I wanted to remake my original Small Game Hunter knife so I could retire the first knife that I ever made to home use only and keep it from potentially getting lost in the field or stolen from my truck. Since I do a lot of backcountry backpacking hunts, weight was of a concern.
I chose Elmax steel so I could grind it thinner and keep weight down while maintaining durability/impact resistance with a stainless and have good enough edge retention to last me a few animals without the need to resharpen in the field.
I skeletonized the tang and tapered it down to 0.010" for maximal weight reduction and hollow ground the primary grinds to 0.010" as well. It slices like a laser. Then I handled it in carbon fiber to keep weight down, improve the structural strength of that super thin tapered tang, and have a material that is impervious to blood, guts, gun oils, rain, sweat, etc for the field. I chose JungleWear carbon to pick up some greens and earth tones purely for aesthetics over the more common, less costly 2x2 twill carbon fiber. Since JungleWear carbon was slightly undersized for the thickness dimensions that I wanted after such a radically tapered tang, it needed liners. I went with safety orange G10 because it contrasts well with the green and has a strong presence/history in the hunting community. Handle scales terminate at the back of the sharpening notch to provide as much handle as possible without wasting any room/weight with a large ricasso area on the blade; I also like the way it looks in terms of fit/finish. The pins are 3mm copper to pick up on the orange tones in the liners.
For the sheath I did Kryptek orange Kydex on the front to maintain visibility but tone down the LOUD solid orange a bit and a solid orange Kydex on the rear since the black hardware was going to cover most of the back anyway and I still wanted to see enough orange to pick it up easily in low light. I am using a DCL Combat loop for hardware because it's so easy to get on/off, adjust to various belt widths, and can be ran vertically, horizontally, canted, or inverted which will give me lots of options.
This build is LOUD and FLASHY, but should be a truly outstanding little hunting knife for the backcountry.
I chose Elmax steel so I could grind it thinner and keep weight down while maintaining durability/impact resistance with a stainless and have good enough edge retention to last me a few animals without the need to resharpen in the field.
I skeletonized the tang and tapered it down to 0.010" for maximal weight reduction and hollow ground the primary grinds to 0.010" as well. It slices like a laser. Then I handled it in carbon fiber to keep weight down, improve the structural strength of that super thin tapered tang, and have a material that is impervious to blood, guts, gun oils, rain, sweat, etc for the field. I chose JungleWear carbon to pick up some greens and earth tones purely for aesthetics over the more common, less costly 2x2 twill carbon fiber. Since JungleWear carbon was slightly undersized for the thickness dimensions that I wanted after such a radically tapered tang, it needed liners. I went with safety orange G10 because it contrasts well with the green and has a strong presence/history in the hunting community. Handle scales terminate at the back of the sharpening notch to provide as much handle as possible without wasting any room/weight with a large ricasso area on the blade; I also like the way it looks in terms of fit/finish. The pins are 3mm copper to pick up on the orange tones in the liners.
For the sheath I did Kryptek orange Kydex on the front to maintain visibility but tone down the LOUD solid orange a bit and a solid orange Kydex on the rear since the black hardware was going to cover most of the back anyway and I still wanted to see enough orange to pick it up easily in low light. I am using a DCL Combat loop for hardware because it's so easy to get on/off, adjust to various belt widths, and can be ran vertically, horizontally, canted, or inverted which will give me lots of options.
This build is LOUD and FLASHY, but should be a truly outstanding little hunting knife for the backcountry.
