Sometime ago, Canadian Tire started offering a whole line of knives marketed under the name Huntshield, a proprietary brand also featuring clothing and outdoor equipment. The knife that caught my eye was the Canadian Huntsman Knife, inspired by Grohmann's Belt Knife. It looked okay to me and it was claimed to be made of AUS-8 but, even if I'm not really a brand snob, I kept my distance. About a week ago, most Huntshield knives went on sale, so at C$24 my caution evaporated and I got me one.
The knife is obviously inspired by the Canadian Belt Knife but the blade has less of a leaf shape and the handle is larger. The blade is about 10 cm (3.8") long and the stock is 4 mm (.16") thick AUS-8. Fit and finish are very good, with no gaps and everything lines up nicely. The handles are made of pakkawood and a leather sheath is also included. The sheath is nicely made and holds the knife securely attached albeit a little bit high on the hip. The knife will perfectly fit the Grohmann Jump Knife sheath.
The blade is hollow ground and came good for push cuts though regular laser printer stock. I decided to see how it holds out before it dulls or rolls or chips so I set to do some random whittling on the dry hard maple and softer pine pieces that I keep in my basement for "testing" my blades. So I feathered, shaved, sharpened, notched, drilled and then shaved some more. I've been doing this for 6 days now (not all the time, I have another life too!) and the knife keeps going on and on. Even more than that, after punishing the knife for four days I remembered the arm shaving thing (I don't usually do that), tried it and got a bald spot on my forearm. I never handled AUS-8 but this one behaves like what I read about the steel correctly heat treated.
So far, all I did to the knife was to round up the jimping on the blade a little bit just because it felt too aggressive to me.
This is by no means a real test of the knife, but still, I can say at this point that I'm impressed. At my local Canadian Tire store, I bought the last one on the shelf, so it may have had my name written on it or some interstellar power decided to cross our paths, but this Huntshield is definitely a keeper.
The knife is obviously inspired by the Canadian Belt Knife but the blade has less of a leaf shape and the handle is larger. The blade is about 10 cm (3.8") long and the stock is 4 mm (.16") thick AUS-8. Fit and finish are very good, with no gaps and everything lines up nicely. The handles are made of pakkawood and a leather sheath is also included. The sheath is nicely made and holds the knife securely attached albeit a little bit high on the hip. The knife will perfectly fit the Grohmann Jump Knife sheath.
The blade is hollow ground and came good for push cuts though regular laser printer stock. I decided to see how it holds out before it dulls or rolls or chips so I set to do some random whittling on the dry hard maple and softer pine pieces that I keep in my basement for "testing" my blades. So I feathered, shaved, sharpened, notched, drilled and then shaved some more. I've been doing this for 6 days now (not all the time, I have another life too!) and the knife keeps going on and on. Even more than that, after punishing the knife for four days I remembered the arm shaving thing (I don't usually do that), tried it and got a bald spot on my forearm. I never handled AUS-8 but this one behaves like what I read about the steel correctly heat treated.
So far, all I did to the knife was to round up the jimping on the blade a little bit just because it felt too aggressive to me.
This is by no means a real test of the knife, but still, I can say at this point that I'm impressed. At my local Canadian Tire store, I bought the last one on the shelf, so it may have had my name written on it or some interstellar power decided to cross our paths, but this Huntshield is definitely a keeper.
