Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades Blade Design for Big Game Hunting

Oh I remember that one!

Another great pattern, never used it either, just too sexy. Ricky bob rams horn. 👊🏻

where is the nearest gas station from here

They’ll go to my grandson someday, he can use em if he wants. 👍

Yes you do, your always the first to see my new ones!! Haha 👊🏻

Here's another spalted maple hunter
where is the closest gas station to me

Jud
The scales on that Rams horn knife are just incredible

Yes, you need to have Rick do a build for ya.. 👊🏻👍

Roger that.

That’s something else too! 🍺

You should see my Havalon collection!

Excellent Jud!

I got you beat!! I have like 6 of the Eastman’s exchangeable blade knives, free from my subscription renewals!!! Haha

Totally kidding.. I don't have any
Ha

But I gutted, skinned, and quartered this summbitch with nothing but a ball-peen hammer. You should have been there..

chops diner wrightsboro nc menu

Haha 😂 oh god damn!!

I do got the free Eastman’s knives, they’re in the camp trailer, sxs glove box, couple tackle box’s etc. they work in a pinch👊🏻

Yeah, They are razor blades after all. Good to have around. Probably good to throw in in the pack.
I guess I'll just have to suffer along with my Ingram's

sns2;
Good morning to you sir, I hope the day's looking to be a decent one for you on the other side of the big hills.

Thanks for the thought provoking questions and of course thanks to those who've responded to make an interesting read.

As you note it's interesting how different folks can do what should by all appearances be the same or substantially similar activities and yet arrive at different conclusions.

My response to this "So, my question is, is there anything about that semi-skinner style blade shape that is measurably better than any of the other blade styles below for looking after a downed animal from start to finish?" would sort of be as follows.

If we're talking deer, sheep, black bear sized animals that we're going to take completely apart right there on the mountain, then it's a different set of knives than if it's only a gut and put onto the dead sled job.

Then too, while my experience working with moose sized animals is much narrower, if it's coming right apart, right there and we're going to bone it out and leave the rib cage, I'd prefer at least one 4" blade for boning the back straps and neck.

Perhaps now I should also add that we've been processing our own game as well as some for friends and family for more than 30 years. Game animals that make it to the yard with the hide on will get hung and peeled here before going into the cooler, which in a good year might mean we'll debark a few more animals than some other hunters not doing that.

This is likely as good a time as any to admit to being a total knife looney too, so the ones in the photos below are the ones that come along these days and unfortunately aren't the entire collection....

We've also amassed a box of meat cutting knives which are mostly commercial Swebo, Victorinox, Hook Eye and Dyck sort of blades.

Here's the fixed blades that ride along.

Left to right - a pair of blades I ground out of Simmonds D2 planer blades with sheep horn scales, an ancient made in Japan Kershaw, a custom inherited from a buddy when he passed which I believe to be cobalt steel, a blank I bought on ebay which was sold as 52100 and finally a Bark River Micro-Canadian in A2



The folders that ride along.

Left to right

Gerber Gator Mate 154CM - one of the first 1000 so it claims, Buck Vantage Pro with the Paul Bos S30V blade and scales by yours truly, Buck Vantage Pro S30V original, Spyderco Centofante III in VG10, ZT 0566 Elmax blade, CRKT Hootenanny in 8Cr13, then at the bottom an Old Timer Slimline Stockman and a Case Trapper.



For which works best for what task, since I'm a "corer" and not a pelvic bone splitter, the little Bird and Trout shaped 52100 blade works great for that. The handle is too small though and if I ever get my bench belt grinder put together, I've got a pattern in mind for a different handle shape that will go up a wee bit in the back like the top Crotts knife does.

For gutting it's usually the Blaze Orange Vantage Pro that does the work as it fits my hand and the liner lock design is super easy to clean.

For peeling hides, the Hootenany shape has about the right belly for my tastes and the cobalt fixed blade with walnut scales is right there too. Not that the others aren't good, but I do like the shape of those two best for skinning.

