Boar knife?

[Singleshot]

Was going to get a fancy loveless style
drop point hunter, now thinking about a Cold steel master hunter.
What have you found that works best?
Thanks!

 

[MAC]

I've got a carbon steel master hunter. It is the original one with out the gut hook. It has worked great so far. I just wash the blood off real well, sharpen it after I'm done using it, and it's good to go for next time.

I've been thinking about an anza knife, but I'm saving for a few trips. Ask Songdog about his. If I were to buy a new knife, I'd get one of those.

Oh yeah... almost forgot... there is a whole section on knives in this forum. check it out.

(Edited by MAC at 6:36 pm on Mar. 17, 2002)

 

[Singleshot]

Sorry!
I am new here,
will go there now.....
And thanks!
Also looking at Talonite...
See ya!

 

[Wheelchair Bandit]

Check around your local pawn shops,and pick up a good Soligen steel knife,made in Soligen Germany.Good makers are Edge Brand,Linder and Puma,but they're all good (make sure to avoid the Frost Cutlery ones-they are made in Pakistan!).

The steel in these knifes are exellent,and they stay extremely sharp.I have boned out whole deer before and still have them sharp.

 

[Speckmisser]

Hey Singleshot,

If you're still checking the list...

That Loveless will serve you really well.  After watching a guide disassemble a couple of pigs, it struck me that a good deer skinner will be fine for pigs too...  just really wanna make sure you get good metal.  I carry an old Case along with a Schrade folder.  I bought a really nice "back point" custom a while back, but after trying it on a deer I decided it was a little too unwieldy.  A heavy caping knife is my next purchase.  

 

[songdog]

Anza makes a pretty decent knife for the price (under $100).

I've become a bigger fan of a shorter knife than I was at one time.  I now prefer a blade of 3-3.5" vs. the longer 5-6" blades, no matter how big the critter is.  I definitely prefer fixed blade to folding though.  That's more preference than performance based though.

Anything that will work on a deer should work just fine on a pig.  

 

[sportyg]

Try a utility knife.. Works great on deer. an old tomer turned me on to using one. Don't cost an arm and a leg. They stay sharp and when you want to change blades just turn the blade around.. A pack of blades are only a buck or two..

 

[RIFLEMAN]

I agree wholeheartedly with sportyg.  I have found that a simple utility knife works best for skinning and gutting.  I will never go back to using a knife.

One thing of note:  You will need something more heavy-duty than a utility knife to split the pelvis in order to pull the rectum through.  

 

[Speckmisser]

Ah, you guys take all the fun out of it!  If it ever got out that I could get away as well with a $2.99 utility knife instead of constantly experimenting with these $200 (and up) custom blades....   holy cow!  

Shhhh.... bad enough someone let slip that the May Tejon hunt is on Mother's Day.  Now you're really letting the cat out of the bag!  Ignorance is bliss!

Just kidding.. the utility knife would be great for skinning and opening the cavity, and DEFINITELY fits most budgets.  Kinda tough to quarter and butcher with, though.  I like to have a little more blade to work with.  Quickest skinner I ever saw worked with nothing but a caping knife.  

 

[jrifenbark]

I just bought a Spyderco Bill Moran fixed blade drope point hunter.  It's about $70.  The blade is about 3" and has a plastic handle with rubber inserts or vice versa.  I hope I get the chance to use it.

 

[Wheelchair Bandit]

Jeesh guys,$2.99 utility knifes?If I started using those,I'd have to sell all my expensive hunting rifles and replace them with $69 Moslin Nagants. ;~)

I mostly use fixed blade knifes made in Soligen Germany.I pick up four or five a year at pawnshops for $10-$20 a piece,and I have them in sizes from tiny pen knifes all the way to around four or five different sizes of Bowies.The medium sized,four to five inch bladed ones work perfectly for all chores exsept for caping,then I like a small knife.The steel in Soligen knifes is exellent-I have boned out whole deer before and the knifes were still sharp!

(Edited by Wheelchair Bandit at 9:24 pm on Mar. 21, 2002)

 

[GruntHunter]

Rifleman,
You don't need to split the pelvic to get the rectum out. I've been hunting hogs for 4 years now and have never had to do that.
After you have it hung up, hose it down to get all of the sand, mud and dirt off it. That will dull a knife real quick. I have two Buck knives, the Vangard drop point and the vangard with the gut hook and also a Gerber fillit knife. All have served me well. My co-hunting buddy uses a Buck cross lock but I prefer a fixed blade knife. I guess I feel it's easier to clean and has less places to trap blood and whatever.

