Hi:
Just registered here and am enjoying catching up on past threads. Nice forum and I appreciate the opportunity to interact with other knife enthusiasts.
I'd really like to have a USING hunter out of M4 with a upper end Rc hardness level and a MUCH lesser finished blade for a reasonable price. I'm going to use it for skinning deer and wild hogs, not put it in a safe, nor am I going to be prying with it or using it as a screwdriver. Something on the order of Bruce Bump's professional hunter would be perfect with a lesser finish. I also love nice wood on handles but, in this case, I think a surface roughened micarta or similar would be better. I find that many of the current fighters/Bowies I'm buying, even those that are designed for real military use have very slick handles, something that could easily slip out of (or even worse, into) your hand when it is covered in blood, water, or mud. A major mistake made for the collectors, not users, in my opinion. Nothing against collectors, I are one, but function for a using knife should always trump looks IMO. I'm old and impatient so if the REAL projected delivery time of this M4 hunter is more than 6 months I'd prefer to find someone who doesn't have that kind of backlog. Any volunteers or suggestions would be appreciated. The above knife is really nice but probably more finished, which translates into a higher price, than I'm looking for.