A hunting knife earns its keep on maybe four days a year, and on those four days nothing else will do instead. Build the one that suits how you actually hunt.
Start with the profile. A drop point is the knife you reach for if you only own one. A skinner has the long sweeping belly that does the job in half the strokes. A gut hook opens without piercing, which matters more than it sounds. Then pick your steel, your handle, and the sheath that will carry it on your belt for the next thirty years.
1Blade profile
What the knife has to do decides this more than looks. A skinner sweeps, a drop point does everything, a gut hook opens without piercing.
2Blade steel
Carbon steel takes the keenest edge and asks you to look after it. Stainless forgives neglect. Damascus is folded carbon steel, so it behaves like carbon.
3Blade length
Measured from the guard to the tip. Four and a half inches covers most hunting work.
4Blade finish
5Handle material
Every scale is cut, fitted and finished by hand, so no two are identical.
6Guard and bolster
7Pins
8Sheath
Cut and stitched to your finished knife, not to a template.
9Engraving
A name, a date, coordinates, a callsign. Pick one and a text box appears.
10Packaging
11How many?
Ten or more is a workshop run, not a cart order - we will price it for you.
12Anything else (optional)
Ten or more - tell us what you need
Corporate gifts, groomsmen sets, restaurant kit. We quote by hand: unit price drops with volume and engraving is set up once for the whole run.
Choosing your steel, honestly
Carbon steel takes the keenest edge of anything here and it will go grey and then brown over a season. Hunters who like that call it a patina and let it happen, because that same darkened surface protects the steel underneath. If you would rather not think about it, take stainless. It is not a lesser knife, it is a different bargain.
Damascus is folded carbon steel. It behaves like carbon steel, patinas like carbon steel, and the pattern is what you are paying for. It is not harder or sharper than a plain carbon blade from the same bar, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling.
What we would build
If someone walked into the shop with no fixed idea, this is what we would talk them into: a four and a half inch drop point in 1095, a stonewash finish so field scratches disappear, stag or micarta scales, brass pins and a plain leather belt sheath. It comes out around two hundred dollars, it will outlive you, and there is nothing on it that can fail in the cold.
Questions people ask first
Full tang or hidden tang?
Every fixed blade we make is full tang unless you ask otherwise. The steel runs the entire length of the handle. It is heavier and it is the reason these knives get handed down instead of replaced.
How sharp does it arrive?
Shaving sharp, finished by hand on stones. We do not ship a knife that needs work before you can use it.
Can I get a left-handed sheath?
Yes, at no extra cost. Put it in the notes box and the sheath is cut and stitched the other way round.
Will the handle material hold up in the wet?
Micarta and pakkawood do not care about water at all. Stag, horn and oiled hardwoods want drying and an occasional wipe of oil, the same as any natural material. All of them last decades if you do that.
What is the difference between a skinner and a drop point?
A skinner has a longer curved belly and a tip that stays out of the way, so it separates hide without nicking through. A drop point does that job slightly less well and everything else considerably better.
Please check your local law before ordering.
Cannot find it in the list? Draw it.
Sketch the blade and the handle you have in mind. It does not need to be neat — a rough outline tells us more than a paragraph does. Mark lengths, angles or anything unusual straight on the drawing.
Draw the blade shape from the side. The dotted line is the centre.
A real person looks at every sketch and replies within one working day with a price and a lead time. Drawing something does not commit you to anything.