Hunting Knife Set | Skinner & Curved Gutting Blade with Sheaths

A two-piece handmade field dressing set pairing a clip point skinner with a curved gutting blade, both full tang with stars and stripes handles carrying a gold bowhunter inlay, and both shipping in hand-tooled black leather pancake sheaths with blue inlay panels.

What Each Knife in the Set Does

Field dressing is two jobs that want two different blade shapes, which is why serious sets come in pairs rather than one knife trying to cover both.

The clip point handles the skinning. A long straight edge running into a swept belly gives you reach for the initial opening cuts and enough curve to follow the contour as you separate hide from meat. Thumb serrations along the spine give you a purchase point for the choked-up grip you want when the cut needs to be shallow, and the fuller through the blade drops weight without costing rigidity.

The curved blade handles the gutting. Edge on the inside of the curve means it cuts on the pull rather than the push, so you work it from inside the cavity outward with the point of the curve leading and the tip trailing behind. Nothing is driven forward into the abdomen, which is the whole reason the shape exists. Compare it against the other curved profiles in our handmade hawkbill knives collection.

Why a Curved Gutting Blade Instead of a Gut Hook

A gut hook is a notch ground into the spine of an otherwise normal blade, sharpened on its inside curve. You punch the hide, drop the hook in, and pull. Quick, effective, and awkward to sharpen, since a round notch needs a round file or a curved rod rather than a flat stone.

A dedicated curved blade does the same job with the entire edge instead of a notch. More cutting surface means it will not clog on hair the way a small hook can, and the whole edge sharpens on a normal stone if you work it in sections. The trade is that you are carrying a second knife rather than one blade that does both, which is precisely what a set is for. If you would rather have it all on one blade, our gut hook knives collection covers that approach.

What Steel Are the Blades?

Both blades are 440C stainless, hardened to 59 to 61 HRC and finished to a mirror polish. Stainless is the deliberate choice on a field dressing set, because these two knives spend their working life in blood, stomach contents, and whatever the weather is doing, often for hours before anyone gets near a sink.

Our Damascus and rasp steel blades are high carbon, which means they spot if left wet and want a wipe and an oil the same day. A 440C blade forgives you a delayed cleaning in a way carbon steel does not, and on a hunt that matters more than a layered pattern. For a fuller comparison across our range, read our guide on choosing the best steel for knives.

Technical Specifications

Set contents

Knife 1, clip point skinner

Knife 2, curved gutting blade

Shared across both

What Is the Stars and Stripes Handle Made Of?

Black resin scales with the field and stripes cut in and inlaid in brass, then sanded flush and polished so the metal sits level with the resin rather than proud of it. Brass rather than paint or print, which is why the gold holds its colour instead of wearing off the high points where your palm sits.

Resin behaves like a hard polymer once cured. Grippy when wet, which matters on a knife that spends its working life in blood, and completely unaffected by moisture, so it will never dry out or crack the way natural horn and wood can. The honest limitation is heat and impact. Keep it off a truck dashboard in summer, and understand resin will chip on a hard drop onto rock where micarta or G10 would only scuff.

Because every scale is cut and inlaid individually, expect small variation in stripe spacing and star placement between sets. Nothing here is moulded or printed.

About the Bowhunter Inlay

The gold silhouette on each handle shows an archer at full draw, kneeling. Inlaid in brass the same way the flag is, cut into the resin and finished flush rather than etched onto the surface.

Worth saying what the motif is and is not. It is a bowhunting design element, chosen because a two-piece field dressing set is a bowhunter's kit as much as a rifle hunter's. Given the shorter shot distances and the tracking that follows, bowhunters tend to be the ones who care most about what is on their belt when the work starts.

How Do the Sheaths Carry?

Both knives ship in their own hand-tooled pancake sheath. A pancake is two panels of leather stitched around a welt with belt slots cut through both, so the sheath lies flat against the hip rather than hanging off it. Riding flat keeps the knife out of the way while you are moving through cover and stops it swinging as you walk. Retention comes from the moulded fit rather than a strap, so the draw is clean one-handed.

The faces are cut and tooled in a floral pattern with blue leather showing through the openwork, framed in black with contrast stitching. Openwork is slower than surface stamping, since each shape is cut out of the top layer before the two panels are joined, and the blue underneath is a second hide rather than a dye. Every panel is cut by hand, so no two sets carry an identical layout. The small snap pouch carries a stone, a spare blade, or whatever else you keep alongside.

Which Tasks Suit This Set?

Field dressing and skinning on deer-sized game, which is what the pairing exists for. Opening cuts, hide separation, caping around the head and legs, and the gutting work the curved blade handles. Beyond that, the clip point covers general camp cutting on cord, food, and packaging perfectly well.

Understand the limits. Neither blade is a chopper or a pry bar, and 440C at 59 to 61 HRC will chip rather than roll if you drive it into bone. Heavy camp work and wood processing belong to a thicker blade from our bushcraft knives range.

Honest Note on Who Should Buy This Set

Sets get bought for two reasons, and they are different reasons. Buy this one if you actually field dress your own game and want the right shape for each half of the job, because carrying two purpose-ground blades genuinely beats one compromise blade once the work starts. Buy it as a gift if the bowhunter motif and the tooled leather land with the person receiving it, which they usually do.

Do not buy it if you want one knife to carry every day. A two-knife set means two sheaths on a belt, and most people who buy sets for general carry end up using one blade and leaving the other in a drawer. For that, a single Damascus hunting knife with a gut hook does the whole job on one belt loop.

How Should You Care for the Blades and Handles?

440C is stainless rather than stain-proof, which is a real distinction. It resists rust far better than our Damascus and rasp steel blades, but blood and stomach acid left on any steel long enough will mark it.

1. Rinse and wipe both blades as soon as the work is finished, even if a proper clean waits until you are home.
2. Wash by hand with mild soap, warm water, and a soft cloth. Never a dishwasher.
3. Dry both blades and both handles fully before they go back in the sheaths.
4. Apply a thin coat of food-safe mineral oil before long-term storage.
5. Store dry and out of the sheaths between seasons, since leather holds moisture against steel.

The resin handles need nothing at all, no oiling and no conditioning. Keep them clear of acetone and abrasive cleaners, which will dull the polish and can lift the edge of an inlay. The leather benefits from a conditioner once a year. Both blades sharpen on a normal stone, though the curved one wants to be worked in sections rather than held flat across the whole curve, and our knife sharpening guide covers the angle.

Can You Personalize It?

Yes. Custom engraving is $20 CAD per knife, added at checkout, with your text entered in the engraving instructions field. Engrave one or both. Names, initials, dates, and short lines all work, up to roughly 20 characters on the skinner and 15 on the shorter curved blade. For a different handle colour or alternate sheath tooling, get in touch through our custom knife request form.

Made by Hand in Canada

Stag Steel Knives has been forging since 2001, and every blade is ground, heat-treated, and finished by hand in our New Brunswick shop, with the inlays cut and seated and the leather cut, tooled, dyed, and stitched in-house to fit each individual knife. Free shipping across Canada and the United States. Compare the Broadhead set against the rest of the range in our hunting knives and skinning knives collections.