What is a practical hunting knife?

[Ds J]

custom knife makers are mostly hobbyist and hobbyist that are good enough to have people want to own their products-creations. They are mostly however guys that love making knives and experimenting with blades and handles, the selling finances the hobby.
There are two poles in knife makers, the guys that obsess with the steel type,quality, properties etc and the guys that obsess with handle materials, using 1000 year old wood or 6000 year old mammoth tusks.

The knife makers world is one of the most classical rabbit holes.

Guilty as charged your Honor!

I make two knives a year at the very most. Usually it is one knife in two to three years. The handle material is whatever lies around, doesn't look too bad and will last. Since I mostly make working knives I truly don't see the sense in using some exquisite material which might be damaged on the second day of a hunt.

[janfred]

custom knife makers are mostly hobbyist and hobbyist that are good enough to have people want to own their products-creations. They are mostly however guys that love making knives and experimenting with blades and handles, the selling finances the hobby.
There are two poles in knife makers, the guys that obsess with the steel type,quality, properties etc and the guys that obsess with handle materials, using 1000 year old wood or 6000 year old mammoth tusks.

The knife makers world is one of the most classical rabbit holes.

Guilty as charged your Honor!

I make two knives a year at the very most. Usually it is one knife in two to three years. The handle material is whatever lies around, doesn't look too bad and will last. Since I mostly make working knives I truly don't see the sense in using some exquisite material which might be damaged on the second day of a hunt.

Sounds like you are the ideal person to identify a practical hunting knive. You hunt and make knives.

What steel would you use for a hunting knive and what shape is practical?

[Treeman]

1070 -1075 steel, superwood handle.

[oafpatroll]

I've become a big fan of micarta type materials for handle scales. It's grippy as hell without needing to be excessively rough. Really easy to make too. I have a few carry knives with it on and when I rehandle the chopper I made that lives in my bakkie I'll do it with that.  No idea what the steel alloy that that thing is made of other than it started out as a roller in a big ass roller bearing. I forged and heat treated it under the supervision of a knifemaker who offered courses 20 odd years back and it has proven to be as tough as its ugly. I can put a shaving edge on the thing and use it for a log weekend around the camp in place of a hatchet and it'll be back to shaving sharp within a minute with nothing more than a medium fine Lansky ceramic tri-stick.   

[Ds J]

I am not the most ideal person because my knowledge is dated, but will give a few thoughts.

Steel type: anything that can hold an edge. Panzer is said to be the very best of them all, so that would be my very first choice. Be prepared to pay for it, it was said to cost up to 3x the price of other steel. I have heard that it is tough to sharpen but cannot verify that.

D2 has a good name.

N690 has a good name, but I had a bad experience with it. Most probably a botched hardening job which caused a brittle blade, I could never sharpen it properly.

Lohman 458 is simply lovely  - basically a stainless carbon steel with the best of both worlds combined.

Bearing steel is also superb, but tends to stain over time. As oafatrol said, it keeps an edge like few other steels. This would be my second choice.

Note: please see to it that the steel get hardened to a fitting degree. Victorinox and older Puma knives (German steel) are surprisingly soft, yet they keep an edge. It would not help to harden them too much.

My personal favourite is for harder steel (59 Rockwell), simply because it stays sharp longer. If kept sharp, one has a great cutting tool. Tool steel is great for this. I once made a knife from virgin leaf spring with which I cut a blue wildebeest from ear-to-ear with a single stroke. It is really possible.

As to the shape of the knife - it is difficult because preferences and applications differ. If I had to choose a single blade, I would probably prefer something along the lines of a clip point bowie, or a clip point butcher's knife, or even the more classical drop point hunter. 6-8 inches in length, 3mm thick and roughly 40-50mm high, depending on the shape.

I do not like a completely straight knife, but prefer a very slightly bowed down handle - a drop of 4-6mm is enough. The handle should be almost rectangular in cross cut with much rounded edges, up to the point that it is almost oval in shape. Have a look at a katana's handle. It works like a charm.

