bowie knives, does the tip break easily?

Depends on the knife.

There are plenty of big knives with thick strong tips that are reffered to as bowies.

I believe you are probably thinking of the clip point fighting style bowies though, and yes they do have thinner tips. BUT, if they are done properly they can still hold up quite well. ....you'd have to be doing something pretty stupid to manage to snap one.

Just look at CS's Laredo bowie video. Thats a clip point fighter, and they show a guy stabbing the tip into a 2x4 then prying the knife sideways taking out chunks of wood with no dammage to the tip of the blade.
 
Bowies were fighting knives. They were not designed for fighting with 2 by 4s.

As people began to use Bowies for things they weren't designed for...their design changed.
 
as with any properly designed, properly heat treated blade NOTHING should/will break "easy".
 
I was impressed by the tip strength of my Ontario SP10 Marine Raider Bowie. I have even batoned on it as hard as i could with no failures. As far as stabbing into wood & then prying it left or right---I would not do that unles i absolutely had to. I have seen far too many break doing that.

100_0870.jpg
 
Even knives that were primarily designed for fighting still had to take tip strength into consideration. See, even though most of the human body is soft and squishy we still have these hard dense things inside us called bones. And you wouldn't want the tip of your fighter bowie snapping off the first time you stuck it in someone. ;)

Nobody would recomend using the tip of a clip point bowie as a prybar, the 2x4 thing is just a simple "demonstraition" of the strength of the knife tip. Which is what the OP asked about. He didn't ask what the old knives were intended for, only how strong the tips are.

There are other video tests and demonstraitions out there that show how a decently made clip point can actually take quite a bit before failure. Such as the 2x4 test, stabbing through quarters/silver dollars and such.

My question to the OP would only be: What do you plan to do with your bowie that you are worried may break the tip?
 
Excellent points, BryFry. Bottom line, to me, is that if I am worried about snapping off the tip of my knife (though that is something that I don't worry about), then I wouldnt opt for a clip point. (Though I'm sure a modern clip point will stand up to a great deal of abuse before snapping off.)

Which may be why the original Bowie Sandbar knife (a dedicated fighter) was not a clip point at all.
 
And the Alamo type bowie isn't a dedicated fighter? I'm confused. It's more of a fighter than the butcher knife look of the Sandbar knife.
 
marcinek said:
Excellent points, BryFry. Bottom line, to me, is that if I am worried about snapping off the tip of my knife (though that is something that I don't worry about), then I wouldnt opt for a clip point. (Though I'm sure a modern clip point will stand up to a great deal of abuse before snapping off.)

Which may be why the original Bowie Sandbar knife (a dedicated fighter) was not a clip point at all.
Click to expand...

I hear ya... If for some reason I wanted a knife to pry on stuff with, I wouldn't choose a clip point either. ....But then I don't regularly pry on stuff with my knives. So I don't worry about it much.

Still, I suppose there is nothing wrong with simply wondering how sturdy a design can be.
 
mrstang01 said:
And the Alamo type bowie isn't a dedicated fighter? I'm confused. It's more of a fighter than the butcher knife look of the Sandbar knife.
Click to expand...

The "Alamo type" is not at all in the original Bowie style. Is the "Alamo style" more of a fighter than the knife Bowie fought with on the sandbar? It certainly is more "tacticool" than a butcher knife. Hence it's popularity even at the time.

Also its worth noting that, typically, the "Alamo" and "Iron Mistress" style Bowies have little, if nothing, to do with historical reality.
 
Agreed, but my point was more that what we know of the Sandbar Bowie, it wasn't a dedicated fighter.
 
Guess not, since he borrowed it from his brother. (Now that part always disturbed me, as a dedicated knife carrier, why wouldn't Bowie have had some kind of knife available, he had to depend on his brother giving him one?).
 
mrstang01 said:
Guess not, since he borrowed it from his brother. (Now that part always disturbed me, as a dedicated knife carrier, why wouldn't Bowie have had some kind of knife available, he had to depend on his brother giving him one?).
Click to expand...

Excellent point. Man should have his own knife. Not have to borrow one from his brother! That ain't right!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top