Deer hunters: what makes the best boning knife?

BladeChemist

BladeChemist

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Aug 19, 2010
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As a deer hunter and Wisconsin native I have a specific request from those of you that butcher your own deer. But before I go on I wish to briefly describe a typical butchering session with my family and friends to give you an idea why I started this thread:

Setting:

The butchering area is almost always located in a closed garage equipped with plywood tables covered in heavy plastic. The garage is very cold due to the late November/Early December temperature of the Wisconsin climate. Typically one person skins the animal(s) and removes and dispenses cuts of meat to others who then trim them to remove bone, sinew, and the ever present waxy deer fat. The work is slow, even with the radio on and friendly chatter all around. Most of the time is spent on the irregular cuts of meat- removing meat from bone and then sinew/fat from the meat. This type of meat will go towards stir-fry, hamburger, and especially summer sausage.

Knives:

A day prior to sitting down in the garage-turned-meat-locker we raid the kitchen's knife drawer. For the most part we use low-quality kitchen knives with sizes ranging from paring up to butcher and carving knives. The knives are then sharpened and lined up in mass as they are changed out frequently due to dulling quickly. It's a system that's worked for many years but one I have come to dislike for it's time consuming nature, use of metal-handled knives (accelerates the numbing of fingers), and just plane annoyance with sub-par performance and comfort. In particular I dislike that my beloved hunting knives, sharp as they may be, are too thick bladed to work as a dual-purpose boning knife.

The Request

So, butchers and hunters, what makes the ideal boning knife? I'm talking about the best combination of edge holding and comfort that allows a seated individual to quickly zip through cold cuts of meat and fat while also being able to scrape bone. Again, the handle should be non-metallic for cold comfort, and the edge should last as long possible in these conditions.

I've heard that thin-bladed convex edges work the best but what in particular should I be looking for? What steel works the best in this type of environment? Should I just use a fillet knife? Is it possible to get through the process using just a single knife? (that would be wonderful). I'm thinking of a 6-8 inch blade with a molded rubber grip for comfort, sort of like a stiff fillet knife with great edge-holding capacity.

P.S. One last question: what type of edge is best for this kind of work? Tree-topping sharp low-angle polished blade, or something more toothy? Push cuts or angled cuts?

P.P.S: To all you hunters reading this: good luck this season, be safe, have a great time, and do your best to continue this great outdoor tradition.
 
I use Victorinox boning knives with the Fibrox handles. They are cheap about ten bucks apiece and hold their edge fairly well. They are not rock hard, probably around a 56 rockwell which makes them very easy to maintain with a steel or stone.

I use a fine (red) DMT diamond rod for edge maintenance while processing. I think the toothy edge works well, and I dont want to touch up a polished edge with a diamond rod.

Good luck
Chris
 
victorinox are real good & f.dick are also great . really a catalog for institional users or meat cutters, & resturant equipment.the best ones are like 3 to 4 in. & very flexible. sliding around bones does'nt work as well with the stiff hunters. some of the rosselli fillet knives in 4 in. work well also.
dennis
 
Here's my boner: :eek:





A custom Dozier in D2 with polished convex edge. :thumbup: :cool: :thumbup:




Big Mike
 
I find myself using a short fillet knife quite a bit, but I have also found a Mora Clipper to be a very handy knife for boning. The Mora holds an edge quite a bit better than most kitchen knives.
 
Forschner/Victorinox, Tramontina, and F.Dick are the industry standard. Easy to find anywhere, cheap to buy, quick and easy to maintain. Can't get any better than that.
 
I used a large variety of knives last year for this exact task (I see that we are fairly close to one another, actually) and while all of the knives worked...the Mora did stand out nicely. Its thin, the scandi grind works well, and its really, really easy to put an edge back on it in a hurry.

This year, the knife of choice is going to be a Scrap Yard Wiener Dog. Ive convexed it, and it looks to me like it is going to be perfect for the task.
 
