Hunting Knife

February 27th, 2010 | in Hunting Leave a comment

There are many different types of hunting knives and finding the best one can be tough. From the Buck hunting knife to the Gerber hunting knife, the folding hunting knife or the custom hunting knife, you need to find the best hunting knife or survival knife that suits your particular hunting needs; which may also mean there may be many hunting knives that are best for you.

As a hunter, you must first ask yourself what type of hunting you do. Do you hunt big game or small? Do you hunt for meat or trophies? Consider the size of your game from biggest to smallest that you may be using the knife on. Then you need to ask yourself what you will be doing with the hunting knife when you are not hunting, and if it will have any utility value outside of the realm of hunting. Depending on what you hunt, you may need a hunting knife with special features like gutting fish or skinning game. There are a great many hunting knife manufacturers that produce high quality hunting knives so it is entirely possible to find an affordable, quality hunting knife that will suit all of your hunting needs.

First, consider the two basic types of hunting knives. You can find a hunting knife with a fixed blade or a folding blade. Neither is necessarily better or worse than the other but it needs to suit your goals. One of the advantages of a fixed blade is that they are generally much stronger than folding blade hunting knives. The overall strength of a hunting knife is very important considering what you may be doing with it. A fixed blade hunting knife means that it will require a sheath so it may be carried and stored safely.

A folding hunting knife will have some sort of pivot point and hopefully a working locking mechanism. The greatest advantage of folding hunting knives is how easily they may be stored in your pocket or on your belt.

Now you need to look at more specific styles of blades. The tanto blade is considered by many to be the strongest style of blade and can be found in both fixed and folding styles of hunting knives. You will also come across terms such as clip point or drop point, gut hook and skinning. These obviously have specific purposed intended by the manufacturer and it would be prudent to purchase one of these hunting knives to perform a certain way. Remember, some quality hunting knives can be very affordable so it is not beyond the realm of reason to buy more than one hunting knife if you will need it for more than one purpose.

After you have selected your general purpose, type and blade of hunting knife, you should move on to the style of handle you would like. This should not only be appealing to the eye but have some functional and practical purpose, and not necessarily in that order. You can find a hunting knife handle made in nearly any material known to man thanks to the thousands of custom hunting knife makers out there, but you can basically find hunting knives made in rubber, composite, bone, wood or leather. The grip it provides may be the most important feature of a good hunting knife. It needs to fit in your hand properly and allow you to wield it with precision and accuracy.

Now that you know the basics, search companies like Buck or Gerber to find the details that will put the finishing touches on your hunting knife. Do you need a serrated blade or take the weight into consideration? In a way, a hunting knife can be an expression of the owner so hunting knife selection should not be taken lightly.