Drop point vs clip point for hunting
Updated 2026-09-08
Take a drop point unless you have a specific reason not to. Its lower, thicker tip is much less likely to nick the paunch while you are opening an animal, and it still has plenty of belly for skinning. A clip point buys you a finer, more agile tip for detail work, and pays for it in tip strength.
What the shapes actually are
On a drop point the spine curves down to the tip in a convex line, so the point sits low and has a lot of steel behind it. On a clip point the front third of the spine is 'clipped' away in a concave sweep, dropping the point lower still and making it much finer and further forward.
The gut-nicking argument
This is the real reason drop points dominate hunting. Opening the abdominal wall means running a blade under tension a few millimetres above something you must not puncture. A blunter, lower tip is simply more forgiving there. Plenty of people do it perfectly well with a clip point — but it is a smaller margin for error.
When the clip point wins
Detail work: caping, working around joints, anything where you are using the first half-inch of blade as a scalpel. The Buck 110 pattern has been the archetypal folding hunter for sixty years for exactly this reason.
Both drawn to scale
Our blade-shape pages draw each shape from the real dimensions of the knives that use it, so you can see how the same profile behaves at 3 inches and at 7.