Best Skinning knife for $200

[badbrass]

Me too! I think many are reaching out to Canadian makers, than our American knife makers! Some are some aren't! Once you try them, then you're hooked!

Originally Posted by M.C. Gusto

happy to see money staying in Canada. So many great makers here

[badbrass]

Shave your face or your arm yet? haha! Great looking knife! Sure like your green!

Originally Posted by sns2

Just firmed up an order with Clint C. My buddy got one that I posted on, and was super impressed. I thought I better try one. I was teetering on ordering a Canadian Skinner from Hank Hammond, but then closely went through Clint's Instagram account, and saw he had his own version of that design, except he makes knives with Magnacut, which I wanted to try. He was also willing to use 3/32" stock when I asked. He indicated a preference for a full flat grind with thin blade stock. I am happy to take a suggestion from the maker. Gonna be this knife, but with green canvas micarta scales, toxic green liners, and stainless Corby bolts.

Excited to get her.




Sent from my MP24 using Tapatalk

[sns2]

Originally Posted by badbrass

Shave your face or your arm yet? haha! Great looking knife! Sure like your green!

My arms and legs are hairless. LOL

[Pathfinder76]

I blooded the new knife this morning. I beat the crap out of it taking a deer completely apart. It will still take hair off my arm. I might be impressed with Magnacut. :-)

[sns2]

Originally Posted by Pathfinder76

I blooded the new knife this morning. I beat the crap out of it taking a deer completely apart. It will still take hair off my arm. I might be impressed with Magnacut. :-)

congrats!!

That’s a real beauty pic and beauty knife.

[obsessed1]

Originally Posted by Pathfinder76

I blooded the new knife this morning. I beat the crap out of it taking a deer completely apart. It will still take hair off my arm. I might be impressed with Magnacut. :-)

I'm a believer! That is a super sharp looking knife there!

[badbrass]

Good for you! Looks great!

Originally Posted by Pathfinder76

I blooded the new knife this morning. I beat the crap out of it taking a deer completely apart. It will still take hair off my arm. I might be impressed with Magnacut. :-)

[badbrass]

Haha!

Originally Posted by sns2

My arms and legs are hairless. LOL

[Pathfinder76]

Originally Posted by obsessed1

I'm a believer! That is a super sharp looking knife there!

I gave it a fairly good workout.

[sns2]

That would qualify as a workout. Full stop.

[badbrass]

Good for you! That's a work out!

Originally Posted by Pathfinder76

I gave it a fairly good workout.

[saskwhitey]

Cool old buck

[Dom4]

Awesome buck and that just shows that you can do a lot of work with a really simple blade.

[fishnguy]

Looks like that one is turning into a shoulder mount, haha. Congrats on the deer! Better pic of the specimen?

Do you know the hardness of that blade?

[fishnguy]

Originally Posted by senderomag

He specializes in 440c. Takes him 14 hours to complete the blade alone. He’s up there in age now. So I tell my buddy’s u better order now. He made blades for some production butchering outfit. They were getting 600 cuts before sharpening. But with his blades 14,000 before sharpening. Yes u read that right. It’s done a moose and a deer. Still takes off arm hair. We will see how many critters it can do before sharpening

What do you mean by cuts?

440C is a pretty average steel, a stainless equivalent to D2, more or less.

I have seen similar statements before in this thread that some particular maker has a super duper heat treatment and his knives are a step above others, including other makers using the same steel, but with different “inferior” heat treatment.

Here is the thing: every steel has been developed to have certain properties that cannot be avoided. Every steel has a certain balance (in terms of knife making) between edge retention, toughness, and corrosion resistance. Your edge retention and toughness will be determined by the hardness it is heat treated to. The higher the hardness and, hence, edge retention, the lower the toughness, provided the steel is the same. You cannot avoid this relationship. So the super duper heat treatment usually means that the maker prefers a certain hardness to his blades, maybe adding another step or two such as cryo, etc, that somewhat affects the microstructure of steel. Is there an almost art to this, especially in the knives coming out from the most profound knife makers? Absolutely! However, they will always be limited by the properties of any particular steel they are working with. So they all have their sweet spot they are comfortable with. For example, AEBL can be treated to various degrees of hardness (and is a hard steel to begin with), however, as hardness increases, so does edge retention and quite dramatically, relatively speaking; the trade off, however, is that the toughness of that steel drops even more dramatically, to the point that it makes no sense to treat AEBL to above the recommended hardness. If better edge retention is desired, it makes a lot more sense to use different steel that would have the same or better edge retention at lower hardness because the composition of that steel allows for it because it was designed for a different purpose. Other steels, such as 440C, cannot be made as hard as AEBL and do not gain as much in edge retention properties as their hardness increases (probably because of significantly higher chromium content in case of 440C compared to AEBL, but I am far from the expert on the subject).

