Big Bear

[Bill Siegle]

I just got one today(Combat Companion too) and I was wondering how the design came to be. I have heard it was for a hunter wanting a back up weapon and I have heard it was supposed to be similar to the Bill Moran fighters. Anybody know what the real story is? Either way I think it is an awesome fighter. The longer clip will make a great backcut and the curved main edge will slash most efficiently

 

[Rhett Stidham]

Pages 212-213 Gaddis Book says first Bear Bowies ordered February 1964. George X. Sands in his Argosy article, February 1964, "King of the Wild Knives". He said, "A hefty collecge student ordered this rugged Bowie knife because he wanted to kill a bear with its 8-inch blade." Original knife in Randall museum.

 

[jimsbowies]

I wrote an article on the Big, Beautiful, Bear Bowie a few years back for the RKS newseletter...perhaps Rhett can tell you which specific edition....I'm at the office and don't have my knife "stuff" here to check the date but it has been within the past 3 or 4 years....like you, I like the "persian" upsweep.....wicked looking and certainly one of the most distinctive Randalls.

Jim

 

[Melvin-Purvis]

Originally designed by a near-sighted and almost deaf neighbor of jimsbowies back in 1957, the knife was initially conceived when the aforementioned neighbor (named Randall btw) saw Jim's big dog 'Bear' wandering around on the loose...

Bear, being a large black Newfoundland must have looked much like a bear to the neighbor Randall, who having had lost his glasses that morning couldn't quite get a clear picture of what he was seeing...

Being nearly deaf, and having a bit of a speech impediment from his southern heritage, the neighbor, in a fright ran across the road (to get to the other side) to the local barber shop...

The barber, a well read man from the northern states, having read the accounts of Blacksmith James Black making the 1st knives for famous knife fighter James Bowie, misundertood the neighbors outburst of 'Beeg beah boyee'...

Attempting to quiet the disturbed neighbor, the barber sketched out what he thought a James Black 'Bowie knife' would have looked like...the neighbor, still drooling, cried out "noooo"...

Yet when the barber shaded in the blade with his pencil, giving it a dark look, the neighbor yelled out "Yeath!", and then ran off in a frenzy...

The barber, bright guy that he was, looked down at the design, and thought 'Randall, Big Bear Bowie', and promptly sent the design off to RMK of Orlando FL(A)...where it was reincarnated as the model #12-8 'Big Bear Bowie' in 1964...

That's the way I heard it anyway...

Mel

 

[jimsbowies]

That is hilarious and likely as good an explanation of the genesis of the Big Bear as any....

I'm just sitting here a'grinning....