what steels are used most in cutting up critters?

D

daryl douthat

Joined
Jun 12, 2000
Messages
54
I would be interested in knowing whether any of the high end steel is used by the pros. What I have seen used has been the Dexter and Forschener (mangled the spelling) white handled knives (that I believe are either 440a or aus 6) for cleaning salmon and cutting up big game once it is out of the field. Is this generally the case? In the field, especially with the occasional hunter, I presume there is a higher chance of seeing some expensive knives and steels in use.

I don't know about the knives used by guides, but one of the local taxidermists uses Old Timer muskrat skinning knives on grizzlies and similar sized animals. These are the the same knives that sold for a buck or two when I was a kid using them on small furbearers.
 
My guess would be 1095 carbon steel if you count
all the butchers, slaughter houses, etc. that
carve up critters everyday.

The beauty of 1095 is that it takes and edge in
a few strokes on a steel which is what meat carvers
want to keep on working. Also , for the number of
knives used in the meat industry 1095 is cost
effective.
 
Nix the 1095 steel. All knives used in the meat industry are made of stainless now -- non-stainless carbon steel is not an approved meat contact surface by USDA. Most of the knives I've seen are Forschner's (Victorinox). I've even carried them in the field for hunting. People in the industry can keep as keen an edge on the current stainless as they used to on carbon steel. The old "carbon is better than stainless" argument is probably dead. I say probably because a generation of meat processors has passed since carbon steel was taken off the approved list. There still may be some old die-hards out there who use carbon steel in their homes but not in the factory.

Bruce
 
I would guess that Buck 420HC and 425M account for a large fraction of field dressing jobs performed in the USA. This would be supplemented by a lot of Schrade's stainless and carbon steel.

For more extensive dressing of game I would guess that a lot of Victorinox gets used. I think that my Victorinox sheep skinner is one of the most useful for working on an elk.
 
Jeff Clark, I also use the Forschner sheep skinner (Fibrox handle) for deer and elk. Heck, it gets used in a packing house so why wouldn't shouldn't it get used in the field? In fact, I had a custom hunting knife made for me and used the basic shape of the sheep skinner as the blade shape for the custom.

Turkeyman, I'll put my BG42 bladed hunter up against any straight carbon steel you've got for getting and staying sharp. Granted it is a harder steel (Rc61) so you don't have to sharpen it as often. ...and those who worry about how easy a knife is to sharpen just like to sharpen knives. My philosophy is to use very hard steel, use it long, and sharpen on ceramic or diamond. I haven't used a natural stone, or even man-made for years.

Bruce
 
I agree with Bruce. You can harden stainless to do just as good as your run of the mill carbon steels. I have made some hard stainless fixed blades that the owners are using while deer hunting, and they brag about the edge holding abilities. I am not bragging about my work, I am just giving you some feedback on this issue,and not even including some of the stainless supersteels such as CPM440V and other exotics. The above mentioned blades are 440C, a darn good steel when heat treated right for an enduring edge. I worked for 8 years in a hog kill packing plant and would have enjoyed having a good stainless work knife that was harder than the carbon steel knives we had. You touched bone with the knives we had, and your edge was gone, right then and there. I made some kill knives using hacksaw blades, and it was a real eye opener. Not stainless, of course, but a good hard stainless kill knife would have been great because of the environment of packing houses being a real rust bucket.
 
Most of the folks at the hunt club I belong too use lower end knives, like those big brass bolstered bucks, at best. Flea market specials are more common. They are ok but get dull after a couple of deer it seems. I lend mine quite a bit.
 
I was showing my swamprats to someone I thought would know better and he said "wow, did you get that at the flea market" !!!?!?! I don't know why I bothered.
 
I agree, most hunters know more about their bows, rifles, shotguns, or even their boots, than their knives!

John Andrews, and guitarmac, have you ever seen a deer after someone has field dressed it and skinned it with a buck folder? It usually looks like a mess. That trailing point on the folder seems to go everywhere and cut everything. I hate cleaning up those kind of messes after some unknowing soul makes unnecessary cuts. And then the guy wants to know why there's only 35 pounds of meat from his "300 lb" deer!

Bruce
 
Hey Bruce, I'll agree that a hard stainless steel will hold a longer edge, but when it comes to sharpening those hard stainless blades, well, you may need a belt sander! Ease of sharpening does matter to me, I sharpen knives on the side and you wouldn't believe how many guys just can't sharpen some of those stainless steels, or don't want to put in the long periods of time that it would take. Give me a carbon blade any day!
 
Stainless better than carbon? Not so fast.

Apart from stainlessness, stainless steels are generally directly inferior to their carbon equivalents .

If stainlessness is important, then yes, stainless steel is the way to go. However, if we're comparing everything else, stainless is not the best bet. Take pure cutting, for example. CPM-10V will outcut any stainless. It is extremely hard (63 RC or so) and its wear resistance is also out of this world. It is also not all that fragile, though not best for a big chopper. CPM-3V is still very hard, has high wear resistance (though not as hard) yet is VERY tough.

Yes, stainless steels are much better than they used to be. Yes, some stainless are better than some carbon. However, that is just a small portion of the big picture. Apart from stainlessness, carbon is king!
 
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