AccuSharp Knife Sharpener Lineup and Hunting Knives

What AccuSharp makes for hunters and campers

AccuSharp's own site sorts its products into four groups: sharpeners, knives and multi-tools, accessories and coolers, and combos. The sharpeners come first on the maker's site, and they're what most people mean when they type the brand name.

On this site, AccuSharp covers three product types: knife sharpeners, fixed-blade knives and folding knives. Sharpeners make up most of the grid. The knives are a gut hook skinner, a caping knife, a bundle of the two, a fillet knife with a sharpener, a lockback folder and a replaceable-blade razor knife.

The grid changes as listings come and go. So I'll write about sharpener styles and knife shapes, not about how many are listed this week. Where a listing doesn't say, the grid shows a dash. I didn't fill the gaps from memory, which in my case is a pencil logbook and a bad knee.

The AccuSharp knife sharpener: what the maker says

The handheld sharpener is the reason the brand gets searched, and it's in the grid as the Knife & Tool Sharpener. Here's what the maker's own page says about it:

• Sharpening blades: diamond-honed tungsten carbide
• Angle: preset at about 21 degrees, no adjustment
• Guard: a full-length finger guard along the handle
• Blades: reversible and replaceable
• Edges: works on serrated blades, per the maker
• Tools: kitchen and hunting knives, axes, cleavers and machetes
• Origin: the maker says it's made in the USA and dishwasher-safe

The maker's FAQ adds two useful lines. It doesn't sharpen ceramic knives. And when the carbide blades wear, you open the handle, swap the front and rear blades and put it back together. The FAQ is firm on one thing: don't reassemble it without the finger guard.

Lineup notes: AccuSharp knife sharpeners

Handheld carbide sharpeners

This is the family the brand is named for. You hold the sharpener, not the knife, and draw it along the blade with the finger guard between you and the edge. The listings in the grid:

• Knife & Tool Sharpener and the plain Knife Sharpener: carbide, serrated support
• All-in-One Sharpener: carbide, angle guide, serrated support, axe and tool work listed
• Axe, Tool & Knife Sharpener and the Garden Tool Sharpener: carbide, axe and tool work listed
• Knife, Scissor & Garden 3-Pack: three carbide sharpeners in one listing
• Gourmet Series 15 Degree and Gourmet Series Dual Angle: carbide at a narrower angle, the Dual Angle adding a second, wider one

The Gourmet models are for thin kitchen blades; the rest suit thicker hunting knives and tools. Because several list axe work, this family also covers the camp hatchet; the hatchet page has the tools. The portable knife sharpener page compares handhelds across brands.

Pocket sharpeners with more than one abrasive

• 4-in-1 Knife & Tool Sharpener: carbide, ceramic and diamond, serrated and gut-hook support
• Explorer Pocket Sharpener: carbide, ceramic and diamond, a fixed angle, serrated and gut-hook support
• Diamond Pro 2-Step: diamond and ceramic stages with an angle guide

Carbide sets the edge and ceramic refines it; the diamond is what the listings pair with serrated and gut-hook support. The pocket knife sharpener page covers the style.

Pull-throughs, stones and a rod

The SturdyMount and the Pull-Through Knife Sharpener sit on a counter; the first is carbide, the second carbide and ceramic. The Pocket Stone is a small two-sided natural stone with gut-hook support listed. The Deluxe Tri-Stone System comes in two listings with diamond, synthetic stone and ceramic faces. The Professional Diamond Rod is a diamond rod with serrated support. The knife sharpening stone page and the sharpening rod page cover these shapes.

Guided kits

The Precision Stone Kit is a guided system with diamond and ceramic hones, an angle guide, and serrated and gut-hook support. The 2-Stone Rolling Sharpener rolls along the counter with the angle set by the guide, from narrow to wide. The maker's warranty page puts its rolling sharpeners on a one-year term. The knife sharpening kit page compares guided kits.

Lineup notes: the AccuSharp fixed blades

Gut hook knives: one blade, two jobs

A gut hook is the small notch ground into the spine of the blade. The maker's page for its Gut Hook Knife says the hook makes smooth cuts through the body cavity, and the main edge handles long, clean cuts. It lists 420 stainless steel, a blaze-orange non-slip rubber grip and a nylon sheath with a belt loop.

The grid's gut hook skinning knife matches that picture by its listing: a short blade, 420 stainless, a rubber handle and a nylon sheath. Blaze orange on a knife handle isn't fashion. It's the color you can find in the leaves at dusk when you set it down to grab the drag rope. The skinning knife page compares skinners and gut hooks across brands.

Caping knives: the small one for detail work

A caping knife is the short knife you use for the fine work, around the head and anywhere a big blade is clumsy. The maker calls its Caping Knife a fine-edged blade for game processing and detailed, intricate cuts. It lists 420 stainless, a non-slip rubber grip and a black nylon belt sheath.

In the grid, the caping knife's listing gives a blade about the same length as the gut hook's. That's the point of a caper: short enough to control, with a fine tip.

