Best hunting knife? We review the Bark River Wilderness Five Cru-Wear

Are you looking for a big game hunting knife? Want a suggestion?

The Bark River Wilderness Five may check all the boxes.

by Leon Pantenburg

Disclaimer: Bark River Knives supplied the product for this review. I don’t work for Bark River, and was not paid to field test and write this analysis. Nobody had any input. All we ever promise is a fair and impartial field testing and review.

Shopping around for the best big game/survival/bushcraft knife?

Welcome to the club! There is no best knife, but cutlery aficionados never tire of the search nor the discussion. These interactions are best held around a campfire. That failing, here is a hunting knife I already like a lot.

The Bark River Wilderness 5 Cru-Wear.

My criteria are well-established. I haven’t had a chance to try the Wilderness Five yet on deer, but I still have a few weeks before the Mississippi deer season is over. As it is, I have only used the blade for mundane kitchen tasks, to whittle some wood, and the knife has been carried.

See how the knife handles!

Here is what I have so far.

Specs: Specifications and weights of the Wilderness Five are based on a standard black canvas micarta variant.

1. Overall Length: 10″
2. Blade Length: 5″
3. Blade Thickness: .156″
4. Handle Thickness: .82″
5. Tang: Full
6. Blade Style: Drop Point
7. Blade Steel: Cru-Wear
8. Weight: 8.22 oz
9. Leather sheath: included
10. Country of Origin: USA

Here is how the Wilderness Five has worked out so far:

Blade length: A five-inch blade is my overall favorite length. It is long enough to function well as a hunting knife, but not cumbersome while working inside an abdominal cavity. It is a good length for a bushcraft/survival/utility knife. Some of my most-used, go-to hunting knives have blades between four and five inches. They include: Ambush Tundra, LT Wright Rogue River, Bark River UP Bravo, Casstrom Forest Knife and Carp Knives LP.

Handle thickness: At .82-inch the handle thickness is nearly perfect for me. I have large hands, and my palm measures four inches across. I can grab the Five’s handle in a hammer grip and my finger tips barely touch my palm. This – for me – is the sign of a good handle diameter. It means the knife won’t twist while I’m working with it. (Find the best handle for your knife.) My Five’s handle is made of desert ironwood with red spacers – the knife is drop-dead gorgeous.

The “coke bottle” design puts a swell in the middle of the handle which fills the palm of my hand nicely. I couldn’t find anything related to the handle to complain about, and I’m really picky.

The handle on this knife is desert ironwood.

Handle material: For an out-and-out user survival knife, my handle material vote would be for micarta or G-10. Those materials are bullet-proof, and virtually indestructible, and you can order a Five in a variety of handle materials.

But I love beautiful wood, and my Five has a desert ironwood handle with red spacers. I’ve never had a knife handle fail on me, probably because I don’t use them for hammers or for beating on something. The mountain men typically used wood-handled knives, and they got along just fine.

Point: A drop point is one of the most useful points imaginable, and one of my favorites. For a hunting knife that will be used on big game, it may be the best choice.

In a hunting knife, I look for a point that can be easily used to piercing, for that initial under-the-tail work of field dressing a whitetail or elk. There needs to be enough belly from the point onto the cutting edge for skinning. Several different points fill this criterion – take your pick.

 Steel: Cru-Wear CPM: This is an air-hardening tool steel, heat treatable to HRC 60-65. It was designed as a CPM upgrade. I haven’t had a chance to really wring out a Cru-Wear blade yet, but the specs and info on the steel so far look very promising. I trust Bark River when it comes to choosing the best blade steel for a particular design.

Blade thickness: As users become more skilled, they will probably go toward thinner blades. The thin blades just work better, IMHO. The .156-inch thickness is a good choice, but I would like a blade that was even thinner so it would be a better slicer.

Full tang: A blade that runs all the way through the handle is the strongest option. I prefer a full-tang blade whenever there is a choice.

Guard: The guard, also known as the hilt, is the portion of the knife that separates the handle from the blade to protect the hand. Most of my rigid blade knives don’t have a hilt or a guard. My fingers have never slipped off the handle and onto the blade.

But I like the Five’s hilt – it looks great and I can appreciate the value. It may be a safety feature to the hunter field dressing a big game animal. At some point, you may be up to your elbows in visceral organs inside the abdominal cavity. Momentarily, you may be unable to see your hands. The handle guard helps you orient where the edge is.

Do you need a Wilderness Five?

Other than some minor whining the proves this isn’t advertising copy, it’s hard to find anything I don’t like about this knife. I wish the blade was thinner, but that’s just personal preference, and certainly not a deal breaker.

This knife is going into my deer hunting day pack, and I hope wring it out harder soon!

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