My ice fishing sled in case you didn't know what i was talking about. It can get water/snow in it and then it refreezes and the mule (as well as a ton of other stuff) is always freezing to the bottom of the sled in up to an inch of ice. I have had to bring a block of ice into the house and run it under hot water to get my mule out.
Dressed out my mule deer this year and used the mule when I got home to further process it. It spent that whole day covered in blood and gunk and was just washed with a little dish soap and hot water.
Cleaned some grouse and rabbits. Yes, we can shoot grouse with a rifle or handgun here in Colorado. This doesn't get the knife real dirty but it was raining on me a bunch that week. Gonna hopefully use the mule on some ducks here soon too.
Plenty of use in the kitchen and a few trips through the dishwasher.
It has also seen some use around the yard and in the garden.
On a recent elk hunt I used the mule to bone out a large elk cow. I was so exhausted and had so much stuff to do when I got home that it took me two weeks to get all my gear cleaned up and put away. Two weeks after I boned the elk out I finally pulled my S110V Mule and my BK15 out of my pack and expected to find a bunch of rust on them. The weather was nice when I shot the cow and it was nice until I got about halfway through boning it out but things got cold and wet after that. The knives were unfortunately put away wet and all gunked up. I know, I know, I should take good care of them. When you shoot an elk 2 miles from a road by yourself the clock starts ticking and with the weather turning priority number one is always getting the meat taken care of. It was five trips humping 70 pounds each time to get all the meat and my camping gear out. So when I pulled this thing out to my amazement it didn't have any visible rust or staining on it. I right away assume that S110V is every bit as stainless as I have come to think it is if not more and then I pull the slab of 1095 out of it's sheath only to find that it is rust free too. Hmmm... How could this be? There was such a heavy film of grease on it that it was well protected is my guess. It was harder to clean up than I thought and with a bunch of gunk crammed in around the handle slabs and tang I decided that that the scales were gonna have to come off to get it clean. I was anxious to see what was under there after all this time anyway and while there was a good bit of rust it all cleaned right up with some steel wool and a few bore brushes to get the holes in the tang and then a little mineral oil wipe down. So after a bunch of field use and food prep and a trip or three through the dishwasher this was all it had and it cleaned up well.
The operation. Boning it out and packing it out in a backpack. This is right before the weather changed.
The weather packing it out. Yuck.
The dirty knives. No, I don't have small feet. :)
Disassembly.
The rust on the scales seems to have stained a bit. Most of it came off but not all of it. They look way better than this now though.
A little steel wool, a couple of bore brushes and some mineral oil and it was good to go. The blade is spotless too.
Didn't have to do anything to the 1095 but wash it wish some hot water and it looks that same as before. Hmmm... There is a little rusting where the logo is cut into the coating but that is it. Fatty elk saved my knives. I had never left them this dirty for this long before and I guess I got a little lucky.
After all of the use I have put this through rust has been a complete non issue for me. I am sure water has been perpetually trapped under the scales as the knife is regularly subjected to wet conditions and to me this amount of corrosion is acceptable. I wiped the tang down with a generous amount of mineral oil this time before installing the scales and will take the scales off more often for a cleaning and oiling but other than that I am beyond super pleased with this knife.
Thanks for making such an awesome knife Spyderco!!!!
