Painless Dentistry on a Gift Horse

One of the consequences of being Knife Guy and having blades in every drawer, on the shelf, and on the wall is that friends and family will often decide to give Knife Guy knives for birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Hannukah, and National Emo Day. 

Normally this is not much of an issue.  The average gift knife probably cost the purchaser five to ten dollars, maybe a little more if they are immediate family or you bailed them out of the pokey one time.  A lot of the better ones are engraved or commemorative with decorative scales or elaborately etched blades.  I have one my sister bought me, a Schrade that is a large,  kind of old-timey looking folder with a running horse scene on the blade.  The scales are brown celluloid.   It says "Handmade" and "Limited Issue 2009".  It is the perfect gift knife because you are happy to display it, you don't have to ever use it, and you can enjoy being reminded of the person who gave it.

This same sister, bless her heart, gave me a great gift knife of a completely different kind — one of those super utility knives that uses boxcutter blades but has a pocket clip and a thumbstub like a typical tactical folder.  Again, it is a great gift knife because no one expects you to carry it all the time as a "dress" knife, and it is clearly meant to be exactly what it is — a very useful tool.  So you have two ends of the  spectrum in gifts from non-knife people. 

But my sister was not done.  For my birthday several months ago, she bought me yet another blade, the nightmare of gift knives.  It is a Winchester-branded fixed blade hunting knife.  It has burl wood scales, what I take to be a "surgical" stainless steel blade, and a guthook.  The blade is about four and a half inches.  The sheath isn't bad — ballistic nylon with a solid plastic sleeve, a snap strap , and nice big, solid belt loop.  But still, this is not a knife I would ever buy for myself.  It is somewhat of a specialty blade, though not unique or attractive enough to be a shelf-sitter.  While I am not sure exactly the kind of steel this is, I am sure that I tend to think of it as "cheap" whenever I run across it.  Thus it might not be too surprising to learn that at first I considered the Winchester a drawer knife.

I should mention that "guthook" is one of those technical  terms that means the opposite of what it would appear to mean.  A guthook helps you avoid "hooking the guts".  Guthooks are very handy for peeling the hide without cutting into the body cavity.  You carefully cut an opening with the main blade edge then turn the knife over, insert the blunt part of the hook under the skin next to the flesh and pull to cut.  It makes things go faster.  Guthooks can also be used in cleaning fish or safely severing lines or cords without cutting whatever the cord is tied to.  In an emergency, you could probably use one to cut through a seatbelt or any other kind of harness or binding.  The utility aspect is limited to material that will fit into the U of the hook — probably about quarter-inch to five-sixteenths diameter rope is all that would go in the one I have. 

Of course, I thanked my sister profusely because I love her anyway, and she might do better next year.  I got the knife home and decided to get that awful bevel off the main, hollow-ground edge.  While I was honing it, I noticed that the grip was actually rather well-designed for skinning as well as utility work.  We could call the blade a drop-point, I think, though I would probably call it a spear-point if the stupid guthook wasn't there. 

The blade, being stainless, made me think it would stand up to wet work like trimming and cutting up vegetables.  Along with the flaring but rounded guard, the depth of the blade worked with the grip geometry to make food preparation possible, though obviously it is not ideal compared to a chef's knife.  I also like the fact that the blade is a full one-eighth of an inch thick along the spine.  This is a very stiff knife with a full tang.  The tip, as is necessary on a skinning knife, is thinner and could probably be broken if the user were to indiscriminately deploy it as a prybar.  Past the first inch or so, however, a person might be able to lever up quite a bit without damage.  Not that I would ever abuse a knife that way or anything.  

To get to the, er, point, I ended up putting the now very sharp knife on my belt and using it on several occasions over the last few months.  The guthook came in surprisingly handy when I was trimming shoots off some of our trees.  It did work well as a utility knife in and around the garden and the kitchen.  It is not so big as to be awkward but not so small as to be hard for big hands to keep under control.  I am still not crazy about the guthook as it spoils the lines of what would be an otherwise sleek blade, but I admit it usefulness.  It does no harm except to the my sensibilities.  I will survive. 
 
Since it is a skinning knife, one has to wonder how it skins.  Unfortunately I did not have time to get a deer myself or even help the kids cut theirs up this fall.  The knife looks like it has too much belly for squirrels — like I wouldn't use my pocket knife anyway — but you could choke up and make it work.  I did use it cleaning a couple of bass and liked it better than a regular fillet knife for all of the work except the last step of slicing the fillet off the skin, so I plan to use it in conjunction with a fillet knife in the future. 

Summing up, this Winchester belt knife with guthook and burl wood scales is a tough, useful, and efficient addition to my blade stack.  It is not a knife I would buy, but I am happy to have it in my possession.  I am not sure what the price is.  I have seen comparable knives in the $15 to $30 range.  If I ran across one for $15, I might pick it up for one of the grandkids to carry in the field.  At $30 I would likely pass.