What knife would you buy on a budget?
 

I have a Buck Knife with a gut hook and a Schrade Ol Timer folding knife that I carry for field dressing (whitetails). The last couple of years I began processing my own deer and want to get some other knives for boning and such. A friend of mine has a couple of Old Hickory knives that he uses when he was showing me the ropes and they held an edge better then the two knives that I have, plus they sharpen rather easily. I was surprised when he told me he paid less then $10 each for the two knives. I am thinking about getting a couple but I was wandering if there are any other cheap but good knives out there I could look for. I usually kill two deer a year so they won't see a bunch of work but I have quickly learned that a sharp knife works a lot better. I wouldn't mind spending $50.00 or more for a decent knife but on the flip side of that I don't want to spend $50.00 and get a knife that is not as good as the $10.00 knife my friend uses.

I remember seeing a thread raving about Erickson Mora knives on a popular knife forum last year. One guy went as far as to say that once he spent $10 on an Erickson Mora, he realized that all other knives were overpriced.

If you go to ragweedforge.com and click on the Ragner's Swedish Knife Catalog tab, you can find a ton of knives, some of which have carbon steel blades, for as little as $10. I got a utility knife for the garage and was very impressed. They look cheap, but boy can looks be deceiving!

Hope this helps.

Allot of people use regular hunting knives for skinning or gutting. When i killed my elk this year, my buddy laughed at me when i pulled my knife out. He grabbed a new knife he started using this year, havalon knives, and started hacking away at my elk. It was unbelievable how sharp the blade stayed and that if it got dull, he carried replacement blades in his pack. They worked like razor blades (havalon are basically surgical scalpels that are a little thicker than razors), and one blade did (skinned and deboned) my whole elk and skinned the skull.

This is why we started carrying them, it might not be something you are interested in but they are fair priced, blades are cheap for as long as they can be used and it is really nice not to be able to not have to spend a whole night sharpening it. Needless to say, i replaced my heavy knife with one of the new lightweight havalon.

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http://www.bugsnbullets.com/Havalon_...g_mid_102.html

Do you sell these knives or do you just love them that much? You have 33 post on this site and 15 or more of them are the same response, verbatim. No shame in advertising a product.

Mora is a great knife that I gave all my neices and nephews as gifts. I gave my daughters fixe blade Winchester knifes bought at Wal Mart for under $30 (in Canada). They are easy to shapen and hold a great edge.
Sitting by a camp fire in camp or watching a hunting show and sharpening my broad heads with a scotch is a ritual every bit as much as anything. I would not give it up. A knife with character is as much as who I am as the old hunting hat I use.

Eric

Look up Deadwood Knives! Free shipping also!

My friends and I use a potluck collection of knives, including hunting, Old Hickory and Chicago Cutlery knives. One of us is a professional chef, with $$$ knives to use, and he is perfectly happy using whatever we have. The key is to keep the knives for the task at hand and keep them sharp.I use my ancient Western 4" fixed blade for 70 % of my work, and the Chicago Cutlery chefs knife for most of my slicing. Dont worry about spending $ for prestige names, use what works.And keep em sharp (we hone constantly - every 5-10 minutes).

Do you hone with a stone or do you use a sharpening stick?

To sharpen any knife I like to get the angle right with a Lansky system and then keep it like a razor with crok sticks. A friend of mine has a "Ruuko" i think name is right, around 10 bucks, was great! I fell into the name-brand trap and bought Buck and Alaska Knives.

It wasn't the knife
 

It was becoming an expert with the Arkansas sharpening stones. Saved a lot of money over the years.

I still use a Schrade gut hooker, a Winchester pocket knife, a Schrade pocket knife, an Old Hickory paring knife, and inexpensive household knives. Oh, and I sharpen up a tomahawk using a metal file. Never replaced a grass cutter blade in over twenty years . Used metal files to keep them in cutting shape.

Thanks for your assist. I didn't think of getting a new Old Hickory knife off the internet. And I can't wait to use that Old Hickory paring knife on the next deer harvest, for this ol amateur chef to cut up the potatoes, the carrots and the venison for that next hunter's stew.

I was raised to use stones- a two sided ancient carborumdum, and a very hard Arkansas for fine touch up. Stones take practice to use well, but it isnt difficult. Sticks usually are only good for touch ups. Actuallly, I seldom need to use the carborundum and only an occaissional swipe or two on the hard stone. The key is to swipe it very frequently.( literally every 5-10 minutes of use).
I do keep a couple diamond sticks a the camp for quick work though, and the little V pocket ceramic hones are also great for touch ups- especially for chores like cleaning pan fish, where they are very convenient.

www.havalon.com Good luck.

Mora Knives, the most trusty, durable, and affordable knives around. From 9$ to 60$ each knife is extremely well crafted in Sweeden. My favorite is the 2010 Bushcraft.
http://www.swedishknives.com/hunting.htm#Outdoor_2000

For boning get a boning knife. Victorinox, Henkles, etc can be had for 20 bucks. They work and are easy to steel.

Best Knife on a Budget
 

I had a Mora given to me several years ago by my father-in-law. I have used that little knife for just about everything. I've also bought several other Mora knives over the years, never paying more than $25 max. Very good knife and it does everything a good knife should do. I've lost several of them over the years and at the price of about $10, I've never cried over the loss. It's not going to chop wood for ya, or cut through steel. (referring to idgits I see on youtube beating up perfectly good tools by doing things they weren't meant to do, lol.) It'll skin anything ya want to eat though, so good enough for me.

Helle Harding.

Google it.
Great knife. Reasonable price.
Near perfect for all around big game use.

I will take a different angle since i came from primarily saltwater fishing into hunting.

http://www.tackledirect.com/tsunami-...knife-kit.html

Simple, clean and organized kit and the knives work great. Have used them on fishing/ camping trips and helping my father with the deer. Even came with a sharpening stone.

I use a buck 110 to gut, a buck skinner 103 and a buck pathfinder 105 for skinning. I use a electric knife to cut loins and hams. Smoky mountain knives works is a good place to shop. My grandmother still uses her father's old hickory knives. They are still in good shape the new ones are not as good as the old ones. I have some I bought about 5 years ago and they don't sharpen or stay sharp like the old ones.

I carried a Case XX folder for years until I saw a buddy use a Havalon. That sold me on them and that is what I carry. No more sharpening and like noted above, when they get dull it takes less than 30 seconds to put a new blade in it and continue. Mine has the bright orange handle which is a bonus since if I lay it down in the leaves I can find it quickly.

Try one of these and you'll probably never use anything else.

I use hunting knives to hunt and butcher knives to butcher. I carry an outdoor edge swing blade hunting and a Havalon in my pack as well for a backup. They never leave my pack then I use the forshner curved boning knife to skin and butcher.

less than $100 total

I have a decent collection but those are the ones I choose to use.

I use a mora for outdoor/camping/utility type stuff

I like...

Havalon
Helle
Benchmade

All quality knives. The Havalon will be less expensive than the other two and they are really sharp. Easy to replace blade.

Here is a knife steel comparison chart that's worth a look when shopping for a new knife...

http://www.midwayusa.com/technicalno...rial_chart.htm

I own others , but use a 110 for 98%of my needs.

If you want cheap but decent knife, try Mtech. Although most of them are copied from known and expensive brands, still they can do the job if you want it from good affordable knife.

Go to Walmart and pick out a knife that looks good to you.

I prefer folders these days for safer carry.