KNIVES FOR HUNTING

Many of us hunters of long have a love affair with the tool of a successful hunt; the knife.
In our minds, we have this idea of the perfect knife that will fit our hand like a glove; that will perform surgery like a scalpel; that will not need to be sharpened ever, and will remove a cape as well as field dress and skin anything from a deer to a moose.

In our search for the perfect blade, we accumulate many of them that are probably as good as the best knife ever made, but in our search for Nirvana we keep adding new blades and hoping to do enough hunting to test all of them on game.

On the other hand, some hunters are not interested at all in the tool. My friend Frank that has probably field dressed at least fifty deer with the same Buck hunter knife in the last 20 years removes it from the pack once every year in hunting season to field dress a deer or two, and the blade goes back into the same pack to wait for next year’s job.
Perhaps his father being a butcher has something to do with it. He was taught how to field dress a deer early in life, and to him it is just a necessary job that has to be performed. To others like me it is a culmination of all our efforts and should be done as elegantly and as clean and bloodless as possible and with the most effective of tools.

I have found in my long search for the perfect blade that many of today’s knives in the market qualify as superb blades for the job. A good knife blade of 3 ½ to 4 inches will be plenty for most chores. Preferences in my case are for the drop-point blades, but I have had good service from clip points or other shapes.

Some of us like a fancy wood or antler handle or perhaps some engraving on the blade. Those I label dress knives and are a great way to stir a conversation between fellow hunters. I am one with that type of taste and will always appear at camp with a fancy blade. The truth is that I perform all of my field dressings with a plain one that I keep hidden in my pack.

Here is one of my fancy blades, the Browning model 122 one of one thousand, and the one that does the actual field dressing, a Buck 192 Vanguard.



Best wishes

Watchmaker

That sure is a fancy looking knife alright. Personally, if I'm not going to use something, there isn't much chance I'm going to pack it around with me in the bush, don't matter what it is. I'd be one to go for that Buck you got pictured there.

wow that is a beauty!! and i agree with Tracker...

The Browning sure is one fancy sweet looking knife....and no doubt it would be capable of doing "the job" too.......but I like the Buck better.

The Buck, to me, looks more like a working knife should. The only thing that I am a little iffy about is the handle, but only because a knife handle is a very personal thing....it must fit your hand and be comfortable.

Have a look at this thread watchmaker:

TOOLS OF OUR "TRADE" - KNIVES

Cheers, Vince

I favor R.H. Ruana for all my hunting needs. Any of the members have any Ruana knife stories? Any Ruana knives available to sell?

Welcome to the HuntingNut soilsci sit and stay awhile
Joe

Welcome aboard soilsci. Grab a beer, sit awhile and enjoy your stay here.

Never heard of R.H. Ruana knives mate. How about a little info on them.

Cheers, Vince

R.H. Ruana knives.........Well they are likely the finest knives made for the
purpose of hunting. They are not pretty, but hold an edge for a long time.
Rudy Ruana made knives, bowies, and custom items from the '20's to 1984. Most of that time was in Bonner, Montana just outside of Missoula, Montana. He made knives to be used, and took input from the hunters seriously, and used there comments to fine tune his designs.

Thanks for your response.

Got anything visual you can post on those Ruana knives soilsci? Pics or a website? It never hurts to take another look and I am known for favoring Montanans, lol

Here are a couple of links to give you an idea about the Ruana knives:
www.ruanaknives.com
www.rhruana.com
home.comcast.net/~rgco...index.html

Let me know what you think.

Excellent knives by the looks of them and they certainly seem to know what they're doing. That's a good website. Pricey tho', for a poor ol' country boy like me. Now if there happens to be some wonderful young Cherokee woman hiding out in the mountains of Montana who wants to buy me a really really fine looking gift (ahem) hopefully she'll show up and check out this thread, lol.

I've been using the same Buck for about thirty years now. I take care of it and it takes care of me. I've field dressed probably sixty deer in that time. It also gets used to do all the cutting up of the meat as I would never let anyone else do my venison. Ol' Buck still doing the job.

soilsci wrote:

I favor R.H. Ruana for all my hunting needs. Any of the members have any Ruana knife stories? Any Ruana knives available to sell?

My first Ruana was a skinner and was bought at a gunshow for $20 in reasonably good condition. Only later did I verify that it was made by Rudy himself. Its as good of a skinner as I have ever owned. Subsequently, I have picked up a basic clip point made post-Rudy, but still a great working knife that continues to get used a great deal.

While a lot of production knives do a good job, there are some superb dollar values in the semi-production catagory. Gene Ingram makes some of the most useful knives I own and you can specify the type of steel, the type of grip material etc. He will adapt scabbards to your specifications as well and has delivered two to me with horizontal carry which I prefer.

D2 and S30V are great knife steels. Properly heat treated, they have durable blades that seldom require dressing in the field. Ingram's knives are in the $150 to $200+ range. Check out his website, but, beware, it is a seductive display.

I had a look at a couple of nice Buck knives yesterday, a 4" Omni Hunter Drop Point and a 3" version of the same. They both felt like they belonged in my hand....but boy are they expensive over here. Between $AUD150 and $AUD165 ($US127 - $US140), for a knife that Buck sell through their website for $US40 and $US48 respectively. Not sure that I can purchase internationally through the Buck website though. BUGGER!!

Cheers, Vince

Vince, they're half that price here.