This is why A2, for example, is far from the greatest choice of steel for a hunting knife, custom or not, and I don’t care who the guy who makes the knife is. And that is why MagnaCut is an excellent choice of steel, regardless of the maker (provided the guy understands heat treatment or outsources it and does not overheats the blade when grinding). MagnaCut has fairly high edge retention among stainless steel, but it is also very tough and is extremely corrosion resistant. No other stainless steel that has similar toughness has similar edge retention.

What are the other reasons for knives made by the most profound knife makers cutting better and holding better edge? The most important one is edge geometry. They understand it completely. In addition to heat treatment, they know how to grind their blades for the purpose they make them for. This is where they shine and what separates them from the rest of the bunch. For this reason, for example, if money and availability was no object, if I wanted a blade in CPM 3V specifically and I wanted a slicer that would just keep cutting for a very long time, I would buy one from Phil Wilson; if I wanted a blade in CPM 3V and I wanted to break a brick with it and still cut my tomato after, I would buy one from Carothers and wouldn’t even consider Phil for this purpose. This is also the reason why some production knives from the best companies will always differ. Their edge is made to certain specs with some forgiving deviations. Sometimes that edge can have a perfect grind in regards to thickness (rather thinness if we are talking about hunting knives), but it will be “burned out” and will require to be sharpened many times before it can perform to specs and that will easily separate it from a custom knife by a long mile because that one will perform out of the box. In other words, the production knife will always try to catch up but never would because it is at least a few sharpenings behind. Think of factory ammo and handloads by a person who really knows his stuff.

Anyway, I am just saying that these stories that someone’s knife cuts 25 times better (literally) than someone else’s, especially the knives that are made from the same steel, aren’t exactly realistic. I have seen similar claims for Dozier knives, that their D2 is magical in comparison to others’. In that particular case, there is especially a doubt because the knives are made by several different people some of whom are better than others. If those knives do, in fact, cut better for longer, that is because they likely aren’t as tough as their counterparts. So if I wanted a hunting knife in D2, for example, I would choose Dozier (given the options), but for a bushcraft knife I would choose someone else (and other steel, of course).

[Pathfinder76]

Originally Posted by fishnguy

Looks like that one is turning into a shoulder mount, haha. Congrats on the deer! Better pic of the specimen?

Do you know the hardness of that blade?

I can’t remember honestly. James told me, but I’ve forgotten.

Here is the buck. My 14 year old shot him. Long story, but he shot him with my rifle as it was on the pack ready to go. I had seen him coming for just a few seconds. I thought he was going to pop out at about 460 yards but he did at 250 so I rolled out of the way and he took over. His first whitetail and first buck. He has a messed up right side, but on the left had 6” bases, 10” G1, 13” G2, 10” G3 and 25” main beam.

[Phil McCracken]

Originally Posted by fishnguy

What do you mean by cuts?

440C is a pretty average steel, a stainless equivalent to D2, more or less.

I have seen similar statements before in this thread that some particular maker has a super duper heat treatment and his knives are a step above others, including other makers using the same steel, but with different “inferior” heat treatment.

Here is the thing: every steel has been developed to have certain properties that cannot be avoided. Every steel has a certain balance (in terms of knife making) between edge retention, toughness, and corrosion resistance. Your edge retention and toughness will be determined by the hardness it is heat treated to. The higher the hardness and, hence, edge retention, the lower the toughness, provided the steel is the same. You cannot avoid this relationship. So the super duper heat treatment usually means that the maker prefers a certain hardness to his blades, maybe adding another step or two such as cryo, etc, that somewhat affects the microstructure of steel. Is there an almost art to this, especially in the knives coming out from the most profound knife makers? Absolutely! However, they will always be limited by the properties of any particular steel they are working with. So they all have their sweet spot they are comfortable with. For example, AEBL can be treated to various degrees of hardness (and is a hard steel to begin with), however, as hardness increases, so does edge retention and quite dramatically, relatively speaking; the trade off, however, is that the toughness of that steel drops even more dramatically, to the point that it makes no sense to treat AEBL to above the recommended hardness. If better edge retention is desired, it makes a lot more sense to use different steel that would have the same or better edge retention at lower hardness because the composition of that steel allows for it because it was designed for a different purpose. Other steels, such as 440C, cannot be made as hard as AEBL and do not gain as much in edge retention properties as their hardness increases (probably because of significantly higher chromium content in case of 440C compared to AEBL, but I am far from the expert on the subject).

