I had been skeptical of the scalpel-bladed hunting knives since, approximately, I first heard about them. I’m a skeptical guy in general — leery of marketing verbiage, and usually of the opinion that most things new products come across my screen are needless displays of modern consumerism and that people need less stuff than they think they do.
My attitude on this matter was slightly adjusted while skinning out the neck and head of my first bull elk in 2023. We used two Buck knives for this task, a 119 and a 113. Both are quality tools that I love to this day, however some shortcomings become apparent when faced with a cutting task of this magnitude, specifically around the pedicles of the antlers. Cut, cut, cut, sharpen, and repeat. As they say, a dull knife is a dangerous knife.
When I drew my next elk tag the year after, this was the only serious change in my kit I felt like I needed to make. I visited the good guys down the road at GoHunt, picked up this Tyto, shot my next elk, and put it to work.
Here’s the TLDR — spendy, but worth it.
This knife costs a bit more than your standard Outdoor Edge or Havalon setups, but it presents a few advantages. Namely, its one-piece construction prevents fouling of a folding mechanism with blood, hair, the works, and it cleans up easy. Yes, it’s a radically skeletonized design to cut down on weight, but in practical use it feels fine. It’s extremely comfortable, and the finishwork on the handle is lacking nothing.
The machining, cerakote, and Kydex sheath are well-done, and I have a penchant for all of my “possibles” and camp stuff to be as orange as possible, anyway.
Another benefit of these interchangeable-bladed knives is the fact that you have a bit more flexibility in scalpel size, if you’d like to deviate from the standard Size 60 razors blades included. Tyto offers a proprietary blade if you’ll be working with furbearers a lot, and Size 60a (thicker/more durable) and Size 22 (smaller) are also direct replacements. You will also probably find that you need to replace blades less often than you’d otherwise think; I used two for last year’s elk.
If I had to find one fault with the design, it would be the method of replacing blades. Due to the brittle nature of carbon steel scalpels, I have found the internet-approved method of “sticking the knife into some wood and twisting” to be… less than ideal. I currently grab the blade with a Leatherman and work it loose, and it works okay. I don’t know if there is a better way, or a way that the manufacturer recommends over this.
You can probably get away without one of these for smaller, thinner-skinned game, but for anything bigger than a mule deer, the Tyto 1.1 is an immutable part of my kill kit, and I look forward to getting it bloody again this year on some creature, somewhere.
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