up. I'm actually thinking I need to get ahold of Jim and get pretty much the same knife, but lighter, and not presentation grade. Rumor is, he uses planer blades from the mill for the company knives... It ain't no super steel, but two other guys I know that own them say they can use it to get a whole elk on a pack horse and still shave with it once they get back to town.
I love that knife...

Then, there's Spyderco Delica #2 of mine. #1 I bought right after I graduated high school. I had it for over a decade and inside several dead animals and various other [bleep] until I went hunting with Travis. I used it to bone out an antelope buck in his garage, and left it on the bedrail of my truck. It wound up in somebodies truck tire I'm sure. But #2 is VG10 instead of AUG6 steel. I actually like the steel in #2 better. Again, it's no super steel, but you can actually make it sharp without an excorcism.


Then, there's New School.... A gift from Biatholonman here on the Campfire. What better way to thank a couple guys for taking you into The Bob bowhunting than buying them knives (Bro Ed has one too) Last year it replaced my Spyderco in my kit. Just for [bleep] and giggles, I used it to turn my last weekend deer into meat. From start to finish, gutted, skinned, and butchered. I had to touch it up 5-6 times. It loves gray Lansky Crock Sticks. Plus, it makes fire, and provides redundancy there in my kit, completely free of charge to it's end user. These are a damn good knife, and well worth the money...
I hacked the belt clip off since I never use it. I just KNOW that somebody is going to make a Kydex sheath for it that holds and allows use of a gray crock stick, and maybe even has a striker for the firesteel (I hate using the back of the knife to make sparks, I'm a safety guy at work) and with a couple chicago screws it could even be a neck knife "survival kit" for the Rambo types. Hell, hide a needle and heavy nylon thread in it, and a couple fish hooks and everybody and their mother would buy one.

For backpacking, it's likely going to be my Fireknife and the new guy. Or maybe my Riley and the Fireknife? I do know that on my woodsbumming backpack trips the Fireknife is ALWAYS in my possibles. Fishing backpack trips, the RSK MK5 will be along just to gut trout.



So there you have it... My ramblings on knives that will be read by very few, even though I have real world experience. Remember that what steel it's made out of and how much money it cost is far cooler than how useful it is. If you can afford genuine Mastadon Ass-Bone and steel that takes a week of grinding and sacrificing a goat under a full moon at high tide, you'll be cooler than everybody else on the Interwebs.

Greg, you're the smartest [bleep] I've ever met

I really do mean that.

I figured you're "Go To" was at least a 400 dollar cutter




I'll never give up the two knife approach. I usually have my "game knife" and then my "thrash knife" I routinely use a knife around camp for chores like turing grouse breasts into fajitas, or tenderloins out of something dumb enough to catch an arrow or get shot. Then there's scraping fatwood to make a fire, or turning big chinks of wood into kindling in the morning for the stove with a baton.

In the evening, poring over maps and touching up knives is a ritual of mine that runs deeper than drinking whiskey.

Yeah, I thought about everybody had some kind of "thrash knife" or pocket knife for the myriad of tasks one uses a knife for during the day....Swiss Army knives or multi-tools are an even more versatile option for such uses.

True,

But a Letherman is heavier than a guilty conscience.

mtmiller.....yep, I have other blades that are theoretically better and lighter, but this is a custom blade that I further customized to fit me and it is just "comfortable". 1095 carbon and holds an edge better than any knife I have. So when I reach for a knife to take, this one always gets the nod. I just trust this knife. Something other than logic.

max

I usually carry a Havalon Piranta and a half dozen blades for it, a Leatherman Charge with the different screwdriver bits(actually needed them last year when my buddies ring screws came out, nothing like sighting in a rifle in the backcountry! ) and I always have my multi purpose Spyderco Delica with me. Heavy? worth it? YES!!

They call it a skinning knife but I've never tried one. Have you ever skinned an elk with it? How well did it work?

That's slick. 1 more item to the lengthy wish list.

Amen to that. I've got a Benchmade mini-Grip, a Victorinox Tinker, and a Leatherman Micra in my pockets right just sitting at my desk in an office building and there's a Mora fixed blade in the bag with my laptop over in the corner. I can't imagine going in the woods, much less hunting with just 1 knife. It just ain't right.

I wish Adair had a backup knife the day he shot that antelope.

I only carry one knife more times than not.



Travis

Holy [bleep]!!! I haven't laughed this hard in years....

That was supposed to be a 200' trip over the next hill to see if the goats were down in a hole. Not 5 miles of walking and sneaking.

Believe me, I wished I had my Crewcab on. I would've stuck 4 quarters, backstraps and a skull in there and we'd been an hour closer to beer.

Hunts like that, I rarely have more than one knife...

It's once there's camping out of a backpack involved that I take two.