I've tried multiple custom and quality manufactured knives but the set, one camp and one skinner, he made for me out of S30V is the best yet. I haven't used the camp knife yet (the prettiest of the pair) but after completely skinning and quartering 2 wild hogs, his skinner will still shave and BY FAR this is the best performance I've had in a skinner. Much better than the vaunted Boye's Carbide steel knives for one example.

If I had a clue how to post pics I'd post some of these knives, weathered elk handles, really nice.

Great knives at a very good price. Worth the money if you want a good custom.

Is this the guy:

http://winstonknives.blademakers.com/

I've seen his knives quite often on Bladeforums. Looks like he usually uses D2.

That's him and he usually does use D2 as his primary choice (but makes knives in other steels and damascus) but I talked him into making these out of S30V for me. I believe he had Gene Ingram temper the blades since he said Gene was more experienced with S30V. I recall someone saying that he mentored Gene Ingram and Charles May but I don't know this for a fact. They do make very similar knives. The S30V in these came out dead on RC60. I don't know if he'll do anymore in S30V or not. S30V seems to be a bit superior to D2 at least in my experience but D2 is still a darn good steel. Frankly until this knife, I didn't think the difference was as significant as I now believe it to be. The S30V was a bit more expensive but even so the set was very reasonable for the quality and custom design. He said, and I quote, "I must have been on mind altering drugs when I quoted you that price for this set."

Well, it really wasn't too custom, his designs are close to what I want in a skinner anyway, and we just made the camp knife longer. While I am a wood nut, I loved the look of his weathered elk handle (very similar to mammoth ivory) on an earlier knife I got from him so I asked for weathered elk on the set. It came out looking great, not sure about its real daily utility, but he will re-handle if the need arises. I had him leave out the lanyard hole, which IMO a lanyard is kind of a dumb modern affectation that is put on a lot of knives for no good reason, unless you're a sailor or possibly on a fighter, and requested that he not put his normal small indention/cut at the bottom of the edge. I am a relatively fast skinner/slasher and I don't want anything to catch on the hide or whatever, seems to happen often on short bladed knives, which is what I want in a skinner to reach up inside the chest cavity. I guess the only minor complaint is that he used 1/4 inch stock on both knives and IMO the skinner would have felt livelier and looked better if he had tapered the tang. However, the tang weight balances the camp knife perfectly.

I'm in the last throes of 2005 taxes (today is the ultimate last final day, my accountant loves me ) and after that, I'll try to explore posting pics but really don't have a clue how to do it.

BTW, and I'm not going to name names, this David Winston stock removal S30V is FAR superior in edge retention and thus "skinability" to a similarly shaped forged custom blade made by a smith that just made Journeyman. No comparision. I'm not trying to say stock removal is a better method in general, but this one is a helluva lot better than all the forged blades I've used so far. Anyone who is around them much knows how tough wild hogs are on blades. We kill a fair amount of them as well as up to about 25 deer a year and I skin/quarter or help skin most of them (thankfully a good friend is a butcher so sometimes when he is around I just help on the edges and/or admire his work while drinking a beer I'm fast but he is lightning). Doesn't take long to figure out what works and what doesn't at least for my use.

Terry Carr has a thorough post on "How to Post Pictures."

If you get desperate you can email them to me and I will post them (my email address is in my profile).

His prices are pretty reasonable, at least from what I have seen.

I have to admit that I like the idea of a forged blade, and I own a few, but I cannot really say that they are any better and the last skinning kife I bought was done by stock removal. Unfortunately I have not had a chance to use it yet!

Here are a couple Winston Knifes, a M22 Hunter, M21 Small Game, along with a Gene Ingram M2.
All of these blades are of D2, it holds a great edge and isn`t too hard to sharpen. The Winstons have spalted maple scales, the Ingram is jigged bone.
They all are great little knifes.



This is another Winston I picked up. He calls it "the Key" it is credit card size and fits in a card holder in your wallet. A handy little blade for times a bigger knife isn`t needed or appropriate.

David Winston's Damascus knives are true works of art!..