Bowie Tang?

Yes the design is good

The cable tang is not so good

Here is a properly made tang on a forged combat Bowie

Notice the sweeping belly that James mentions as a positive attribute of the CS design

Difference is this piece is differentially heat treated and exhibits radical distal taper



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You asked if anyone was incorporating a cable tang on a custom fighting Bowie and the answer is...... no that style of construction is sub standard.

The Cold Steel pieces also exhibit no distal taper which for me is paramount in a properly made Bowie

They are great prouduction pieces but the cable tang and lack of distal taper and differential heat treatment seperate them from a very high quality custom

Still I like them enough to own them but I understand what the difference between great and good is
 
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If the fellow that was driving that Cold Steel cable-tanged Fighter into the log 'like a nail' would of had a full-tang or a stick-tang knife peened through the pommel there'd be a real good chance he would of achieved whatever he was attempting to do...
 
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Once I made a sledge hammer which has a steel pipe as a handle, because a wooden handle broke too often. But the steel pipe handle had extremely horrible vibrations. However, with knives I have never noticed that vibrations are a problem.
 
All I can say is that both the Laredo and Natchez have great balance and feel. (I have at least a few other custom bowies to compare to them.) There are plenty of videos on the internet showing hard use with both of those. Other than the Natchez that was hammered on like a nail, I don't know of any other Laredo or Natchez that failed. And that Natchez's cable tang did not fail. Only the wood handle broke, and then the owner cut the cable tang. That fact makes a significant difference to me.

For those who say there should be more weight in the handle. That's true in general for fighting knives. But have they actually picked up one of these knives? The balance is great, so I guess Cold Steel did something right. Balance point is about an inch on the blade side of the guard, which is where you want it.

And about the argument that cable tang construction costs less, I simply cannot see how this type of construction could possibly save costs. It would be much, much cheaper to just make a Kabar BK9 style of knife, with full profile tang and handle slabs. There is a thread on the Cold Steel forum site where someone took his Laredo apart to re-do the handle. Shows the cable tang construction. No way that was cheaper than just doing a sandwich full tang. See post #29 on link. http://coldsteelforums.com/tm.aspx?high=&m=82169&mpage=1#82935
 
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