My favorite gutting knife is an Old Timer sheath knife (Schrade 130T). This knife has a tool-steel, deep-drop point, 3 ¾ inch blade with a full tang. I prefer the steel blade over stainless because I feel that, based upon my experience with using and sharpening many knives over the years, tool-steel is more consistent from knife to knife, is easier to sharpen, and holds a better edge than stainless knives I have owned. I like the 1/8+ inch thick full tang for its sturdiness; and the deep-drop point is easier to keep out of the intestines and stomach when using the knife blade edge up in gutting.
The only negative about this knife is that the handle is not exactly rounded or square. A gutting knife should have either a rounded or square handle since it will spend half of its life edge-up in the hunter's hand. The worst possible handle type, however, is the handle with the individual finger indentations: When such a knife is used edge-up in the heavy duty cutting between ribs and sternum, or through the breastbones, this knife handle (with its now, four points or ridges pointing upward) hurts the palm in the lower thumb area.
When gutting hogs, one does not have to worry about the steel blade rusting in the field. Hogs are greasy enough to keep the blade from deteriorating. I wash the blade in hot water when I can, dry it on the stove top over the pilot, and then I rub it well with an animal or plant based oil. If Maverick gets the picture I sent of my knives attached, you may notice that with this treatment repeated many times over the years, the Old Timer's blade has taken on a protective blue-black patina, as have the butcher knife and the boning knife.
I usually use Canola oil for wiping our steel knife blades: We keep a number of butcher knives and boning knives (the type which are made out of railroad tie saw blades) in the kitchen drawers, and I keep one of each in the 50 caliber ammo box which goes with me in the pickup. Actually, we use the Canola oil for everything from de-bugging the pet snakes, to oiling the rake and shovel handles, to treating steel knife blades. I think Ila also uses it for cooking.
A couple of years back, Doc gave me a Buck (692]) sheath knife with a deep-drop point and a stainless steel blade. This blade appears to be hardened and tempered just right; and now (because Doc gave the knife to me) I carry the knife in its sheath in my fanny pack instead of the Old Timer. I at first was skeptical about the metal; for I have had some Buck knives which were too soft and others which were too hard. One Buck pocket knife I owned for awhile had one blade which was too hard, one which was too soft, and one that took an edge and held it. But, this 692] appears to be a keeper.
My favorite folding knife for years was the Old Timer (Schrade 510T). While a deep-drop pointed knife, the 3 ½ inch blade is really too broad to do much cutting with a poke -- as one does when reaming the rear pelvis of an animal -- as it doesn't have much of a point. When I hunted deer and elk in the Dakotas, I appreciated the fact that this knife had bone handles. The Dakota hunter, who has gutted animals in below freezing temperatures, learns to appreciate a knife which does not freeze to his hand; so metal-handled knives are avoided like the plague by experienced, successful Dakota hunters. The 510T I have now is my second one; my memory fails: I either gave my first 510T to Maverick or to my father-in-law, Clyde Angel (who had a folding knife collection and therefore felt called to relieve me of many knives). I think my original knife had a steel blade. The one I presently have appears to be one of the stainless alloys.
I carried the 510T until one of my best buddies, Leon Holthus of Custer, SD, gave me a Gerber folding knife with a 3 1/16 inch, deep-drop, stainless steel blade. Leon came into the front room where his brother Leonard and I were talking. He held the knife out to me and said in his best Western drawl, "Here Ed. This knife has your personality written all over it. Take it. And, use it to gut those hogs you kill in Texas. It was given to me by the Forest Service. But, I'll never use it."
The blade is good. The black plastic (nylon?) handle is a bit small for heavy work. The action plugs up with blood, fat, and body tissue when it is used; so at times the lock will stop working. I pick at it and wash it until the lock works, and keep on carrying it and using it. I suppose it has gutted sixty hogs by now, and several deer. Leon means, and Leonard meant so much to me that I am willing to put up with a bit of aggravation after the hog is in hand and has quit wiggling.
I seldom have butchered a hog in the field; so I do not have a butcher knife or a boning knife along with me unless the pickup is close by. I usually cut up hogs and deer in camp, where I get out the tools meant for butchering: The butcher knife and the boning knife.
Dad used a Marble's knife -- with a blade style similar to my preference. Dad showed me how to end human hostilities quickly with that knife once when two scalawags attempted to relieve him of a trophy deer he was hunkered over gutting. They approached and demanded, "That's our deer, and we're going to take it!"
He never pointed it at them or threatened them with it. Dad simply gave them a big grin, turned the knife so they could view the depth of the blade, and said, "No, I don't think you are going to take it!" The guys immediately lost heart and turned and walked away. I was standing just twenty yards away during this interchange, above them on a knoll, where Dad could see me but the scalawags stood facing obliquely away from me. Now that Dad is gone, I have given the Marble's knife and axe set to our son Jacob.
