A traditional design with a little purposeful flair, the Schrade Deerslayer’s 10 1/2″ full tang construction is both strong and big enough to grip with the full width of your hand, for those butchering tasks where you need as much leverage as you can get. The dropped blade acts as a finger guard and the back of the blade is designed to take pressure, with a flattened anvil section in case you need to drive it through with a mallet blow. The blade is not hollow ground, which gives it extra strength but also makes it a little tougher to sharpen. Blades like this usually require a lot of time with a whetstone before you get them the way you want, but the edge, properly ground, won’t fold over when you hit bone.
There’s no gut hook on this 5 1/2″ stainless steel blade, but experience eliminates the need for one, and without that feature the trailing point design has more strength.
Without being fancy, this knife has a lot of style. Everything unnecessary has been designed away, but what’s left looks more like a dirk than a butcher’s knife. Most people who like knives appreciate that added style–art with function. The durable synthetic handle slabs offer an easy to clean and gap free design that cuts down on contamination in the field, where you don’t have as many options as you would in the kitchen. If you have nothing more advanced than a snowbank or a stream, you need to keep things simple.
The folded leather sheath is both riveted and stitched and has a snap loop as well, always a good idea if you might be wandering through heavy brush.
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