Hollowfell Hand Forged D2 Steel Camp Knife with Stag Horn and Hollow Thread Wrapped Handle and Steel Guard and Bolster | Survival Camping Gift | RK-585

The Hollowfell is a hand forged D2 tool steel camp knife with a stag horn and hollow thread wrapped handle, a hand made steel guard and bolster, and 14 inches of overall length behind a 9 inch blade. It is made one at a time, so the grind, the wrap and the fit belong to this knife and to no other. Which shape you actually need depends on the job, sorted out in hunter against skinner.

Wrapped handles are far older than the survival knife fashion that made them famous. Cord, cloth and leather wrapping was the standard way of finishing a grip long before anyone was gluing scales to a tang, and it stayed in use because it does three things at once. It builds the handle up to whatever thickness the owner’s hand wants, it grips reliably when wet in a way a polished surface never will, and in a genuine emergency it unwinds into several feet of usable cordage. The Japanese did it with silk over ray skin, the Norse did it with leather over timber, and modern survival knives do it with paracord for exactly the same reasons.

The Hollowfell is forged and finished in the Czech Republic and ships in a cowhide leather pouch, with free shipping inside the United States.

Specifications

One big knife, or an axe and a small one

This is the argument every camp has, and the honest answer is that it depends entirely on how far you are carrying it. An axe and a small knife will always beat a single large blade on raw efficiency. An axe splits and fells faster than any knife ever will, and a four inch knife carves better than a nine inch one. If you are working out of a truck or a base camp, take both.

A camp knife wins when weight and simplicity matter. One 14 inch tool that chops adequately, splits kindling, prepares food and carves does not weigh what an axe and a knife weigh together, it does not need two sheaths, and there is nothing to leave behind at the last stop. That is the whole case for the pattern and it is why it keeps coming back.

On this piece the geometry is doing the work. Nine inches puts real mass out in front of your hand, and the deepest part of the blade sits forward so the weight arrives where the edge meets the wood. The straight section behind the belly is where the actual cutting happens: choke up behind the guard and it becomes controllable enough for food and for carving. The spine is left flat and square, which matters for two reasons. It gives a baton somewhere safe to land when you are splitting kindling, and a square spine will throw sparks off a ferrocerium rod, where a rounded one will not.

One honest note on construction. On any knife where the handle is built up around a tang rather than pinned through solid scales, the joint at the front of the grip is the part carrying the load, and that is true of every maker who builds this way. We would use the Hollowfell for cutting, splitting light kindling and camp work, and we would take an axe to anything that wants sustained heavy chopping.

Why D2 and not stainless

D2 started life as a die steel, used for tooling that has to cut other metal thousands of times without being reground. That is why it wears so slowly, and it is the property that transfers straight across to a blade. Around one and a half percent carbon and around twelve percent chromium give it a structure full of hard chromium carbides, and hardened to 58 to 60 HRC it holds a working edge through far more use than a plain carbon steel.

The twelve percent chromium figure is worth understanding because it is the reason people argue about D2. The usual threshold for calling a steel stainless is around thirteen percent free chromium, and D2 sits just under it, which is why it is properly described as semi stainless rather than stainless. It resists rust much better than 1095 and much worse than a true stainless. Leave it wet and it will spot.

The other cost is sharpening. The carbides that resist wear also resist your stone, so D2 takes longer to bring back than carbon steel and rewards a diamond plate over a natural stone. It also does not want to be ground to a very thin, very acute edge, because the carbide structure can chip rather than roll at that geometry. Leave it slightly more obtuse and it will hold far longer. The pros and cons are set out in our D2 guide, and the wider steel comparison sits in Damascus versus stainless.

The stag horn and the thread wrap

Stag horn sits at the front of the grip where your fingers close, and it is there for grip rather than for looks. It is keratin, the same material as a fingernail, so it warms in the hand in seconds, it has slight give under impact, and it holds on to a wet palm better than any polished material. Behind it the handle is built hollow and wrapped in thread, which builds the profile out to a comfortable diameter without adding much weight and gives a surface that stays grippy in rain.

Care is straightforward but it is not the same for both materials. The stag horn wants a light coat of oil once or twice a year, applied thin and wiped back, which stops it drying and shrinking against the fittings. The method is in wooden handle care and works for horn and bone without change. The thread wrap wants nothing at all beyond being allowed to dry naturally after it gets wet. Do not soak either of them, do not dry the knife on a radiator, and if the wrap ever loosens after years of use it can be rewound rather than replaced.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the handle. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us whether it goes on the blade or the handle. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. On the Hollowfell the nine inch blade flat is the obvious surface and takes a full name and date comfortably. Handle engraving goes into the stag rather than the wrap, which cannot hold a cut line. See the engraving page.

Care and sharpening

D2 resists rust better than carbon steel but it is not fully stainless, so a wipe of oil before storage is still wise, and the knife should not live permanently inside a leather pouch because vegetable tanned leather holds damp against a blade.

Sharpening a nine inch edge means working in overlapping sections rather than sweeping the whole blade in one pass. Use a coarse stone or a diamond plate to reset the bevel and finish on something finer, and give the forward chopping third a slightly steeper angle than the section you carve with, because that is the part taking impact. The method is in steel care and sharpening with a whetstone.

Made in the Czech Republic

The work behind this piece happens in a Czech Republic workshop that has kept to the old methods. Steel is forged and heat treated by hand, the grind is taken down by eye rather than by machine, and the handle, fittings and sheath are cut and finished one at a time. Because of that, every piece carries small marks of the hand that made it.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We import direct, check each piece when it reaches us, and ship from our Memphis, Tennessee warehouse. Engraving is added here in the United States after arrival, so the piece you receive is finished to your order.

A note on handmade variation

The Hollowfell is hand forged. It is not machine made and it is not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. The stag horn carries the marking of the animal it came from, the thread wrap is wound by hand and never lands identically twice, and the grind and the profile shift by fractions because a person made them. The dimensions, the steel and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Can I split kindling with it

Yes, using a baton on the flat square spine. For heavy sustained splitting of large rounds, use an axe. This is a cutting knife that chops, not a felling tool.

Will the thread wrap come loose

It is wound tight and secured, and it does not shift in normal use. If it ever slackens after years, it can be rewound rather than replaced, which is one of the advantages of a wrapped handle.

How does D2 compare with 1095 for a camp knife

D2 holds an edge considerably longer and rusts considerably less. 1095 sharpens faster in the field and is tougher at a very thin edge. Choose D2 if you would rather sharpen rarely.

Will it strike a ferro rod

Yes, off the square section of spine. Do not use the sharpened edge for it.

Is the blade full width through the handle

The tang runs into the handle behind the guard and bolster, which is standard for a wrapped grip. Use the knife for cutting and light splitting rather than sustained heavy chopping and it will not be an issue.

How long before it ships

One to two weeks of processing in the shop, plus transit. Free inside the United States. Tell us before you order if you have a date to hit.

What is in the box

• One Hollowfell D2 steel camp knife
• Cowhide leather pouch, right hand carry
• Protective packaging
• Forged and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

Compare it with the field blades in Hunting Knives, the multi zone profiles in Tracker Knives, the chopping tools in Camping Axes and Hatchets and the Norse pieces in Viking Knives. Reasoning behind the steel is in the guides.