Maple Ridge Hunting Knife – Handmade Stainless Damascus with Black Pine Cone Handle & Leather Sheath

The Maple Ridge Hunting Knife

I built this one to be carried, not babied. It's a full-tang fixed blade hunting knife with a 5.5-inch stainless Damascus blade, a black pine cone handle, and a tooled leather sheath with a maple leaf worked into it. Overall it's a hair over 10 inches, and it sits in the hand like a hunting knife should: enough blade to do real work, enough control to skin and cape without fighting it.

If you've been hunting for a Damascus hunting knives that won't rust on you the first wet morning out, this is the one to look at. I forge it from a stainless Damascus, so you get the pattern without the babysitting — and unlike most Damascus hunting knives for sale online, this one's made by hand, not stamped out in a factory.

Stainless Damascus — the pattern without the rust

Here's the thing most people learn the hard way. A lot of Damascus out there is carbon steel, and carbon steel rusts if you don't keep after it. You take a beautiful blade into the field, it meets blood and damp, and a few weeks later there's rust sitting in that pattern.

I make this blade from a stainless Damascus, VG10 and 15N20 forge-welded together. The VG10 brings the stainless toughness and a hard edge, the 15N20 gives that bright contrast in the pattern, and the whole blade lands at 59 to 61 HRC. As a Damascus steel knife for hunting, that combination is what you want: it holds an edge through a full field dressing and it shrugs off the moisture that eats carbon blades. A wipe and the odd drop of oil is all it really wants. The wavy pattern you see runs through the steel, it isn't printed on top.

The blade is 5.5 inches long with a deep belly and a strong tip, running 5 to 6 mm thick at the spine. That thickness matters when you're prying through a joint or working a tough carcass, the blade has the backbone for it.

The black pine cone handle

The handle is the part that stops people. It's made from real pine cones, synthesized and stabilized into a solid black-and-amber handle, then shaped and finished by hand. You can see the actual cone scales locked in there, dark with that natural fire running through the middle. Because it's a real cone set in resin, no two handles come out the same, so yours is genuinely one of a kind. It's tough, it fills the hand, and it won't crack or swell when it gets wet the way natural wood can.

Set into it is a maple leaf Masonic pin, a small Canadian touch that ties the whole knife together.

The leather sheath

The sheath is hand-stitched leather with a maple leaf tooled into the front and a finished two-tone look. It's a fixed blade hunting knife with a sheath built to actually carry, not just hold the knife. It's set up for both vertical and horizontal wear, so you can run it straight down on your hip or lay it flat across your belt, whichever suits how you carry in the field.

Specifications

• Knife Name: Maple Ridge Hunting Knife (full tang)
• Blade Steel: Stainless Damascus — VG10 / 15N20
• Blade Hardness: 59–61 HRC (rust-proof)
• Blade Length: 5.5 inches
• Blade Thickness: 5–6 mm
• Handle: Black synthesized pine cone, 4.5 inches
• Handle Pin: Maple leaf Masonic pin
• Overall Length: ~10 inches
• Sheath: Tooled leather, maple leaf engraving, vertical & horizontal carry

What it's built for

This is a hunting knife first. The 5.5-inch blade with its sweeping belly is made for field dressing, skinning, caping, and the everyday cutting that comes with a day in the bush. The strong tip gets into a carcass without tearing what you don't want torn, and there's enough belly to skin in long clean strokes. Plenty of folks will display this one too, and it earns that, but underneath the looks it's a working blade.

Made by hand in Canada

We've been making knives at Stag Steel Knives since 2001, and every one is forged, ground, and finished by hand. No production line, which is exactly why the pine cone handle and the stainless Damascus come out the way they do. Set this next to the factory "Damascus" hunters flooding the market and the difference shows fast — which is what puts it among the best Damascus hunting knives you'll find handmade, in the steel, in the handle, and in the fact that it won't rust on you.

Have a look at our full range of handmade hunting knives, and since this is a Damascus blade, it lives in the Damascus hunting knives collection with the rest. New to Damascus and want to know what you're buying? My guide on what a Damascus knife really is breaks down stainless versus carbon. And once yours arrives, how to care for a Damascus knife covers keeping it sharp for decades.

I make these one at a time, so when this one's gone the next won't be identical. If it's the one you want, don't wait too long on it.

Free shipping across Canada, with affordable shipping rates to the USA and worldwide.