Steel for hunter

g33kfu

g33kfu

Joined
May 16, 2007
Messages
112
I'm trying to decide on what is the best steel to use for a general purpose hunting knife. Its duties will mainly be skinning and gutting animals. It needs to be tough enough to withstand taking a few hits to the back of the blade when splitting the pelvis of an animal such as a whitetail. This toughness should also be balanced with its ability to hold an edge. 5160 comes to mind for meeting the toughness requirement but it seems as though it isn't real well known for retaining an edge. I'm ok with carbon or stainless. stainless is of course easier to maintain.

thanks ahead of time for input.
 
I can tell you what I do. All my skinners are either 1095 or O-1, I happen to like carbon over stainless for straight knives. Both of these steels will take an excellent edge and hold it for a long time.

Just my .02

Sean
 
There is really no need to split a pelvis. You can cut a ham off with two well controled cuts, and your processor will thank you for it. No ragged bone ends to cut him.
 
LRB said:
There is really no need to split a pelvis. You can cut a ham off with two well controled cuts, and your processor will thank you for it. No ragged bone ends to cut him.
Click to expand...

couldn't have said it better myself. Familiarize yourself with the primal and subprimal cuts of your chosen game. And you will never have to break another pelvis again, no matter the typ of game you hunt

Jason
 
It is much easier to pull the entire gut sack out through the back when you have the pelvis split. That's the way i like to do it so having a knife that can handle it is a requirement. Oh and I am the processor/butcher.
 
The following is my opinion, which may not jive with the opinions of others...

Honestly, 95% of the steels used to make knives will make a good hunting knife. The heat-treatment is far more important than the steel type. A knife made of 1040 with a perfect heat-treatment will out-preform a knife made from the latest super-steel if the heat-treatment of said super-steel is less than ideal.

That said, if you want a knife for splitting bone, you will need a thick edge, which does not lend itself to skinning or other fine cutting tasks. What you really need is an axe or saw, not a knife, for splitting bone, and a knife for the other stuff that actually involves slicing. If you design a knife to do both tasks, it will preform both badly.

I learned this the hard way, and hope to save you some grief, not discourage you. I suggest making a set of two knives, one with a fine edge on a thin blade, one with a thick edge on a thick blade. Another possibility would be to have a compound grind, thinner near the point and thicker near the riccasso... the recent 'tracker' thread shows a nice example of this (and I don't mean the tracker itself, the other one...8^)
 
I suggest D-2. Most of my request for hunting/skinning knives are D-2 and that's what I use myself. Holds an edge well, good corrosion resistance and at 58-60 Rc. you can baton it just fine.
 
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