I've been thinking of getting a set like http://www.buckknives.com/index.cfm?event=product.detail&productID=3954

Anyone ever tried it?

I've always just borrowed a thin filet knife my parents use when butchering cattle.

Perhaps it would be helpful to consider French "cut and seam" butchering techniques. This set of techniques applies to any animal and uses a relatively small set of butcher tools.

LOL! I did a google search on "cut and seam butchering" and the first link it gave me was your post, dweste. Time to search deeper.

-Blast

I have seen a demo live and a few online references and articles. Supposedly the method drastically reduces the need for major chopping or cutting by separating major muscle groups along their natural separations or "seams" [the membranes or bursa that allow muscle groups to contract or relax and "slide" by other muscles] and then just cutting their attachments - typically at joints, plus boning and harvesting culinary quality fat and organ meats as you go.

The result is a relatively clean, disarticulated skeleton and clean meat separated into the various muscle groups ready to be cooked or stored [eacjh of which the French insist do best cooked in separate ways!]. Pretty fast and impressive to watch an expert "unzip" an animal like a pig.

Aside from a stout, relatively short, and wickedly sharp boning blade, as I recall the other tools used were a fairly flexible, longer, narrow bladed knife for some deboning, and a t-handled loop of what I assume was braided and teflon-coated stainless wire was used to loop over bones such as ribs and then pulled to along the bone to separate the meat [bone].

The resulting muscle meats were then rolled and tied for roasts, sliced across the grain to create steaks [including butterflying some for uniform thickness], ground for various uses including sausage, etcetera.

Bottom line: how you butcher probably determines which tools will work best.