Great thread. I have been a full time gamekeeper for 20 years and naturally hunting knives was what got me started making knives. I have no idea how many deer and boar I have dressed but we are talking about more than a thousand, most of them taken by others. What differs me from most of you guys is that in my parts of Sweden, we are rarely far from a well equipped slaughterhouse and nowadays the trend is to bring the animal home and do the dressing there, with the beast hanging by the hind legs. For this purpose I like a 4" droppoint design, full flat or hollow ground. However, since this involves splitting the ribcage open, I like the edge a little thicker than most people, around .010-.015". My own wear-and tear simple hunter in RWL34 will do about 10 animals this way before it gets too dull to work properly. Ease of field sharpening is not really a priority for me so I prefer a steel that will hold an edge for a long time.
I butcher quite a few animals each year and this knife works well for that too. The animals we are talking about vary in size from roedeer, to fallow, red deer, wild boar and the occasional moose.
Back in the days when I was dressing in the field more frequently, I liked the blades a little shorter, about 3" to 3 1/2". Mostly because when opening the belly, I will place my indexfinger on the tip of the knife and use it upside down, to avoid piercing the stomach.
I don´t like gut hooks, at least not the traditional kind that works in a pulling action. However, a "belly opener" with a blunt tip like the one found on the EKA Swingblade (which is insanely popular over here) can be useful for opening cuts to the belly. I have one as a separate tool, but only use it to place the opening cuts in the legs when skinning.
One important feature are choils. I´d rather be without them on a hunter but when used, they need to be relatively wide. I have had some knives where the choil was merely a little notch, cut with a round needle file, and it will snag the hide on deer constantly.
I have to admit that I still do like to put a choil on my knives but honestly I feel this feature is more about the way the knife looks after 100 sharpenings, than it is about function.
Most of the knives in this thread would work for me very well. I prefer fixed blades for their ease of cleaning and strength but since I´m a sucker for folders, I will show one I am making right now. With a 3" blade, this will work great as a folding hunter but I would choose a warmer handle material than Ti for hunting.
Still some work to do on this one but the overall shape reflects my thoughts.
Brian
Please keep them pics commin!
