What are the traits of a hunting knife?

uyotg

uyotg

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And how do they lend themselves to hunting?

The first thing I've noticed about hunting knives is that the handle tapers along its width toward the blade so that it's a pretty narrow grip right behind the heel/bolster. What does this design point do for a hunting knife? Off the top of my head, I think most other outdoor-type knife blades are just as wide as the tangs are, and their tangs' widths remain consistent throughout. Some kitchen knives do have a much wider blade than tang, but their tangs don't taper.

Thanks
 
A "pointy" hunting knife lends itself well for piercing the hide on animals. The "belly" of the blade is used for skinning. I like a comfortable handle myself especially if I will be working with it for an hour, no fingert grooves for me.

Thats my take and I'm sticking with it :)
 
The traits of a hunting knife are as varied as the traits of the hunter. Some like a lot of belly some use a disposable razor with no belly. Some like them big, some like them small. You're going to get answers all over the board I think.
 
So I take it the belly is used for skinning :p

That and the the tapered handle implies the whole blade, from the tip to belly and all the way to the heel, is used for skinning.

Shotgun said:
The traits of a hunting knife are as varied as the traits of the hunter. Some like a lot of belly some use a disposable razor with no belly. Some like them big, some like them small. You're going to get answers all over the board I think.
Click to expand...

I thought the hunting knife was an actual design and type of knife. Whenever I see a hunting knife in the For Sale forums, I notice a tapered handle.

So a hunting knife is really just any knife that happens to be used for hunting?
 
uyotg said:
And how do they lend themselves to hunting?

The first thing I've noticed about hunting knives is that the handle tapers along its width toward the blade so that it's a pretty narrow grip right behind the heel/bolster. What does this design point do for a hunting knife? Off the top of my head, I think most other outdoor-type knife blades are just as wide as the tangs are, and their tangs' widths remain consistent throughout. Some kitchen knives do have a much wider blade than tang, but their tangs don't taper.
Click to expand...
I haven't noticed this feature you speak of... unless you are just trying to describe general handle ergonomics, e.g. a palm swell (to better fill the palm) or a finger-groove/slope (to increase the tendency of the knife to balance and rotate upon the index finger while also providing a ridge to prevent the finger from sliding up onto the blade)...
As to tang-widths, this varies dramatically depending on manufacture. For example, many Randall, KaBar, and Buck hunting knives feature stick tangs (MUCH wider blade than tang), some knives feature skeletonized tangs, Moras and (obviously) folding hunters feature partial tangs, and (my favorite) loveless-style hunters feature tapered (thickness) tangs...

uyotg said:
So I take it the belly is used for skinning :p

That and the the tapered handle implies the whole blade, from the tip to belly and all the way to the heel, is used for skinning.

I thought the hunting knife was an actual design and type of knife. Whenever I see a hunting knife in the For Sale forums, I notice a tapered handle.

So a hunting knife is really just any knife that happens to be used for hunting?
Click to expand...

The last sentence is right on the money. Or a maker may market a knife as a "hunter" if they designed it for that specific purpose. So a "hunting knife" is any knife intended for or actually used in hunting.

Now, "hunting" is actually pretty general, there are a variety of tasks involved for which a knife may be employed, some not even involving animals (e.g. cutting brush out of the way as you stalk or travel to a preferred location or prepare a shooting lane). After that, the variety of game/prey found in different locations may greatly inform the preferred attributes of a "hunting knife" in the hands of a user - long/short, heavy/light, thick/thin, wide/narrow belly, tanto/drop-point/clip-point, etc., flat/saber/hollow grind. The knife might be used for field-dressing (gutting), skinning, splitting bones or cutting around them, full-on butchering, etc.

With regard to the belly, the tip of a knife is used for piercing and the rest of the edge is used for slicing or push-cutting ;)

In the Midwest USA, the most common large game is white-tail deer dwelling in forested regions and usually harvested in late Autumn/Winter. What sort of attributes do you think might be preferred for a hunting knife if this is your primary game? What if you also hunt rabbit and squirrel? What about boar? Fish or fowl?
 
I generally prefer something with a 4"-5" blade and confortable handle..Fairly pointy with a bit of belly..Ive used everything from a case muskrat to a butcher knife and this one right here.. I left my knife in the truck and all I had on my was this leatherman micro with about a 1 1/2" long blade..
I gutted a 200+ pound nine pointer with this thing.Opened him up easy but the attached internal organs were a bit of a challenge...Just kept sawing till it all came loose..
100_5521.jpg
 
Kentucky said:
I generally prefer something with a 4"-5" blade and confortable handle..Fairly pointy with a bit of belly..Ive used everything from a case muskrat to a butcher knife and this one right here.. I left my knife in the truck and all I had on my was this leatherman micro with about a 1 1/2" long blade..
I gutted a 200+ pound nine pointer with this thing.Opened him up easy but the attached internal organs were a bit of a challenge...Just kept sawing till it all came loose..
Click to expand...
Wow...
That sucks....

