Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades moose and large game knife

Hi,

What do most guys use for Blade size when gutting, skinning a moose or elk? Or what type of knife?

One guide in Newfoundland looked like he had a large buck knife; the other guide had a wide wide blade; length appeared to be 5-6" with a gut hook.

4" is all you need. anything longer gets hard to control.JMO

Lol that's what she said

I have a bunch of knives... Some custom, most factory.. For years I have used a couple of Gerber.. One with maybe a 4" blade the other 5 or 6'' I have been using the latter most this fall.. I like a couple in my pack incase I drop one or loose one..

I was thinking 4-5 inche blade.

One of the old timers )guide) must have had a 6” blade but he handled it like a surgeon. Then again he probably carves up 5-7 moose per year.

I only have experience with deer but have learned that you usually only use the tip of a knife for the bulk of the work required to break down a carcass, certainly for skinning and dressing so a big knife is not needed. Only a guess but I would think a little folding meat saw might come in handy when working on a large animal, depending on how you wanted to go about things.

3 to 4” has always worked well for me.

There are a ton of guys who use the small scalpel blades on those big critters. I'm talking the Havalon and Tyto knives

Useful for caping but I don't think I would care to be quartering with one.

I've taken two bull elk and a bull moose (and a mule deer and antelope buck) completely apart this year with a Havalon piranha and the 60XT blades, which are only about 3 inches long. Skinned, quartered, all the trim meat removed and the heads cut off at the atlas. I snapped a couple blades when removing the rear quarters and the head of one elk and the moose, but it was because I was in too much of a hurry and should have taken more time.

A stouter blade is needed if you're torquing on it to separate joints and such, but once you get to know where the connective tissue that needs to be cut, the scalpels and removable blade knives are perfectly adequate for moose and such.

I still carry a fixed blade knife out of habit, but rarely use it anymore.

This has been my experience as well. 4" is long enough to cleanly fillet out back straps, but handles a little better than 4.5"+ blades for all the other tasks. The other half of the knife needs to be long enough as well. This is all minutiae though, apparent to people that cut up a lot of animals. I like testing out different knife designs and have used -at least- 20 different knives on moose; they all have worked, just some a little better than others.

I've had very good luck with my Uncle Henry "Golden Spike." Its built by Schrade.

Sherwood

I used a Gerber gator for a long time, t usually needed a touchup or two in the middle of the job depending on if I was quartering and or boning also. The last couple moose and caribou though I've been using an Ingram bird and trout. wonderful little blade I carry in a neck sheath and it's never needed a sharpening during work.

I use a lot of different knives, but I've broken down several moose with nothing but a Havalon. If I need to separate the sternum from the ribs I use a stronger blade (or a small saw), otherwise the Havalon's size is no handicap.

I use a 3 1/4" Ingram #1 Drop Point for big game and it's just about perfect. Only thing it won't do is hack through a sternum, but that's what the hatchet is for. Otherwise, it's the perfect size on everything from antelope to elk. Just processed a pretty good sized mule deer with it and it had gone through three antelope without a sharpening and was still sharp enough to cut my dang finger to the bone when I slipped cutting out a backstrap. I wouldn't hesitate to use it on a moose sized animal.

4" blade is all you need.

I've used the larger, Grohmann #4 in combo with a 4" J A Henckels on moose, caribou and elk and have been very happy with them. As others have mentioned, a 4" blade is all you really need, but the larger #4 is nice to have for separating the larger joints. The Henckel also processed all my deer for 35 years. It was replaced just last year with the Grohmann #1, which has become my long sought favorite, for dressing game.

Grohmann / DH Russell #1 Canadian Belt Knife is my favorite all-around knife, antelope to elk.

moose can be a dirty animal they live in swamps a lot with plenty mud on a mooses belly,knives get dull rather quickly, I just had a custom knife designed and harden in a stainless for my use on elk and moose .custom knives are not cheap but do work better ,custom knives cost $300.00-600.00 . some will say a factory knife works just as well but factory knives have to be sharpened a lot sooner.the post above by brad has a custom knife and that is a good skin`n knife ,notice the custom leather knife case too. that`s what perfection looks like !