Caping knife in action!

[Scott Hanson]

Here is a caping knife I made years a ago for a friend who is a taxidermist, being used by him a couple days ago to cape out a pretty decent archery season 10 pointer. This knife is CPM 154heat treated with cryo to HRc 61-62, the other knife he uses to cape deer has an AEB-L blade heat treated to HRc 61-62. Also note the partially sharpened screw driver in the photo used to separate the really tough connective tissue from the antler bases. The constant edge to bone contact really test a knife's edge, and this is where steels like AEB-L and 52100 really shine. The fine grain structure of the steel makes them very tough with excellent edge stability, and makes them very resistant to micro chipping. I feel gives these types of steel a slight advantage over CPM 154, at least for this application.