Heavy Hunter Large Game Blade

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Sam1911

Moderator Emeritus
Joined
Oct 22, 2007
Messages
34,961
Location
Central PA
This is something I did as a bit of an experiment in form. I wanted something with a deep belly, and this sort of evolved from a bushcraft blade into more of a field dressing and butchering knife.

030613047_zpsb860d74d.jpg

It is 3/16" 52100, heat treated by Lee Oates. Black Gun Kote to keep off the rust, and natural canvas micarta handles with black canvas micarta pins.

The blade is exactly 6" long and 1-7/8" at the deepest spot of the belly.

As the design developed I decided to go with a full-flat grind which lightens this up quite a bit and makes it quite slicey, rather than choppy. But the very good steel should give it a lot of toughness when pushed, I think, especially when working on a deer or elk, rather than cutting brush.

I'm curious to hear from guys who do a lot of big-game hunting if this would be a useful item to have when gutting and quartering a larger animal, for example.
 
I like the shape, and the colors. I gave my opinion on the thick spine but FFG already.
 
Sam I love your knives, but I'm trying to think how it would be used. Sure is not a skinner,I use a saw(or a hatchet if forced) for quartering ect. A true chopper is quite heavy and when the blade hits the wood that the meat is on it should be parallel like a cleaver.I think you are right about butchering something real large, which I have paid to have done mostly.What exactly did you have in mind for it's use.
 
Mr Sam;

I've harvested about 10 elk in Colorado since I moved here and started hunting big game in '78. I haven't used anything bigger than a 4" knife to slaughter and quarter any of them. A folder is adequate for the job but messy to clean up after so I do most work with a sheath knife. A knife of the size you show here is pretty nice for butchering, or preparing for the table or freezer though many use one like it for gutting/quartering without complaint so that use gets no criticism from me.
I'm getting old so I take more time in the field to cut up my game than some but I get most of the meat home even if I'm back in so far that I have to bone most of it out before I pack it on my back.
I remove any bones from my game when I package it for the freezer anyway and use an 8" slicer for that work.
 
Nice looking knife but in my experience, too big for meat chores. The old old link below shows a pic of a set that Mel Sorg jr and I worked on many years ago. We called it a camp set. 2 blades to handle all needs for caping, quartering, and butchering medium and large game. The 4.5" semi skinner is as big as I want to handle when cutting meat. Anything bigger calls for a saw or hatchet.
Just my preference, not to demean your blade or design.
http://www.angelfire.com/mn/madpoet/images/campset1.jpg
Edited to add
I own the camp set and it has been in the mountains, plains, prairies, and woodland river bottoms. These 2 knives have cut several elk, a dozen or more antelope, and over 40 deer. our goal was to design a set of two blades that could do every meat cutting chore in a remote hunting camp. The size and style was based on real experience. I carry a grandfors hatchet or a saw for wood or heavier cutting. A larger or heavier knife is fatiguing to use for hours of caping or butchering IMHO.
 
Last edited:
Ideal size shape skinning/gutting knife for up thru Elk : (and I presume moose cuz I have not shot one) was developed for African plains game .
3/16" x 4.5 flat grind
008-4.gif

AlthoughI use a hatchet or saw for quartering , your Camp Defender would work well I think. I cut up a steer half with it .
 
Guys, I really appreciate your advice! I've used this one in the kitchen a bit but that's easy duty. I am quite used to the "small is beautiful" idea in knives, but what is a 6" blade good for?
 
"Camp " Knife ! Do anything but not optimum !"Survival" blade also in that range would be usefull to many.
I got this gorgeous 6 1/2 " recurve Knife on the left from Stephan Fowler. I won't give it up but it was not optimum for anything I tried to use it for, go figure. Knives under about 8" are not real choppers IMHO unless very cleaver like and not so much even then for heavy duty Bar B Que prepping.9-10" knives can be wonderful choppers, wonder why competition choppers have that size and are usually very cleaver like!
005-15.gif
 
Last edited:
Sam,

Oddly enough...it has neutral balance. Very much what most US knife guys think a fighter should feel like. I would have saber-ground it, though.

John
 
Sam,

I think you could slightly decrease the blade width near the handle, giving the knife more belly without additional true width (of course, then it's starting to become a miniature Camp Defender). Then change the grind to a sturdier grind that will be better able to chop. This should keep the weight the same, or shift the balance forward slightly. Either is fine.

Then I can see a use for this knife. :) As it is now, it is a perfectly balanced but heavy slicer. It feels GREAT in the hand, but if it's only a slicer, it could weigh 30% or more less. There's no need for its current weight unless you want it to stand up to hard use...in which case, it needs a sturdier grind.

The other option would be using thinner stock. That would lighten the knife, in which case this grind could make perfect sense.

Peace,

John
 
I see what you're suggesting. If that blade was out of thinner stock, it would be the most wicked slicer ever. (It's pretty good at that now!)

More of a saber grind would give it the intense toughness for choppy, bush-craft sort of tasks.

Makes sense to me!
 
Thanks for the bump - I'd missed seeing this the first time around. Love the canvas scales in particular. Can you tell a little more about the canvas pins? I'm not quite sure I understand.
 
Sure!

The pins through the tang and scales are made of canvas micarta, which is the same material as the scales themselves, just in a different color. I couldn't find the right sized micarta rod stock in the color I wanted, so I made those myself from black micarta sheet stock I had around.
 
very industrious (and cool) of you. Wish I had extra cash lying around. I'm a sucker for full flat grinds.
 
Sam I like your knife but I am biased. Most of my blades are big and some are big and wide. 52100 is a superb steel for knives. It is more tricky to work with and time consuming to heat treat but well worth it.
 
Thanks guys!

It was sort of a test-of-concept and I understand that it is a bit of "neither fish nor fowl." I'm fond of it anyway, and have a feeling I'll at least save this blade profile for later use. I don't know that I'd like the big belly and sort of asymmetrical leaf shape in a much smaller blade.
 
I like it but I would want just a little finer point on it. It would need a companion knife for dressing and butchering work. Would be perfect for splittin the rib cage on a deer sized critter, and the belly would be nice for skinning but you're going to have trouble with some of the gutting without a finer point.

Once in the processing phase it would be great for slicing up cuts of meat but you need a narrower blade for boning out usually.

I'd say its best suited to be a camp knife or carried with a boning or caper type blade as a companion.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top