Spyderco Forums

In anticipation of hunting season I was looking at my pack. I hunt pretty light and we walk in a good ways...our deer are small...we always bone them out and carry the head and the meat out. Up to now I carry 2 knives...a Delica and an Endura...the Delica is easy to get to and I use it in the field. The Endura lives at the bottom of the pack with my tag, some rope, rubber gloves etc...basically my "clean the deer kit". The Endura does all I need to get the work done...the Delica could be back-up but I can't recall ever needing it.

Having said that I got to thinking that I'd replace the Endura with one of my Mules this year as I have two and have never done any real work with them. I have two Mules with Halperin scales...Elmax and Cruwear...question is which one do I take?

I am sure it doesn't matter as either would be more than sufficient for this task BUT part of the fun is in the planning (since I gotta wait 4 more months) and so I though I'd ask folks with some experience with these two steels which one they would suggest for dressing out a deer.

Switch off with each deer/trip. That way you can test the true potential of each steel which is the purpose of the Mule series. I am sure you will discover that both will be exceptional. Report back and let us know how each preformed in this 'real world' testing.

Good tip, switch over every trip :) Cruwear should be less rust resistent then Elmax. Both have good edge retention.

I love elmax

I don't think you can go wrong with either. Have you sharpened, reprofiled, stropped, etc. either of the two? I found the Elmax takes a nice fine high polish edge and I like a course edge on my Cruwear. I would still like to suggest alternating them, as the previous posts said.

Funny I had been thinking to flip a coin. FWIW I had cut some cardboard with each of them and resharpened them as well but really not much else and really saw no differences between them...sadly we only get a deer a year here so the wait for real world data will be pretty long....will report back in November....

The Elmax needs taking down to a acute angle to get the difference.
I think 20• was the advice I was given by somebody who had the cruwear and Elmax.
They found the cruwear better at first until they re profiled the angle.
Then the Elmax performed like a demon as it does .
Mine is in use infrequently but hasn't needed a touch up since new.
Maybe changing the angle will give you the optimum performance .
And by my reckoning you'll see it out performs cruwear .