FIRST:
If it's a Boar we remove the testicales and then right on down and slice off the penis all in one operation. Now I use my Buck knife with the gut hook and open up the cavity.
SECOND:
If it's a SOW then I just start a cut and use my gut hook to open the cavity up. I may also slice off all the ###### just to get them out of the way.

If both cases, now I start to slowly cut around the back of the cavity to expose the rectum mass. Now I use the extendable fishing fillet knife and go top side and basically 'core' out the anus and then do the same from the inside, switching back and forth as needed , until the whole rectum mass can just be pulled down through.

After that I continue to carefully clean around the inside of the cavity trying NOT to damage the tenderloins. When I get down to about where the tenderloins are I stop.

Now I try and find where the breast bone is and poke a little of my knife through and creat a small opening. I have a pair of pruning lopers I insert into that opening and use to cut down through the chest cavity until I get to the beginning of the neck area. I now use a knife to finish cutting down through the throat as far as I can.

Now go back up and finish cutting around the back side of the cavity and you'll find the whole gut sack will fall right out in one large blob. You may have to trim up a little in the throat area but now your done.

This makes a nice neat cleaning job. And, Oh Yea, obviously the hog had been hanging by it's hind legs. I do my deer the same way Check my photos on Web Shots to see some of the ones I've worked on.

If this has been confusing then I might be able to take a series of photos of the whole process and post them also.

Has this helped you out any?
Fla GruntHunter

 

[Speckmisser]

Grunthunter,

That's a great way to do it, and similar to what I did with deer back east. Take 'em back to the barn, hang 'em high and then gut them, and the whole package comes out nice and neat. Let gravity do the work.

Unfortunately, most of the work out here in CA is field dressing, and there's an awful lot of territory where the biggest tree is a three-inch scrub oak. Gotta learn to do it on the ground.

I never cut the pelvic bone before, but since field dressing a couple of hogs on steep hillsides, I've found that it makes the job a WHOLE lot easier. You can spread those legs and roll him/her over, and everything rolls out nice and easy.

Of course you can still do it without cutting the pelvic bone, but with a $5 zip saw (weighs an ounce or two in my fanny pack), I can cut through that pelvic area real quick and life gets a whole lot easier.

Kinda funny, by the way, to see this thread come back to life almost exactly a year after it went to sleep.

 

[tnctcb]

i have found that while i like my buck knife for deer and most anything else they dont seem to hold a good edge with larger hogs.ive got a kershaw that works rally well though

 

[Shot]

knife is a knife, just sharpen it and start cutting. I find that a $2 knife gets the job done just as well as a $200 knife. It helps if you have a light saw to quarter the pig with. Just my .02

 

[RIFLEMAN]

Grunt,

I used to cut around the rectum and then pull it out, but like Speck said, I have found splitting the pelvis to be much easier.

 

[Freedivr2]

If I were a guide or gutting pigs every weekend, I KNOW I'd be using a utility knife for my hogs, definitely.

But, I'm not, and I've got way too many knives to be sitting around looking pretty while I'm using a utility knife. I got em to use em so what the heck, use em.

My favorite knife on any animal is my buck zipper, no question. The zipper not only opens them up real slick, it also lines out the hide for skinnin real easy.

P.S. I don't like splitting the pelvis, because of all the ham I have to cut through to get down to it. One of my field objectives is not to cut through any muscle and expose that much less surface area to bacteria. Now that I said that, if it's a hot day, I'm cutting through the pelvis to get the job done quicker....

 

[SDHNTR]

I'm with Freedivr2 on this one. I use a Buck zipper and love it. When my group of buddies is dressing out some hogs I'll finish mine and the other guys are then quick to borrow my knife. The utility/ carpet knife does work well though. After dressing and skinning I go for my 6" and 10" Forschners for the processing work. I still have these knives from my days as a deckhand and they are fabulous for any kind of meat cutting.

 

[Bishop]

Cold Steel Master Hunter Plus - Carbon Steel, just about indistructible.

 

[RIFLEMAN]

Hey Bishop,

How much does one of those run you? I bet it costs a bundle!!!