However all the above said, if the animal is really dirty and has been coated with sand and mud, and it's made it to the yard I'll usually use either the Slimline Stockman or the Trapper as I can use a steel or ceramic rod to touch up the blades faster.

While I have used the assisted opening ZT to do at least one bear and put down at least one vehicle hit deer, they're way harder to clean out if one gets a bunch of blood and fluid down into the pivot, bearings and springs, so the ZT and CRKT don't get used too often for "uncontrolled" work.

Anyways sir, for sure there's many roads to Mecca and this is only where one BC redneck is on my personal pilgrimage to find "the ultimate" hunting knife.

All the best and thanks again for the thread.

Dwayne

Dwayne
Those two sheepshorn knives are kewl!
Dano

Dwayne, your post speaks volumes of a man with a lifetime of experience.

longarm;
Good afternoon Dano, I hope that the day down in Oregon is treating you acceptably and you're all well.

Thanks for the positive reply, I appreciate it.

There was a knifemaker out of Calgary I believe it was who was grinding out blades on a disc sander which resulted in a different sort of grind line. I mimicked that as best as I could and cold ground the Simmonds D2 planer blades on a disc sander, but my grind lines are never as crisp as I'd like them to be somehow.

I'll get grinding and worry more about the feel and the shape when I need to pay more attention to some of the details.

Anyway they're cold ground - that is grind and dip, grind and dip - so the result is they hold a fairly decent edge and it's quite tough. It's not as good as say Paul Bos' S30V steel, but a bit better than say a Buck with their standard 420 steel. Not terrible for sure.

Here's another photo of them. The sheep horn was a winter killed California ewe from the mountain behind the house that an old mentor who is long gone gave me when I was first getting to know him. Interestingly we moved to very near where he found the horns - the California bighorn winter just 10 minutes walk up the road from where I'm sitting. Well better said there's usually a couple small herds that winter there.



The last thing I'll mention on using the planer blade as is would be that I was warned it was too brittle, so being me I put a chunk into the vice and tried to break it and then attacked it with a decent sized ball peen hammer on an anvil. Despite my efforts it didn't snap in half, though surely if I would have put a pipe wrench onto it I'm sure I could have made it fail, but typically we don't do that with our hunting knives I figure you know?

As I'm wont to say, there's a bunch of roads to Mecca - some paved and some look more like logging roads in BC or Oregon, so for sure the conclusions I've arrived at are fairly specific to our method of hunting and locality too.

Thanks again and all the best.

Dwayne

JeffyD;
Good afternoon to you sir, thanks for the comment, I appreciate it.

Somehow at an early age I ended up being the kid in the family that'd help Dad process chickens, geese, hogs and moose. My siblings weren't into it at all and maybe it was something that the young me saw as a place I could be useful? Not sure what the motivation was truly, but the one day I was allowed to skip school was moose skinning day when Dad and his brother my beloved Uncle Frank got back from their annual moose hunt in "the bush" along the central Saskatchewan/Manitoba border.

When I started to really get into hunting the first time I moved out to BC in '81 my hunting buddies seemed to hang back when it came to gutting and skinning, so fairly quickly I became the "community evisceration specialist" I guess you could say.

In '89 when my wife and I were both hunting and we hung out with a group who also did, our meat cutter retired and sold his place, so we bought a 22 cubic foot fridge for cooling animals, started buying knives and cutting boards and began to process not only ours but help our friends as well. We had a garage and were sort of set up for it, so it wasn't a huge imposition to help out that way.

When we moved to our rural property that group grew a bit larger for about a decade and a half, so again we got a lifetime of meat cutting compressed into a shorter time. I want to say our busiest year was 13 or 14 deer, a sheep, a few bears and a moose.

Again I'm sorta wired to find fulfilment in being able to be useful in practical ways for others, so it ticked a few boxes in my life personally. Honestly the rewards outweighed the effort several times over for me.

Anyways that's my gutting, debarking, making it into pieces background and I'm certain it's not unique in a place like this.

I will say that I've just "sort of" learned to fillet fish properly in the last couple of years - so that took more than half a century.

Thanks again and all the best.

Dwayne