Meat Crafter

Designed for the Hunter-Chef

MeatEater’s Steven Rinella and the Benchmade Knife Company have collaboratively designed the Meatcrafter Knife over the last eighteen months. Together, they bring you the best boning, processing, and cooking knife available on the market. Every single Meatcrafter Knife is assembled, sharpened, and finished in the hands of trained cutlers at Benchmade’s factory in Oregon City, Oregon—all with materials sourced within the United States of America.

The precision and flex of a fillet knife with the strength and maneuverability of a boning knife.

This is a serious knife designed specifically for handling wild game. Every aspect of the product has been carefully designed to create a top-of-the-line boning knife with great edge retention, the perfect kind of flex, balance and durability—something that will stand the test of time.

Still, you might be saying, “Holy shit, $300? That's pretty steep.” That's true, and as an essential part of your kit, we think it's worth it. We believe this is the best boning knife ever made in America. Here's why:

• The granular level of sharpness and refinement we sought were simply not attainable with automated methods, so we set out to find a better way. That effort led to Benchmade’s brand-new, proprietary Select Edge^TM process, which produces the finest, sharpest blades ever achieved in their 40-year history. The cutting edge is ideal for pushing cleanly through animal tissue, not sawing against it.
• We selected high-grade S45VN stainless steel for its top-tier metallurgical properties such as excellent edge retention and corrosion resistance. This is among the first production knives with that metal. The edge is hand-sharpened to a unique 14° angle, which Benchmade identified over their four decades in the premium knife business as ideal for push-cut performance. That means this blade will slice through meat with little more than a gentle push.
• The “trailing point” blade style marries the precision and flex of a fillet knife with the strength and maneuverability of a boning knife. The result is a fine tip that can work a sirloin free from the femur, a narrow blade width for paring silverskin from muscle, and the overall burliness to slice cleanly through a thick round roast.
• The forward handle is milled out of black and brown G10 composite for a textured, rock-solid grip in hand, even when it’s wet or bloody. The hilt is a stylish ivory G10 with an orange cerakoted aluminum eyelet for hanging.
• The sheath was designed with two priorities in mind: first, to make sure the blade would stay in its protective case without a cumbersome clip; second, to look sexy as hell. The end result is a Boltaron (similar to Kydex) sheath that is vacuum molded in full grain leather for a sleek yet understated aesthetic.