Our party keeps a couple of 24" meat saws and spare blades in camp. They're used on elk and moose solely to split the back bone as we break halves into quarters. I have split backbones with an axe or hatchet, but results are less than surgical. Put the cutting edge against a vertebra and use another implement or club as a hammer. One hit usually splits one vertebra. With deer, pronghorn, and caribou, we can pack back/front halves, and one can get them to that state with just a pocket knife.