The gut hook and caping bundle

The bundle in the grid is those two knives together, per its listing: two pieces, 420 stainless, nylon sheaths, one with a gut hook. The maker sells a larger kit of its own, the Hunter's Processing Kit, with a butcher knife, a caper, a gut-hook knife, a bone saw, a ribcage spreader, gloves, a hard case and a sharpener. That kit isn't in the grid, so I'll only say it exists.

Two knives beat one for a deer. Open with the gut hook, do the fine work with the caper. The hunting knife page lays out which shape does which job.

The fillet knife with a sharpener

The odd one in the grid is a fillet and bait knife, with a longer blade than the hunting knives and a sharpener in the package, per its listing. The maker's own fillet combo, the 736C, lists a 6.5-inch full-tang stainless blade with a titanium coating, a fish-scale textured grip, a sheath and a two-step ceramic sharpener with coarse and fine stages.

A fillet knife isn't a deer knife. It's for fish, and for the camp cook who wants a thin blade. If Hemlock Run had a pond, Danny would own four of them. (We have a creek. He owns two anyway.)

Lineup notes: the AccuSharp folding knife

The lockback with an Allen wrench

The grid has one AccuSharp folder: a lockback that ships with an Allen wrench, per its listing. The maker's page for its G10 lockback describes a stainless blade, a safety lock, a G10 handle and a removable one-hand opening pin, and also lists an included Allen wrench. The maker doesn't say what the wrench is for, so I won't either. My guess is the pin. My guesses aren't facts, which is why this one stops here.

A lockback holds the blade open until you press the bar on the back of the handle. Learn the close at the kitchen table before you learn it on a tailgate in the dark. The pocket knife page covers locks across brands.

How to choose within the AccuSharp lineup

Pick the job first

My one opinion on this page: keep one knife for field dressing and don't let it moonlight in the kitchen. The reason is checkable. Cornell's Wildlife Health Lab recommends one set of tools for field dressing and a different set for butchering, washed with soap and hot water between animals. That points to two knives anyway, and a gut hook and a caper make a reasonable pair.

Then the shape

• Gut hook: opening the body cavity, plus general cuts with the main edge
• Caping knife: short blade, fine tip, detail work
• Fillet knife: long, thin blade for fish
• Lockback folder: pocket carry and camp chores

Then the sheath and how you'll carry it

The fixed blades in the grid list nylon sheaths. A nylon sheath shrugs off rain and dries fast. Try it on the belt you actually hunt in, over the November coat, before opening day. A knife that rides wrong gets set on the dashboard, and that's where it'll be when you need it.

Then the steel

Most AccuSharp knives in the grid list 420 stainless. That's a stainless steel, so it puts up with damp days better than a carbon steel would. It still wants wiping dry.

Care and sharpening that apply to the whole lineup

AKTI's maintenance advice covers these knives as well as any:

• Sharpen often: a badly dulled edge takes far more work to bring back
• Equal strokes: the same number on each side, at the same pressure and angle
• Toothpick: for dirt in a folder's handle, since it won't scratch metal
• Light oil: on a folder's mechanism, and on the blade before storage
• Cool, dry storage: not a damp basement or garage

AKTI also warns that salt water and rain are hard even on stainless steel. Wipe the blade after a wet day, and dry the nylon sheath before the knife goes back in.

Coarse and fine slots, the maker's way

The fillet combo comes with a two-step sharpener, coarse and fine. The maker's FAQ gives instructions for its pull-through sharpener, and they're a fair habit for any two-slot sharpener:

• Clean the blade first: fish slime and fat don't sharpen
• Stable surface: set it down and hold the base, fingers and thumb away from the slots
• Coarse for dull, fine for touch-ups: and if you start coarse, finish fine
• Light pressure: blade upright, tip tilted slightly down, one steady pull from heel to tip
• Three or four pulls: always in one direction, checking the edge each time

Rule of thumb: sharpen before the trip, not on the tailgate with cold hands.

Who can skip these knives

If you already carry a fixed-blade hunting knife you like and you butcher at home with a kitchen set, a separate caper may be one more thing in the pack. If you never fish, the fillet knife isn't for you, sharpener or not. And if you want a big belt knife for camp chores, these are small blades by design. The fixed blade knife page covers the bigger ones.

After field dressing, Cornell's advice is soap and hot water between animals. Wear latex or nitrile gloves while you work, per the same source.

Cut away from your body, including when you sharpen. Keep your fingers out of a folder's closing path, because once the lock is released the spring can snap the blade shut, per AKTI.

AccuSharp facts

Here's what I could verify from the maker's own pages:

• Company: Fortune Products, Inc. / AccuSharp Int'l, with an address in Leander, Texas
• Experience: the maker says it has kept tools sharp for more than 40 years
• Sharpener origin: the Knife and Tool Sharpener's page says made in the USA
• Knife origin: the gut hook, caping and G10 lockback pages list China as the country of origin
• Warranty: lifetime on its handheld and pull-through sharpeners and its Folding Sport Knife; one year on its rolling and electric sharpeners

I couldn't verify a founding year or founder, and the warranty page doesn't mention the hunting knives in this grid, so I've left those out.

Sharp, clean, dry, back in the sheath. Four steps. The fourth is the one that gets skipped.