A Really Nice Bowie

MolokaiRider said:
I only have a couple of slipjoints. The covers are not too bad, and the springs were fitted well enough. The carbon blade steel is incredibly soft, and the blade grinds are not great. A fairly low level of fit and finish.
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I didn't know where to buy quality knives before, and I am fairly young, so with the mall/BudK being my only choices, I think I made some pretty classy choices, considering their whole inventory, I went for wood and classic designs. Got some knives that serve well even today from these poor places, from right before I bought my first Opinel and Ontario knife. One of which is a 10" bowie with my mother's maiden name, my family name, engraved on it, for $25 out the door. Now, this is a lower-qual 440 alloy but it is full tang (Ridge Runner "Renegade" for the specific model) and would, presumably, suffice for light camp chores or emergency defense. That's how I feel about this Bear and Sons except I feel guilty that people feel they are buying a quality knife.
 
The Bowie actually looks really nice. It was probably made on the same tooling Camillus or Western made theirs on. Bear bought a lot of the old Camillus stuff when it was auctioned off, just a Camillus bought Western years before. I wouldn't worry about the steel, etc.... Camillus used 440a and 420hc in theirs, and no one had a problem with those. I'd consider 12c17 similar or better.

The lineage on these goes Collins 18 - the WWII models (Case, Kinfolks, Western Bushman, Collins, and the Aussie and Indian copies) - The Western W-49 redesign (it added the S guard, wood handles, and the dangler sheath) - the reintroduction of the Case Bowie, etc.....

The original thought in WWII was to offer a knife that was to offer a knife that was part machete and part Bowie/Combat knife. Collins was already offering one in their #18 Bowie Machete, so that was chosen, and it all branches off from there.

Bear and Sons is and off-shoot of the old Fain Edwards, later (Jim) Parker Edwards factory. Fain Edwards was a custom maker was a custom maker that had the idea to set up a factory to produce commercial damascus in Alabama, later Jim Parker of Parker knives (and Case at the time) bought it. In the early 90's when it was winding down it was sold to BEAR MGC. The MGC was the initials of the buyers. I seem to remember they were workers at the factory that went in together to buy it.

Fast forward a while, and some of the other partners get bought out, and now you have Bear and Sons.

As to quality, it's hit or miss. They can make a nice product when they want, but can get sloppy. They're definitely not a buy sight unseen company on folders.
 
Ha, fair enough, I think I always call it "Bear and Sons" because I remember when it was Bear MGC, it was 3 partners.
 
I like the dangler sheath on a large knife. My large Roselli leuku and Varusteleka skrama both sport dangling sheaths.

Nice Bowie!

Zieg
 
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