Between the handle and the blade I have been putting a finger groove much like a very oversized choil on most of my knives. This part of the blade never gets used, and the finger groove enables one to do fine work.

Full flat grind, or a Japanese bevel is my preferred crosscut. It is sharper, cuts easier and sharpens faster than anything else.

Handle material: micarta for the win! It is easy to work, cheap to replace etc. My preference is nonetheless for natural materials such as bone (shoulder bone of kudu), wood, and especially leather. Somehow they feel better.

[janfred]

Can't find any info on the net about Lohman 458. Closest is Lohmann 4528, and that is apparently a N690 analogue.

As for the Panzer, only reference I can find is panzer 36 and that the composition is pretty much the same as N690.

Thanks for the notes on the design. Helps to have a starting point.

[oafpatroll]

Ds J rightly calls out the need for the heat treating to be done right. On the course I did years ago the smith showed me a bucket full of knives with failed heat treats. Some were too brittle and others too soft. He told me that the more Gucci the steel typically the more precisely the heat treat needed to be conducted. At that stage few smiths had the precise digital furnaces required to follow the specific recipes of the super steels. His point was that any steel could be buggered up with an inappropriate heat treatment so a maker using some fabulous steel was only doing the first half the job of achieving the desired performance. Even just overheating the blade while grinding can cook it such that the edge won't take a proper treat.

[Ds J]

Can't find any info on the net about Lohman 458. Closest is Lohmann 4528, and that is apparently a N690 analogue.

As for the Panzer, only reference I can find is panzer 36 and that the composition is pretty much the same as N690.

Thanks for the notes on the design. Helps to have a starting point.

Lohman 4528 is correct. Sorry.

Panzer is a printed steel if I remember correctly. It makes for less impurities and better internal structure. This leads to better performance.

[Ds J]

Our meat knives:

https://flic.kr/p/2q38suf

The top three are to break carcasses and remove cuts; the lower two to work the cuts.

• Kershaw skinner with acceptable gut hook. It is handy but does not keep a proper edge. 
• Mundial Chef's Knife with adapted blade, finger groove and Japanese bevel. The finger groove is too small.
• Mundial Butcher's Knife with clipped point. The knife is too narrow to add a finger groove. This is a lovely shape and works well.
• Unknown brand (Mundial/Tramontina?) with clipped point and finger groove
• Carbon steel butcher's knife (Okapi?) with clipped point and stitched leather handle

A hunting knife would be based on the second and third knives, with some adjustments.

This is the handle design I spoke about previously. It was for a general purpose kitchen knife.

https://flic.kr/p/2q32h1Q
[/list]

[Newton]

What do you want? A good hunting knife,

Practical good looking hunting knife
I do NOT like rivets !

[Ds J]

What do you want? A good hunting knife,

Practical good looking hunting knife
I do NOT like rivets !

Please check this website, they have a thorough collection of examples of unriveted handles, blade designs etc: https://www.knifet.com/knife-parts-grinds-blade-shapes/


Do you have any particular idea or design in mind? I wouldn't mind making a few rough sketches.

[Ds J]

Ignore the middle one, as well as the rivets. The other two will work well.

https://flic.kr/p/2q3keGH

[janfred]

Got myself a Kershaw Dechutes Skinner.

D2 steel
Flat grind
Drop point
Large finger choil

Not the prettiest of knives, but seem to be very practical for slicing jobs.

Time will tell how practical it actually is. Thanks for the help.

[Treeman]

will work everytime. Find a small water stone or 3 now and a large one.

[Newton]

Ignore the middle one, as well as the rivets. The other two will work well.
https://flic.kr/p/2q3keGH

I like the far left one
BUT
Here you go ...Jay Fisher - Fine Custom Knives Knife Anatomy, Parts, Names, Components, Definitions, and Terms

See Knife anatomy ten

Solid handle with bolted end cap ( or some similar form of locking )

I like the shape and form of the "Kershaw Dechutes Skinner" shown

I will have to do a bit of searching to find a picture of  - "my-perfect-knife"