Hunting Knife Design Preferences

Yes. And leads continue to come in. The street talks. They aren't the brightest lightbulbs in the drawer. And some of the knives have serial numbers like guns.
 
I'm past the illness. Forum friends have been generous in help and offers of help. And the local PD is giving the matter an honest investigation to my surprise. Including running prints for me. And notifying possible area buyers. I really don't expect to get any of it back. I am just moving on with my life. And replacing a few knives as I can. Life is still good.
 
KDucky's brother said:
Hunting knives are my favs. Because to me they represent near perfect balance of a do-all camp utility skinner light-bushcraft companion..um..hunting knife. Typically around 4-4.5". I don't like heavy. Heavy means I might have to carry less of something else if it came down to it(SHTF). Which I think about being an ultralite backpacker. If i can have the same function level with less weight, then thats good-er:thumbup:. Anyways, here is my collection.

Right to left:Mike Erie Hunter, W J McDonald Flat Top Semi Skinner, Camillus OVB Signature, Off the Map Bitterroot, Fehrman Scout, Dozier Professionals guide, Landi bushcraft, "NE" unknown custom made, Busse Badger Attack 3
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Mike Erie on left. Nice feeling knife. Handle is dyed Giraffe shin bone. On right is prolly the best finished of all the knives in the groups. McDonald semi Skinner. Truly a mirror finished blade(154CM). Tapered tag. Also feels good in the hand. Both of these knives came with sharper then average factory edges.
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Kinda big with its 6" blade. But still one of my all time favs. Fehrman Scout in 3V.
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My current all time fav. Busse Badger Attack 3.
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Yet another fav., Dozier Pros guide. Also coming with a crazy sharp factory edge(still unused).
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Can't forget the Trace Rinaldi TTKK.
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I'd also carry this Simonich Military Urban Raven. This knife is growing on me.
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The end
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Nice selection! That's a lot of food for thought. Thanks.

Codger_64 said:
The Schrade Walden 165OT in this picture was my favorite. Since some time in the late 1960's or early 1970's. It was in the group of this pattern recently stolen, since this picture above was posted. Let me know if you see it and about twenty of it's brothers please. I miss it.
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You know I'll be watching for them. I really hope you get them all back.
 
Codger_64 said:
I left for work, they kicked in my back door and tossed my whole house. I came home 1 1/2 hours later and it was done. Around 200 knives, a laptop, cameras, money, my hearing aid, a stash of change etc. Someone was evidently watching from the woods behind my house to see me leave.
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Jeez, Codger - I'm very sorry to hear that. Good luck with recovery of your things.
 
Didn't mean to derail the thread guys. I have a 165OT replacement on it's way from the Bay and a couple of blades that need refurbishing and rehandled, all of this favorite pattern. And truth be known, while the cleaned out my collection of this pattern, they missed two or three times the aproximately 200 they took. And I'll get them back or I won't. I do need to find a maker willing to work up one of the refurbish knives though. The one I have comeing is NIB and I hate to bust the cherry of a 45 year old knife by using it to skin and butcher deer. Yes, I have fixed blades from about every manufacturer back to the first decade of last century, but this is my preferred pattern.
 
at the risk of not contributing anything of merit: sorry to hear that codger, i hope your property is returned to you.
 
I'm a little late to the discussion but the Buck Vanguard is about the perfect design for me and deer processing. I don't care for clip points or sharp finger profiles, the drop point works best for me when field dressing, skinning and even butchering. I do have a Buck boning knife that I'll swap out from time to time to debone some of the cuts due to it's flexibility and thin profile but mostly its the Vanguard. The ergonomics of the handle prevent hot spots and the the guard keep the hand from sliding onto the blade when things get slippery from blood. I've used quite a few knives on deer and still haven't found a more versatile and comfortable design then the Vanguard. I've switched to customs and other production knives and I keep going back to the tried and true Cabelas Alaska Guide Vanguard.
 
I used to try and have one hunting knife, but this season I have found I really like a two knife combo. A small 2.5-3" drop point for field dressing, and a larger 3.5-4" blade for skinning and quartering. Blade shape on the skinner is still up in the air. I have always liked a straight backed design, but am dead set on trying a trailing point.

That's where I am at right now.
 
Altho I've never used it(still has unused factory edge), I really like this 2.5" Mike Erie S300. I'd think it'd make a good candidate for a 2 knife system. This one was made in early 99.
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Hell, I forgot my current go-to is this very old but almost new(I just started back hunting this season, after a 20yr hiatus) US made Cold Steel Master Hunter in Carbon V. In knife reviews, its sometimes heralded as a great "if one could only have one knife" knife. Fairly inexpensive as well. Here it is in action.
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Codger I have a Schrade like that. The steel is heat treated just right and held an edge even after I drove it through a deer's pelvis with a chunk of oak. I'm just not really sold on the shape.

I've been watching this with interest because I use a muskrat to gut, a skinner to skin, a butcher set to dismantle deer, and a puukko for "bushcraft". I still haven't found that one blade... or even two blades for everything hunting.
 
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Often the hunt for "the" knife is part of the fun. I could not rightly say how many different knives I have used over the years to process deer and othre game and farm critters. Each one I have tried has it's pros and cons. What is best... feels right... performs right... for you may not suit me at all. And that is a good thing. Heck, I've field dressed deer with a tiny pen knife, a broken coke bottle and a piece of flint. Maybe I am stuck on my pair as much for nostalgia as for performance. But I can truthfully say they have never let me down. And after many years of careful and judicious sharpening after a lot of use, the Woodsman showed no reduction of the blade from the day I bought it until the day it was stolen.

I like a LOT of the knives I am seening posted here. Most of them in fact. I have several new ones to try now, bought earlier this year and also gifted after the Great Schrade Robbery, all custom Sharpfinger patterns. Subtile but substantial riffs on the original. I don't see any reason they won't work as well as the original, perhaps even better. The NIB knives I posted above are ones I won't use just because they are like new examples complete in their original boxes, a feature actually more rare than the knives themselves. And to me they represent history.
 
338375 said:
Absolutely...
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10,000 year old mammoth tusk ivory and 5,000 year old bog oak. See that silver spacer? Pure coin silver... an 1880's Morgan silver dollar. Ryan Weeks does fantastic work. And he is a dream to work with too.
 
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