Whats The Best Way To Tell If A New Knife Is Sharp, For Hunting?

A safe way to tell is to put the edge of the knife on your thumb nail and if it slides down without trying to catch on it the blade needs sharpening. but if the knife “catches” on the thumb nail, it is sharp enough to shave.

Always bring a stone or ceramic stick or diamond hone or a good old fashioned sharpening “steel” with you as it is rare you can clean a deer sized animal without having to continuously to treat the edge.
In the slaughter houses one pass with the knife through an animal is followed by several passes with a “steel” to keep the edge razor sharp.
Good Luck!

They are likely sharp, but if you are going hunting you had better sharpen the knife yourself and then bring your sharpening stone with you. Know exactly how to do this before you go.
I will routinely stop in the middle of prepping game and sharpen my knife. A dull blade will make your work harder and significantly increase your chances of slipping and cutting yourself. Been there.

Knives are suppose to be sharp from the factory……you can touch or tap the blade or just run your thumb across the blade CAREFULLY (side ways)…..NOT DOWN THE BLADE LIKE YOU ARE CUTTING……or cut some paper. You should know how to sharpen a knife with a soap stone and take a couple when hunting. If you don’t know how ck out you tube for some tips

a really sharp knife should be able to cut down the folded edge of a peice of paper with little effort and no drag… just a clean cut.
A sharp knife will shave hair too.
Some kids will be along to correct me later… cutting the paper tends to dull the knife… but then cutting “anything” tends to dull edges… thats why we learn to sharpen tools.

Slide the knife across your finger. If it bleeds and you did not feel a thing, it is very sharp. If it hurts and bleeds, it needs to be sharpened a bit. If you have to saw back and forth allot to get some blood – it definitly needs sharpening.

My personal method is to tap the edge on the outside of my fingers. And no I haven’t cut myself. It’s easy to tell if it is sharp or dull. But I can make stuff really sharp, I have an enitire collection of sharpening blocks and steels.

If it can slice paper without tearing it you’re good to go but I always carry a small sharpener in the field with me to make field dressing(gutting) my buck go smoothly. I usually skin it back at camp.

‘New’ knives generally need to be honed.
They’ll come with a pretty good rough edge, but will
not be ‘tool’ sharp.
A ’skinner’ should be ‘razor sharp’.

Most knives are already sharpened.

Knives always come pre-sharpened. G cut something to see how sharp they are.

lick a spot on your arm then see if you can shave it! Thats what I do and I get a bald spot.

lick a spot on your arm then see if you can shave it!