I use a Forschner short fillet knife for boning. I would also think that the bone collector caping knife or any quality caping knife would work well, too. In the good ol' days, we just used our Buck 110's.
 
my deboning knife is just under 6'' and it works great on deer. it's carbon steel and i don't think i touch it up more then twice when doing a deer, couple of passes on a diamond hone and i'm good to go.as far as grinds go, i'd call it a convex w/micro bevel. can't help with makers though, it was my great grandfathers.
 
elkins45 said:
I find myself using a short fillet knife quite a bit, but I have also found a Mora Clipper to be a very handy knife for boning. The Mora holds an edge quite a bit better than most kitchen knives.
Click to expand...

Yep, on the same page here. I like the thinner blades for better cutting. I've got a couple of Frosts (Mora) fishing knives that work very well. 12c27 stainless, you might have to touch them up a time or two, but they work very well. I wish they'd do the fishing knives in carbon, but stainless makes the most sense. I think the Clipper would be a great knife for the work, I've never tried mine though.

You could get a couple of professional boning knives from the companies already mentioned: F. Dick, Forschner, and Dexter-Russell also comes to mind. Thin with some flex, they hold an edge well enough and are easy to keep going with a butchers steel.

If you can find them, Cold Steel made some fillet knives in Carbon V that would be ideal, IMO. Rubber grips and easy to touch up, while holding an excellent edge. There's usually a few floating around on ebay.
 
The Victorinox 47513 6-Inch Flex Boning Knife with Fibrox Handle work excellent and the edge is easily maintained with a steel.


Good luck.
 
I have always just used my huning knife, which is a 3.5" to 4" thin narrow blade. Most all of my knives are hollow ground and I find they work much better than convex or flat when cutting meat. It's much the same reason chiefs perfer the hollow grinds in their blades. Done correctly the edge is thicker than the belly. I like the bird and trout type knives, with my latest hunting knife purchse being a BenchMade Bone Collector caper with a D2 blade.

If you use a blade longer than 4" you'll find it to be a real pain in the butt. Also, look up some processing videos. You shuoldn't have any bones on your tables if you want boneless meat. There is a real simple way to debone while the deer is hanging and you end up with all the proper cuts of meat. You can cut all the meat off the bone in way under 15 minutes, even if you take your time. The first article I read was published in Fur, Fish, and Game. It had the pictures and showed the order of cut. It sure made my life a whole bunch simpler after I read it. :) You should be able to process a deer with one knife without touching up the blade.
 
cultivateitnow said:
I have always just used my huning knife, which is a 3.5" to 4" thin narrow blade. Most all of my knives are hollow ground and I find they work much better than convex or flat when cutting meat. It's much the same reason chiefs perfer the hollow grinds in their blades. Done correctly the edge is thicker than the belly. I like the bird and trout type knives, with my latest hunting knife purchse being a BenchMade Bone Collector caper with a D2 blade.

If you use a blade longer than 4" you'll find it to be a real pain in the butt. Also, look up some processing videos. You shuoldn't have any bones on your tables if you want boneless meat. There is a real simple way to debone while the deer is hanging and you end up with all the proper cuts of meat. You can cut all the meat off the bone in way under 15 minutes, even if you take your time. The first article I read was published in Fur, Fish, and Game. It had the pictures and showed the order of cut. It sure made my life a whole bunch simpler after I read it. :) You should be able to process a deer with one knife without touching up the blade.
Click to expand...

Removing the bones before it gets to the cleaning table- that's really interesting. For us it's an all-day affair with 3+ people. That type of blade is what I'm looking for though- something that can get through the whole process without resharpening (I really, really, don't like to contaminate my sharpening equipment with flesh and blood...and a cold knife with sinew, dried blood, and cold hard fat can be a pain to wash sometimes).

Maybe I can break tradition this year and speed up the process... I'm also wondering if we should skin the animals shortly after hanging, then wrap the muscle with plastic instead of skinning them right before cleaning. It was a tip I read in a book about butchering/preparing deer.

Additionally, I'm not sure how others do it, but we try to harvest as much meat from the bones as possible, which increases yield but also takes much, much longer.
 
I'm trying out a Mora 780 this year, we'll see how it does.

780.jpg
 
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