Why do knifemakers make 5" + blades and call them Hunters?

GingivitisKahn said:
I believe the logical fallacy you are employing there is called gratuitous assertion - a statement of fact without any supporting data. To defeat this fallacy, one must only deny it. I do question your statement that 3-4" of blade is a perfect hunter. Certainly that can work (and may work best for you), but for field dressing 2-3" is superior in my opinion and for ancillary tasks (blind building, etc.) a much longer blade is more handy for many of us.

Thank you for playing.

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Beckerhead #42
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Thanks! I'm an experienced hunter, and use whatever fits the situation, and don't much care what others think. If it works for me, I use it.
 
Back in the 1800s, Sir Samuel White Baker used a "hunting" knife. I believe it had a 12" blade and he used it to kill hogs and stags he hunted with the aid of dogs. The definition of hunting knife seems to have changed for most of us.

Joe
 
I like a slim dropped point of about 3-4" in length. I think Loveless nailed it with his dropped point or hunter and utility his utility blade. Although steel head fishing in the fall I carry a 1-7 Black Jack. But I ain't huntin either! keepem sharp
 
A few guys have hit on it, or skirted around it.

In Europe they used hunting swords. What was that about? Think about it... for hundreds of years hunters had expensive, laboriously hand-crafted SINGLE-SHOT weapons, not the sort of thing that you could afford two of. There's a good chance that especially a professional hunter would not want to waste considerable time or expensive, sometimes irreplaceable (and always heavy) ammunition on a second shot for the coup de gras, the final mercy. If you had to put a thrashing buck or elk out of its misery with a knife, do you think a little extra reach might be welcome? In the wilder areas of the world you had one shot and then there was always a chance that your wounded game would be closing on you much faster than you could re-load. In places like Africa and North America you could be simultaneously the hunter and hunted, it wasn't just wounded quarry that you had to worry about.

What size blade would you pick if there was a good chance it would be the only thing left to you when you were being charged by a wounded bear or boar, or even a territorial grizzly? Of course big knives were associated with hunters, but it was much the same thing with fighting. Slow reloads meant that you'd likely suddenly be dealing with close combat after 1-3 shots, if you were lucky enough to get off shots at all.

It wasn't until repeating rifles became common that it was even feasible for hunters to get by without a big blade. They may have used it for the tasks that modern hunters think of a knife for, or they may have carried other knives for that, but they couldn't really do without the big one. A large knife generally meant "hunter" to most of the population for a very, very long time. I'm not at all surprised that the association lingers after a mere 150 years or so of the introduction of new tech that MAY, arguably, make it less relevant.
 
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harleyguy02 said:
Why do knifemakers make 5" + blades and call them Hunters?
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It occurs to me that none of us have actually answered the question in your title.

Knife makers make 5" blades and call them Hunters because people buy them.

Perhaps you should be preaching at the general populace instead of the knife makers. Good luck with that.
 
I like the term "camp knife" for most of mine. My "processing" knives are thin, sharp and short. Some folding and some not. For big game like moose or elk I have a small hatchet to help.
 
harleyguy02 said:
I just wonder is it that some of these knifemakers don't hunt, don't get it, don't listen to hunters,
Or are just trying to make an impressive looking knife that will never see the field?---what about the Fallkniven PHK-professional hunter)
Bill Scagel, Randall, The Green river line up, so on and so on -- -----Are you questioning there judgement?-

No experienced hunter I know would walk, sit, stand, climb in the woods or mountains carrying 5" of blade. -maybe you don't know enough hunters

Does this bother anyone else.. Maybe bother is the wrong word..
But doesn't this strike you as the knife is named wrong ?
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---Nope not at all
 
One thing to keep in mind is that those of us on this site are NOT the majority of knife users/purchasers. When makers and/or the factories name their blades, for the most part, they are trying to choose something that is recognizable to the general populace. Marketing, marketing, marketing.

Example:

Uncle Dick wants to get his nephew Rob a really nice custom knife as a graduation present. Uncle Dick knows that Rob really likes to hunt, and remembers reading something sometime, somewhere, about a guy named (insert your favorite maker here) that makes great knives. He gets on the website, and what's he going to look for? The HUNTING knife section.

My favorite blade length for a general purpose fixed blade knife is 5". For me, this length offers great utility for most of what I call on a knife to do. I actually like bigger blades even more, something in the 7" range, if I'm going to be away from the house for an extended amount of time.

Sheath design has much more to do with being able to carry a knife comfortably than the size of the knife does, IMO.
 
If it works, it works. Not everything has to fall into a predefined category. My current knife for deer is a SOG SEAL Pup Elite, and I'll be upgrading to a Scrapyard 511 very soon.
 
I grew up watching my ucle use his Buck 119 during deer hunting and that has a 6" blade. I would think it can depend on the skill and experience of the hunter. If you've dressed a deer a few dozen times you quite possibly could do it with a sharp hatchet it you had to. I actually like what a lot of maker call heavy duty hunters which tend to have blades in the 4-1/2 to 5-3/4" range. Unless its a pocket knife or necker I'm not a fan of anything under 4.5 inches but I haven't hunted in a while and when I did I was a kid and didn't do the dressng.