What kind of hick (er... "Appalacian-American" if you find the other term derogatory, which I personally don't) forgets his knife in the truck?? :p

(:thumbup: to the Latin in your signature, btw)
 
Hillbilly if you please :D I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of my hunt'n buddy that morning;) After I got thru hauling him on my 4-wheeler to his stand I was running late getting to mine..Everything was just off kilter that morning..I could have rode back and had it in 5 minutes but i thought "What the heck, Ill give it a try"..
Thanks, that particular bit of Latin means a lot to me..
chiral.grolim said:
Wow...
That sucks....

What kind of hick (er... "Appalacian-American" if you find the other term derogatory, which I personally don't) forgets his knife in the truck?? :p

(:thumbup: to the Latin in your signature, btw)
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the good answers. It makes more sense now, but I'm still wondering about the tapered handles. I suppose it does make more sense if I put some pictures up. I didn't at first because I don't have any of my own, but here are some of the hunters from the For Sale forums with the tapered tang (if you see your knife here and want it taken down, please say so):
PurpleHeartClipPointHunter6.jpg
079-3.jpg
IMG_0609.jpg
P1030665.jpg
20120202-072_web.jpg


Notice how the handles at the butt are thicker than right behind the bolsters. Some of the other hunters whose tapering isn't that obvious or just doesn't exist, they'll either have a finger guard (like the third knife), a blade that's wide enough to have a heel (pretty much all knives above), or both (last knife).

In comparison, a lot of other knives do have contours or maybe even the same kind of tapering sometimes, but the tapering demonstrated above seems to be present in a lot of hunters.

As you suggest though, I'm guessing the edge of the knife being offset in front of the knuckles that much is meant to make it easy to skin along the length of the whole blade without the fingers getting in the way.
 
In my opinion the reason that most true hunting knives have a small throat and a large swelling belly and butt, is because the knife in itself is worked with it being held upside down some, and it is ususally covered in blood making it slippery. I also think you find this because you generally find a gentle contour along the spine of the knife to make it ergonoically more comfortable, which requires the natural formation of a rlaxed hand fit this better.

Some knives are used for hunting that are just a knife, but their are some knives designed for hunting and those are the ones you need to pay attention to if you are looking for them. And each of those designs have a particular function they are specialized in. God Bless.
 
Here is a link to what the A.G. Russell website lists as "hunting knives" in their catalogue: http://www.agrussell.com/knives-by-purpose-hunting/c/133/
On that list is an offering from WC Davis (http://www.agrussell.com/wc-davis-handmade-knives/p/WCDhhh412GLM/) who has his own website from which I ordered my custom S30V Loveless-style drop-point hunter.

The list should give you an illustration of some of the variety of custom/handmade and production "hunting knives out there. Actually, there aren't a lot of puukko's on that list but they also qualify as "hunting knives" and are quite different (simpler?) in design from those you pasted above.

The pommel swell (and spur or beak) and hilt/guard are incorporated as a rest for the handle in a point-up or point-down grip to keep the handle firmly in hand and prevent the hand from sliding onto the blade or off of the knife altogether in slippery conditions (cold/wet/bloody/fatty). A rounded pommel is more comfortable on the thumb or palm in alternative grip positions and also won't jab you in the side when in its sheath (if mounted on the waste). A palm-swell is also a common handle feature, again catering to enhanced ergonomics. Finally, the handle & pommel also serve to balance the weight of the knife-blade, enhancing ease of use. For most users, a center-of mass on a well-balanced knife rests on the index finger at the top of the handle (immediately below the guard or ricasso), neither blade-heavy nor handle-heavy, unlike a chopping-tool where blade-heavy lends efficiency in performance. You may also notice that most handles have an oval cross-section, again allowing the handle to fit comfortably in hand in a variety of grips (eliminating concentrated points of pressure so as to reduce formation of blisters or hand fatigue) and not so round as to rotate easily on its own during use.
As handles go, the key features generally focus on security of grip and ergonomics.

