Benchmade Bone Collector D2 Knives

[texan79]

Anyone using one? I know the D2 steel is supposed to hold a razors edge for a long time, but I've been skinning hogs lately in the absence of a deer season and eating up knife blades like mad.

I have an older benchmade that was issued by the army, but cant identify it on the website. Its been a great blade, but I dont think it was a D2 type blade.

Can anyone comment on experience with this steel?

 

[tzahoy]

I've got one but haven't used it enough to have a good handle on edge life yet. My best knife for edge life is a Benchmade McHenry and Williams in M2 high speed steel. It took a while to elarn to sharpen it well, but I skinned and cleaned two deer in one day with it and it was still sharp enough to pop the hairs off my arm. Unfortunately they're not making many knives in this steel any more and they're fetching quite a premium now. I paid $120 for it new, but they're selling for twice that now, not that I'd part with it.

That said my almost daily carry knife is a D2 Bob Lum, and it holds a wicked edge a long time too and is easier to sharpen then the M2 Bemchmade. I bought my D2 Bone Collector as a backup to my M2 Benchmade assuming it would be close to the M2 performance. I've found it to be a little too chunky for my taste for daily carry, and the ridges in the grip tend to hang up on the pockets and make it a little more difficult to get in and out of the pocket. I'll probably re-shape the grip a bit and end up liking it a lot. I really like the blade shape and think it will make a great hunting knife when tweaked to my taste. Once I get a better feel for edge life I'll post again.

 

[WyoElk2Hunt]

I have a custom knife made by Charles Cosgrove with D2 and it is a very good knife. Harde to sharpen but stays sharp one you get it sharp.

 

[Forester]

I have one of the straight blade versions of this knife and could not be more pleased. I'm picky about knives and really despise working with a dull one.

I bought it because I was tired of carrying 2 or 3 knives in the truck for late deer season here when we are thinning out the doe population and always have a ton of deer to skin. It is not uncommon for me to skin 2 or 3 deer a day for the last week of the season and the last thing I want to do is have to go home and spend a bunch of time sharpening a knife every night.

This knife honestly has replaced 3 others for me. 2 of them were 440 stainless and one was ATS34. The ATS34 blade held up ok but the 440 blades were usually toast if they had to gut and skin an older doe. I still keep the ATS34 knife in the truck, just so I don't have to hand off my good knife if someone needs to borrow one.

I gutted and skinned 12 or 15 deer, a dozen or so ducks/geese and a couple of turkeys this year and sharpened the knife once.

The only downside is D2 will surface rust if you don't take care of it. The scales on mine came off easily so it was easy to clean up well at the end of the day.

I sharpen on an Edge Pro Apex and don't find the knife unreasonably hard to sharpen, especially when you consider that you don't have to do it as often.