Montana Knife Company

Sharptailed, Olive

Montana

$275

A bird knife that is actually a knife. Small, sharp, and shaped for breasting doves instead of quartering an elk.

Montana Knife Company's answer to the upland hunter's usual choice between a disposable blade and a knife built for big game. It is named for the sharp-tailed grouse and sized for birds: 7 1/8 inches overall with a 2 7/8 inch blade, 0.110 thick, and 1.87 ounces in the hand. The blade is stonewashed MagnaCut, the stainless that holds an edge and resists rust in wet field conditions, ground to an upswept trailing point for the delicate part — MKC's own line is that you can choke up on it and hold it like a pencil for fine work. Full tang, with a composite handle carved in a wing-feather pattern that is texture as much as decoration, so it holds when your hands are wet, and a lanyard hole at the butt. Olive here. Made in Montana.