Your Take on The Best Knife?
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July 17th, 2010
| Tags: Best Quality, Cutlery, hunting knife
blacktea asked:
Just wanna know what you think is the best knife, not for cutlery purposes but more of outdoors/hunting knifes. Best knife in reference to the best quality blade out there.
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My hunting knife is a 3 buck blade. It was pretty cheap, but it works really well for most everything that I need a knife for.
I own a dozen knives and have field dressed game with all of them.
When I was younger I preferred the convenience of a stainless steel buck folding knife with a lock blade that had rubber no slip handles. This knife held an edge reasonably well. But for deer hunting it is necessary to split the pelvic bone when field dressing. All of my locking knives have unlocked while doing this and I have narrowly avoided serious injury. So I gave up on all folding knives.
Now I only use a small fixed blade knife with a full tang. The tang keeps fingers from slipping off of the handle and onto the blade. Blood is quite slippery. Always spend as much as you can afford for a good quality knife. Good steel holds an edge and a sharp knife is essential. I think dull knives are more dangerous than sharp ones.
The best knife I know of is made by Diamondblade. The D2 steel is friction forged, which puts the steel under incredibly high pressures, making for a blade that takes an exceptionally sharp edge and holds it a long time. They are pricey, but you asked for THE best – not the best in a certain price range. Here’s a link to the site:
I like the Wayne Goddard-designed traditional hunter.
I think the Buck 110 folding hunter is a real classic. My only hesitation with the Buck knives is that the blades are hard to sharpen once they go dull.
I suppose an equally good choice would be one of the older (pre-1990) Case shark model of knives. The Sharkstooth, Hammerhead and Mako folders. Case knives are high quality and they are easy to sharpen.
I belief that the best knife should have about a three inch blade and should have a point. A little cure on the blade is good but I have found that too big of a curve just makes it clumsy.
The steel should be hard I have found whatever drawbacks there are to the hard steels are more than made up with the edge holding ability.
I do not believe in extreme angles on knives extreme angles are sharp but dull quickly if I can shave with a 40 degree knife why would I want a blade 30 degrees.
Where I disagree with some people.
1. A knife is for cutting flesh, joints and skin. It is not for digging holes or cutting wood. Survival knives and fighting knives are not good hunting kives. If you want to cut wood get a saw or a hatchet.
2. Better steel is worth the price. I have had a run of the mill buck dull on me cleaning squirrels. I have had knives of alaska knives go through joints skin etc and still be sharp. It comes down to steel
3. I prefer short knives. I want to be able to skin an animal without cutting organs or holding the knife by the blade. This is impossible with a six inch blade.
fixed or folder? I am not picky on this one and don’t care. I will not clean an animal with a folder that does not lock.
Check out Schrade ‘Uncle Henry’ Sharp-finger models,
or similar by ‘Buck’.
A good steel in a reasonable size shape will do the job.
You can waste a lot of dough looking for ‘the best’ and not
be able to tell any real difference.
Just keep it sharp.
(Too many ‘Rooneys’ wandering around out there
carrying big fancy things that are basically useless
when they get down to field dressing.)