I have owned many other knives: Some good, most rejects. I believe that my first hunting knife, one owned by my Dad and given to me by him in about 1961, was the knife with the best steel I have ever owned. It was an old Western hunting knife with a 6 inch utility blade. It sported the round leather washer type handle. Now while I do not care for the straight blade that old knife had as a gutting knife, it was handy for cutting meat and other chores. That is the only knife I have owned which has ever been stolen from me (and an expensive Puma African hunting knife which lay right beside it was not taken).
The Cold Steel knives which I, or my buddies, have owned are way too brittle. They look good in camp as long as you do not attempt any knurly cutting with them. The typical blade break we have witnessed is the half-moon of stainless steel breaking out of the cutting edge upon contact with bone. The half-moon of daylight extended 3/16 to ¼ inch up into the blades of three of the Cold Steel knives in which I have seen this flaw. I have also had a Gerber folding knife, with a partially serrated blade, break in a similar fashion at one of the serrations; and all I was attempting to do with it was to cut a rose off the rose bush.
I have never seen a need to pay high dollar for a knife unless one's thrill of hunting is found in bragging around the campfire. Hang your custom-made knife on the wall as a work of art; but you will have to prove to me that it does a better job in the field than the knives I use.
I like the idea of a gut hook knife for stripping hogs: That is, making multiple cuts from neck to rear end, and then pulling those 3 to 4 inch wide strips off one by one. Stripping is the easiest way I know of skinning a hog. I have not yet found a gut hook knife which suits me. You might look at Maverick's report on gut hook knives in the EQUIPMENT section to see some of my thoughts on gut hook knives. Some of my response to Maverick, I have reproduced in the following paragraphs:
One of the major reasons that folks feel they need gut hook knives for gutting hogs and deer is that they use hunting knives with too much upthrust on the blade points. The way Jake Schauer taught me to gut a deer was first of all to buy a good quality hunting knife (he won his Marble's knife, and the axe that went along with it, in a drawing) with a deep DROP POINT. You hook fewer guts with the, and I repeat, DEEP drop point.
Secondly, you run the knife edge-up between the pointer and middle fingers of your off hand (left for me, and right for you, Maverick). You cut from pelvis to sternum, pulling the abdominal wall and skin up away from the guts while running fingers and knife ahead -- cutting as you go. When you get to the sternum run to the side your right or left-handedness favors. It is rather easy to cut the cartilage and gristle between the end of the ribs and the sternum.
When beginning on the thorax, take special care not to nick the stomach with the point of your knife. I usually hold the stomach down, away from the sternum and guide my knife under and parallel with the ribs. Finding the juncture between the ribs and the sternum in the various ungulates is easy because the sternum projects a couple of inches beyond the last connected rib.
I place my blade and jerk up: On the first jerk, I usually have cut far enough up into the chest that I can quit worrying about cutting the stomach. I then get both hands on the knife and sort of slice-jerk my way up through the ribs to the breastbones. Make sure innocent bystanders are not leaning over you nor have their hands in the way while you are cutting through the ribs -- they may have to be rushed to the emergency room if they get in the way.
Probably the toughest part is the last cut -- through the breast bones. For this I usually have to get my hands into the chest itself, feed my knife blade through between the breastbones (blade parallel with the neck vertebrae) and again, slice and jerk upward. Since I have no intention of spending money on mounts which will ultimately end up in the garage rafters, and I want my meat quickly and thoroughly cooled, I cut the neck all the way up to and ahead of the voice box. I cut windpipe and esophagus, and proceed back through the body cavity to cut everything loose -- taking special care to keep the esophagus from leaking into the body cavity as I work back.
The hunter who expects to kill game should carry a drop point knife. The other blade styles may look wicked, and be great to show around in camp, but they have little utility in actual hunting. I fail to see the use of an upturned point, skinner-type blade unless you have an elk tied on a sidehill which has to be skinned and quartered on the ground. And I admit, I have used a skinner knife on bison a couple of times (usually though, I did the bison shooting, and someone else did the skinning).
On the other hand, a sturdy knife with a long, narrow blade is to be preferred for killing a hog through the sticking spot between neck and breastbones. Then again, a sturdy, long, bowie-type blade with a big tang (like the Western Bowie) is probably best for killing hogs which are stabbed behind the front leg; so argued Sir Samuel White Baker, who killed many boar with such a knife. But I prefer a thick 4" blade with a deep drop point for field dressing. The handle should be square or round -- without finger grooves -- because it will be used blade up most of the time. Come to think about it, this is almost word-for-word the advice given by Theodore Roosevelt for an ideal hunting knife back in the mid-1890s.
-- Little Eddie
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