First of, I want to be fully straight, I have been working with @Stuart Mitchell on these for a while now. I don’t want to overstate my part played in these knives, they’re designed and made by Stuart, and it’s more that I have access to plenty of deer/other people with plenty of deer and a real interest in knives, and Stuart bounces some ideas off of me and the other guys. I will also say, that one of the merits of these knives is also to the detriment of sales in that they will last multiple lifetimes and any one of them could be used to process just about any hunted animal. Especially the p120 which is just a phenomenal all rounder, but more on that in a bit.
This all started about 2 years ago when after taking delivery of a commissioned knife for my 30th Stuart and I stayed in touch, I was up in Scotland Stalking at the time and after much discussion Stuart kindly decided to send me a knife to try out. I’m not too sure what came over me but in the interest of total impartiality I felt the knife had a few issues. Nothing major but a few hotspots, the slightly wrong blade shape for processing lots of deer and a handle that very much dictated how the user could hold the knife. By this time I was back from Scotland and into the swing of fallow culling, processing upwards of 40 deer a week at times with one knife in the hands of multiple users. And so after giving the “feedback sandwich” Stuart said somthing along the lines of “okay then, let’s come up with the perfect deer processing knife”.
Lots of back and forth, lots of tweaks, and finally the 90 & 120 mm knives were ready for production and naming, with a brand new handle shape that can be rolled in the hand, held upside down, and used for hours if need be with no hotspots.
After a competition on this very site yielded a few interesting name suggestion’s but nothing quite right, suddenly while chatting one day one of us said “what about Portland, shortened to P & then the blade length”. There’s a lot of history for Stuart tied up in that name , more than I really realised at the time, but I could tell he was proud to have this model in production and rightly so, I felt pretty proud that a knife I’d had some small input in was regarded as fit to bear the family crest so to speak.
It’s been a huge pleasure to not only use my own version of this knife but also to see so many of you guys getting on so well with them.
Then I had a funny turn, bought a bino harness
These awful and embarrassing but admittedly quite useful bits of kit suddenly seemed to be popping up everywhere, how did we ever manage before our “chest rigs”. It occurred to me that the Portland knives needed to go on a diet, and so become more alternative carry friendly. I’ve long been a fan of a neck knife when stalking and these knives would be geared towards secondary carry, backup, or as the name suggests, ultra lightweight setups. The way that Stuart took this from inception to production was bloody impressive, we’re talking weeks from prototype to taking orders and again the good men and women of the SD seemed very receptive to this new range of knives.
I can’t help but feel like we’re not done yet, I like to think of the handle of the Portland series as a chassis that lends itself to being used on lots of different blades. There’s no justification offered or necessary for all these different shapes over than personal taste, some people love a drop point skinner, others like a straight spined boning knife. But I think I’d be right in saying the 90 & 120 are and will remain the core of the range. The 120 is just the ultimate all rounder, the perfect length for bleeding and processing deer in the field and just as capable for most butchery tasks, the 90 is a little more specialised but is just such a tactile little thing I find myself drawn to using it a lot of the time.
Stuart’s a gifted and talented guy, but also a kind and generous guy, as proven by the photo below of my ever growing collection, it’s been a bloody enjoyable project to be a (very!) small part of.
So if you’ve been on the fence about one of these knives, do try and get your hands on one and give it a try. Honestly hundreds of animals have now been done with my personal knives and collectively we must be into the thousands. You’ll be buying somthing that a lot of stalkers have had a fair bit of input into, made by a genuinely nice bloke who unlike so many makers these days will stand behind the product and is proud enough to put his name on the side of the blade.
Hopefully, we’ll actually get round to meeting in person at some point Stuart!
This all started about 2 years ago when after taking delivery of a commissioned knife for my 30th Stuart and I stayed in touch, I was up in Scotland Stalking at the time and after much discussion Stuart kindly decided to send me a knife to try out. I’m not too sure what came over me but in the interest of total impartiality I felt the knife had a few issues. Nothing major but a few hotspots, the slightly wrong blade shape for processing lots of deer and a handle that very much dictated how the user could hold the knife. By this time I was back from Scotland and into the swing of fallow culling, processing upwards of 40 deer a week at times with one knife in the hands of multiple users. And so after giving the “feedback sandwich” Stuart said somthing along the lines of “okay then, let’s come up with the perfect deer processing knife”.
Lots of back and forth, lots of tweaks, and finally the 90 & 120 mm knives were ready for production and naming, with a brand new handle shape that can be rolled in the hand, held upside down, and used for hours if need be with no hotspots.
After a competition on this very site yielded a few interesting name suggestion’s but nothing quite right, suddenly while chatting one day one of us said “what about Portland, shortened to P & then the blade length”. There’s a lot of history for Stuart tied up in that name , more than I really realised at the time, but I could tell he was proud to have this model in production and rightly so, I felt pretty proud that a knife I’d had some small input in was regarded as fit to bear the family crest so to speak.
It’s been a huge pleasure to not only use my own version of this knife but also to see so many of you guys getting on so well with them.
Then I had a funny turn, bought a bino harness
These awful and embarrassing but admittedly quite useful bits of kit suddenly seemed to be popping up everywhere, how did we ever manage before our “chest rigs”. It occurred to me that the Portland knives needed to go on a diet, and so become more alternative carry friendly. I’ve long been a fan of a neck knife when stalking and these knives would be geared towards secondary carry, backup, or as the name suggests, ultra lightweight setups. The way that Stuart took this from inception to production was bloody impressive, we’re talking weeks from prototype to taking orders and again the good men and women of the SD seemed very receptive to this new range of knives.
I can’t help but feel like we’re not done yet, I like to think of the handle of the Portland series as a chassis that lends itself to being used on lots of different blades. There’s no justification offered or necessary for all these different shapes over than personal taste, some people love a drop point skinner, others like a straight spined boning knife. But I think I’d be right in saying the 90 & 120 are and will remain the core of the range. The 120 is just the ultimate all rounder, the perfect length for bleeding and processing deer in the field and just as capable for most butchery tasks, the 90 is a little more specialised but is just such a tactile little thing I find myself drawn to using it a lot of the time.
Stuart’s a gifted and talented guy, but also a kind and generous guy, as proven by the photo below of my ever growing collection, it’s been a bloody enjoyable project to be a (very!) small part of.
So if you’ve been on the fence about one of these knives, do try and get your hands on one and give it a try. Honestly hundreds of animals have now been done with my personal knives and collectively we must be into the thousands. You’ll be buying somthing that a lot of stalkers have had a fair bit of input into, made by a genuinely nice bloke who unlike so many makers these days will stand behind the product and is proud enough to put his name on the side of the blade.
Hopefully, we’ll actually get round to meeting in person at some point Stuart!