This is why A2, for example, is far from the greatest choice of steel for a hunting knife, custom or not, and I don’t care who the guy who makes the knife is. And that is why MagnaCut is an excellent choice of steel, regardless of the maker (provided the guy understands heat treatment or outsources it and does not overheats the blade when grinding). MagnaCut has fairly high edge retention among stainless steel, but it is also very tough and is extremely corrosion resistant. No other stainless steel that has similar toughness has similar edge retention.

What are the other reasons for knives made by the most profound knife makers cutting better and holding better edge? The most important one is edge geometry. They understand it completely. In addition to heat treatment, they know how to grind their blades for the purpose they make them for. This is where they shine and what separates them from the rest of the bunch. For this reason, for example, if money and availability was no object, if I wanted a blade in CPM 3V specifically and I wanted a slicer that would just keep cutting for a very long time, I would buy one from Phil Wilson; if I wanted a blade in CPM 3V and I wanted to break a brick with it and still cut my tomato after, I would buy one from Carothers and wouldn’t even consider Phil for this purpose. This is also the reason why some production knives from the best companies will always differ. Their edge is made to certain specs with some forgiving deviations. Sometimes that edge can have a perfect grind in regards to thickness (rather thinness if we are talking about hunting knives), but it will be “burned out” and will require to be sharpened many times before it can perform to specs and that will easily separate it from a custom knife by a long mile because that one will perform out of the box. In other words, the production knife will always try to catch up but never would because it is at least a few sharpenings behind. Think of factory ammo and handloads by a person who really knows his stuff.

Anyway, I am just saying that these stories that someone’s knife cuts 25 times better (literally) than someone else’s, especially the knives that are made from the same steel, aren’t exactly realistic. I have seen similar claims for Dozier knives, that their D2 is magical in comparison to others’. In that particular case, there is especially a doubt because the knives are made by several different people some of whom are better than others. If those knives do, in fact, cut better for longer, that is because they likely aren’t as tough as their counterparts. So if I wanted a hunting knife in D2, for example, I would choose Dozier (given the options), but for a bushcraft knife I would choose someone else (and other steel, of course).

Very good points there Fishguy. Thanx for sharing.

As many now know, I have now gone the Magnacut route myself. I send my blades out for heat treat as I do not possess the proper equipment. The guy that does them believes the "sweet spot" for Magnacut RC is 62ish, and that is the hardness I usually do mine.

I have recently designed this small "drop point" which will be going in soon for heat treat. The cutting edge will be about 2 5/8ish".

Also a good point on the dreaded blade overheat during grinding. Although it may not be necessary, I cool mine in water after every pass on the grinder. The tip will usually heat up faster than the rest of the edge. Have to be vewy vewy careful...hehe



PS: Nice deer your boy got Pathfinder!

[DirtShooter]

Cool deer, congrats

[Pathfinder76]

Originally Posted by DirtShooter

Cool deer, congrats

Thanks. I just scored his normal side and doubled it. Holy crap. He goes over 168”. I’m pushing him out of the way next time.

[Smokinyotes]

Too bad he was screwed up on the one side but will still make a very unique mount. Congrats to your son.

[Dom4]

Originally Posted by Pathfinder76

Thanks. I just scored his normal side and doubled it. Holy crap. He goes over 168”. I’m pushing him out of the way next time.

HAHA We always joke when we are hunting in pairs that if a big one like that comes out that you better make sure you shoot first lol. Anyhow the experience of being with family and harvesting any animal is a special one.

[Athabasca1]

Very nice knife Pathfinder76. Congrats to both you and your boy. Well done.

[sns2]

That pic of Pathfinder’s boy tells you just about all you need to know about the kind of dad he has. Times like these go so far in shaping a boy into a young man. Fathers who miss out on the value of the outdoors on their relationships with their kids are missing out on a potentially vital component.

Way to go, Dad!

[Pathfinder76]

Thanks!

Here is workout number two!

[badbrass]

Wow nice looking buck!
Congrats! And Congrats to your son!

Originally Posted by Pathfinder76

Thanks!

Here is workout number two!

[Pathfinder76]

Thanks! My daughter killed this one. I’m not handing kids my rifle anymore. Lol

[badbrass]

Well Congrats to your daughter then!

Originally Posted by Pathfinder76

Thanks! My daughter killed this one. I’m not handing kids my rifle anymore. Lol[]

[sns2]

Great work for the whole family!

[badbrass]

Lol!

Originally Posted by Pathfinder76

Thanks! My daughter killed this one. I’m not handing kids my rifle anymore. Lol

[BcK]

i use a benchmade bugout it cost a little more then 200 but it’s 1 of the most amazing knives you can buy.