Recommendation? Knife design for hog slaughter and dressing.

KnuckleDownKnives

KnuckleDownKnives

Time to make the doughnuts..
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Feb 12, 2015
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Hi all. Just got a request in for a knife from an old high school buddy who wants a knife for slaughtering and dressing hogs.

..i do pig roasts annually I could use a nice knife to slaughter them with and to slice it up after
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Asked him size and said 10" blade. What characteristics would a knife used for this have? I'm not versed in slaughtering or dressing a hog. Any input would be appreciated.
 
I'd prefer a spear point for sticking one.

Will be interesting to see what you come up with.

I think personal preference will come into play.
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butcher_block said:
bull nose or simatar i woudl think are the best options
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That's what i was thinking. With a good size belly on it.

120 Acres said:
I'd prefer a spear point for sticking one.

Will be interesting to see what you come up with.

I think personal preference will come into play.
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I don't think he's actually killing it, but one of the questions that remains to be asked and answered. Pretty sure it's already dressed as he lives in the city.
 
I'm going to be building a knife like this for a friend, for the same purpose. I'll be building one for him and one for me. I'm going with a modified spear point, with a little belly for slicing. Figure about 6-7 inch blade should work. But I usually stick them in the heart after I shoot them, so I want the length. Spear point should pierce well.
 
Or this. I've only roasted a couple hogs but I think I'd prefer this.

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Willie71 said:
If he's going to kill it, something like this too:

IMG_2236 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr
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If he is sticking it, he'll want something like this, though I prefer a bit more curve to the bottom of the handle butt. When you stick a hog, they don't really sit there and let you do it, so you want the retention. I think @i4Marc made a subhilt hog sticker a couple of years back that looked really good. I don't know about carving up a whole hog roast, but I find for the skinning and gutting, you can't beat a basic drop point hunter.
 
AlaskanHunter said:
If he is sticking it, he'll want something like this, though I prefer a bit more curve to the bottom of the handle butt. When you stick a hog, they don't really sit there and let you do it, so you want the retention. I think @i4Marc made a subhilt hog sticker a couple of years back that looked really good. I don't know about carving up a whole hog roast, but I find for the skinning and gutting, you can't beat a basic drop point hunter.
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i4Marc makes some pretty gorgeous pig stickers. :thumbsup::cool: Do you mean more flare at the but? I agree.
 
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Use to throw a big party with some friends every year. It got to be such a big deal that the hotels in our little town would offer discounts for that weekend. We'd provide the meat and the band, everybody else brought a side. Normally we'd have a camper and tent city set up in the back pasture and normal attendance was around 500 or so. We normally deep pitted two hogs, five turkeys, a goat and did 125lbs of tri tip on the grill above ground. Did this annually for about 10 years. Bought the turkeys and tri tip ready to go. The pigs and goat we got on the hoof. Knocked em down with a .22lr and then hung em. This was the party before the party as was the wood going in the pit. Takes a while to burn down a cord and half of oak to coals. Anyhoo, point is lots of folks helping, lots of knives in use. For skinning by far the most popular and effective were the spey blades on a trapper. Mostly cowboy types at this deal and not having a Case or Moore Maker trapper in the pocket is a violation of the CbUC, (Cowboy Uniform Code), a citable offense. Once the skin was off we'd go to using just large butcher type knives and we'd basically chunk the hogs into 20lb ish pieces for the deep pit. So, many of the designs shown above would be ideal for the processing but they sucked at getting the skin off. Those spey blades rocked at this. Everybody would bring their "knives" and there were brand new Randalls and used Loveless knives on hand as well as lots of other knife types. Last few years my job was just to sit there with several stones and touch up knives as needed. This was years ago before I was making knives. If I were to build one such knife now for the whole job I would I would go for abrasion resistance and edge holding ability. Cutting through hog skin is like cutting 60 grit sandpaper soaked in mud and allowed to dry. I'd probably go for the bull nose (spey shaped) blade that Butch suggested.
 
AlaskanHunter said:
Yes, that's the phrase I was looking for!
I think that's the one. I'm not on Instagram, so I was thinking of a bladeforums thread, but it's pictures are gone thanks to photobucket.
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The instagram link is from the thread with the missing pics.
 
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