In the end to each its own, right. :thumbup:
 
Went hunting this morning and intended to carry my tomahawk but left it in the car by mistake. Ended up with just my bow, my BK11 (a bit over 3" long) and a SAK. I guess by the OP's definition, I'm finally a *real* (as opposed to imaginary?) hunter today. I believe I may have heard angels singing.

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Beckerhead #42
 
As a part-time maker it was really very simple. A customer asked me to make him a hunter with O-1 steel and a 5.25" blade. So I did and he was happy.
 
Because to call it a "10-inch-mall-ninja-you-will-never-use-in-the-field-or-you-would-know-it's--pointless-knife" would offend the customer. The customer likes to call it a "hunter."
 
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kdcknives said:
As a part-time maker it was really very simple. A customer asked me to make him a hunter with O-1 steel and a 5.25" blade. So I did and he was happy.
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Bingo.
 
I hunt .. but i dont climb trees to do it

I use a opinel 10 folder , and a self made 6 inch blade as my go to knives for processing what I kill , mainly goats , a few pigs , when I feel like exercising my tribal right , a roo or two .

yeah , Im not a real hunter .. I used a folder for skinning and cleaning ... I read a few threads now on how thats not good , folders are sposed to get gunky and cant be cleaned or something ... but it works for me , and now Im using a fixed blade that no real hunter would ... my great grandfather would have laughed at anyone using a steel knife like the white man does , when a hand made flint one is so much sharper and easily replaced , not to mention a statement of the users skill and ability to to make his own .... and he was one of the original hunter / gatherers here :) I guess tho , he wasnt a real hunter ... he used a spear and woomera , a boomerang etc ... he didnt have a knife made by any recognized manufacturer today , but he managed to look after a couple wives and his kids , without a mall handy :)

I havent really ever used a knife for hunting tho ... not the actual hunt ... but for the bleeding out , skinning cleaning and partin gout of what I have hunted .
 
OP, I don't care how much hunting you've done, if you think your way is the only way, you are mistaken. My preference is about 4.5 to 5.25, fwiw. Somewhat smaller or larger will still work.

Further, is a 5' blade REALLY so much heavier than 4" that it alone will drag you down? i have not found that to be the case...hunting, hiking, whatever.
 
Hunting knives, survival knives, whatever. It's marketing. I agree that a 4-5 inch blade length is generally all a guy needs to skin\gut. But my father used to kill a lot of moose back in the 60's, including one with a bow. He also had a banged up Bowie type knife that I remember. He explained that he had to hammer the knife and split a moose's rib cage with it once. A perfect scenario ? No, but sometime ya run what ya brung. Here is an old original Hudson Bay camp and these processed tens of thousands of buffalo, bears, elk etc.
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I typically dress my deer with a 4" Bladed Mora. I find much bigger is hard to maneuver inside the animal. Hell our ancestors did the job with a couple inches of obsidian.
 
harleyguy02 said:
5 inch plus hunters ....

I saw a beautiful knife listed from a maker whose knives I really like. I open the thread and read the specs
Blade : 5".
The knife was gorgeous !! But 5" is not a Hunter to me..

I just wonder is it that some of these knifemakers don't hunt, don't get it, don't listen to hunters,
Or are just trying to make an impressive looking knife that will never see the field?

No experienced hunter I know would walk, sit, stand, climb in the woods or mountains carrying 5" of blade.

Does this bother anyone else.. Maybe bother is the wrong word..
But doesn't this strike you as the knife is named wrong ?
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My grandfather retired at 45 and did nothing but hunt, fish and guide for 38 more years when at 83 he decided to just fish. i have his old ruko solingen buffalo skinner that was his sole hunting knife since his dad bought it for him when he was 20.

5.25 inch blade and at least 4 deer, an elk and moose a year, for 63 years.....but what does a newbie like him know.
My dad's knife was another 5.25 solingen buffalo skinner, used hard in the same capacity for 32 yrs until he passed away.
Both of these knives are still very functional and dad's was used 3 yrs ago on a couple blacktails by myself.

Most hunters in my family prefer a 5in blade as deer in Saskatchewan are huge, let alone the moose and elk.
Almost half of my dads side of the family has worked or is currently employed in the meat industry.

You are throwing around a helluva gauntlet with your post my friend.

Any flat ground or thin edged blade at 3.5 to 6 in is ideal for field dressing ungulates, size of animal and personal tastes will vary.

For myself a 3 to 4 in blade is too small for proper fleshing and breaking pieces down. Add an inch or so for more utility.
In the slaughterhouse, pork and beef boning all the knives used are in the 5 to 8 in range to efficiently process.

I guess we are a family of experienced hunters you DON'T know......what do they say about assumptions....???

With regards
Brad
 
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