Outdoors

The first thing you'll notice about a skinner is the belly. A skinner doesn't need to be long (in fact shorter skinners are easier to control), but it needs to have a decent belly and blade geometry that will hold a good edge and cut finely.

Gut hooks are a personal preference, but a comfortable handle which can be held in a variety of positions is mandatory. Ability to shoot straight is also good to have, but no matter how good a skinner is it can't help you with that.

These smaller utility knives are designed to do a variety of outdoor and camp tasks. The blades are small but can take care of most general duty tasks you'd expect whilst hiking or camping.

These profiles are designed to be ground thin for good slicing and light weight. The handles provide good grip in a variety of positions across a range of tasks, with some including choils to allow you to choke up on the blade for detail work, whilst one has a fatter handle profile that plays well with gloves.

These hidden tang hunters take care of common tasks whilst hunting and camping. The blades are designed to be made from 3.4mm - 4.4mm steel to take care of the heavier duty tasks you'd expect whilst doing serious outdoor work.

Hidden tang knives allow a high degree of flexibility when it comes to handle design. The maker can choose a handle and guard combination that is best suited for the environment the knife is intended to operate in. Some of these designs feature a recurved blade profile that is designed to be ground thinner along the section closest to the tip. This creates a fatter heavy-duty edge toward the heel of the blade suited to chopping and hacking, and a finer edge toward the tip that is ideal for slicing and finer tasks.