The knives you pasted all sport either a withdrawn ricasso or are choil-less, i.e. the belly of the blade either extends far beyond the width of the ricasso or meets the ricasso without indentation - those are fairly specific design features, not common to all or even most hunting knives. Certainly part of the purpose of this extended blade may be to prevent the hand from sliding onto it from the handle (fulfilling the function of a guard), and to put the blade well ahead of the hand during slicing/cutting (as with kitchen knives), but it is also a feature allowing for a wider blade-belly with a smaller/more slender handle.

A wide belly allows for a more acute edge-angle and thinner blade on a thicker (stronger/more rigid) spine, and a more acute edge/thinner blade increases penetration/slicing which is ideal in skinning purposes... however, there are other attributes which optimize a knife for skinning vs. another purpose.
A wide belly also functions as a "paddle", used to lift or separate flexible materials once cut into layers (again, imagine a kitchen knife slicing bread or a tomato or carving a ham).

One could go on and on about the various design features (or flaws) or cutting instruments (we haven't gone into blade-profile or grind yet), but suffice it to say there is no set design known as the "hunting knife", rather a vast array of designs which serve a variety of users in specific and non-specific ways. Take you rtime, get to know the various design aspects of different knives, ask lots of questions (:thumbup:), and find out what attributes best serve your purposes... and always keep an open mind as you never know what new design or technology is waiting just around the corner! Have fun!


(Oh, and keep in mind that all of the above is simply my own opinion based on my own reasoning and experience)
 
chiral, that was one awesome answer with several awesome answerlets that were so awesome that I don't know what else to say or ask other than thanks :)

There really are a ton of considerations that go into the design of an item that seems as simple as a sharpened piece of steel with some handle material. You all brought a lot of them to light to me since I've never gone hunting and I can only speculate what some shape, size, swell, curve, etc., does. Thanks, everyone. I hope to do this with every single knife design at some point, but it seems kind of overwhelming to suddenly start a thread with "why is a nessmuk shaped this way, why is a bushcrafter shaped that way, why is a combat knife shaped this way," and so on.
 
Shotgun said:
The traits of a hunting knife are as varied as the traits of the hunter. Some like a lot of belly some use a disposable razor with no belly. Some like them big, some like them small. You're going to get answers all over the board I think.
Click to expand...

Shotgun knocked it out of the park. For hunting, I like one very small blade (small SAK blade, etc.) for cleaning small game - rabbits and squirrels; one small fixed blade like my Becker BK11 for processing deer; and a chopper of some sort (BK9 or a tomahawk or something) for building blinds and so forth.

As to what specific knife companies designate "hunting knife" - beats me. I don't think I have one of those. :p

---

Beckerhead #42
 
My take on the ideal hunting knife would be a fixed blade with about a 3.5 inch blade with a slight but noticable belly and a sort of "speyed" point similar to the second blade on a trapper folder. The production knife that closest meets this criteria is the Buck 103 skinner however I'm not very fond of the hidden tang and would much prefer a full tang.
 
A hunting knife should be a versatile tool capable of a range of chores expected from a knife being used in the field for everything from dispatching animals to processing the meat, including chores around the camp.
 
A 4 inch blade with a nice, thin edge works best for me. Hollow grinds are made to cut meat.

I really like my Randall Made Model 28 Woodsman.
 
uyogt, you're welcome, I'm glad the post wasn't too much of a bore.
festerfromnzed shows a nice variety of (apparently well-used) hunting knives for the game he hunts... Now he needs a khukuri! ;) (I have no idea what for, it is just another style of hunting knife common in a very different part of the world).

whetrock said:
My take on the ideal hunting knife would be a fixed blade with about a 3.5 inch blade with a slight but noticable belly and a sort of "speyed" point similar to the second blade on a trapper folder. The production knife that closest meets this criteria is the Buck 103 skinner however I'm not very fond of the hidden tang and would much prefer a full tang.
Click to expand...
I have no idea what "speyed" refers to (not a word i am familiar with :() but the Buck 103 has what is commonly called a drop-point blade and has a WIDE belly as knives go, characteristic of most skinner designs. The Buck 103 DOES have a full tang - the pin used to hold the blade+tang in the handle is visible on the side of the pommel as with all of Buck's "classic" fixed blades. The hidden tang was/is the most common tang-style in all bladed tools (including screw-drivers and chisels) based on older manufacturing methods (prior to CNC machining, etc.) and the advantage inherent in insulating the hand from the blade material which can channel heat/cold/electricity/vibration quite easily. The only user-advantage served by a full-width tang in the handle is increased material support for heavy (i.e. forceful) use... which is rather uncommon in processing game. *shrug*
 
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