Fighting Knife

marcinek said:
Some, including me, would say "invented by Thorpe."
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Well that was the point, Marci. I have trouble expressing muh muh myself. But Randall has built a whole line around the Thorpe design and they ship daily. I don't think we will ever really know what the True Boo bowie looked like but IMHO I think we all have a pretty good notion of what it Should look like. And when a manufacture puts one out that matches that notion, SOLD!
Back to the original thought:
Do Bowie's make better fighters?
Better than an Appy/Fairby? A Ratwieler? A Becker 8? A Victorinox Camper?
To each his own on that. Not all fixed blades over 7" are bowies just as not all bowies are 10" long. It's become more of a style discriptor like SUV or Pick Up Truck. If one makes a bowie how can another discount it or say "That's Not a Bowie Knife"? What would a critic base that on? Is there a Bowie Criterion Standard one would need to meet to gain an official bowie designation?
Submitted academicly with sincerity as I am well aware that there are umpteen threads with a quarter million posts on this subject-
What makes a bowie a bowie?
No the ? is
Do Bowies make good fighters?
Might be best to refer all this to our very own Dwight McLemore as he is an authority on Bowie history and fighting styles.
 
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Greykilt said:
I don't think we will ever really know what the True Boo bowie looked like but IMHO I think we all have a pretty good notion of what it Should look like.
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It looked like this:

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Thorpe and The Iron Mistress with Alan Ladd from 1954 gave people the notion that it looked like this:

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Yep Marci, you nailed it. The thing is the Sandbar bowie although much more authentic, just doesn't look as sexy as the Randall. :D
And of course theres the hilt debate, crossgaurd style, coffin scales and that infernal brass strip along the spine......
 
Greykilt said:
Yep Marci, you nailed it. The thing is the Sandbar bowie although much more authentic, just doesn't look as sexy as the Randall. :D
And of course theres the hilt debate, crossgaurd style, coffin scales and that infernal brass strip along the spine......
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True. Even at the time a butcher knife/punal wasn't considered sexy. Not tacti-awesome enough. (Even if it was what Bowie used on the sandbar.) So they started ninja-ing them up, and they sold like hotcakes to everybody who wanted a knife like Bowie's...but not the knife he used...an awesomer looking one.

Good thing we got over all that silliness years ago.
 
More of a camp knife but im sure it can prove itself in self defense. H.I BVCAK 10Inches OAL and nearly half an inch thick (mine is 3/8") 5160 steel, for $65 I doubt you can find a better deal
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About the only really new things to come along in knives as weapons post WW2 would be the Ballistic Knife and the Wasp gas injector knife.
Everything else hasn't changed much in the essentials. Why should it? The human body hasn't changed in either its range of motions (hence the way a blade can be used hasn't changed) or it's vulnerabilities (the range of targets), so really, most blade styles have probably been tried , and those that worked stuck around, and those that didn't , didn't.
 
Did I make it in before the post from a knife hipster that said an Opinel is all he'd ever need in a fight?:p
 
In my opinion I would go ahead and get a karambit which may not be what your looking for yet but is overall te best fighting/defense knife you can get today. I would suggest a karambit from emerson or cold steel
 
History gives us plenty of information about fighting knives in different environments. For example in Europe those that were going to engage some kind of combat usually wore some kind of soft or hard body armor. For example 15th century fighting manuals show mostly people wearing either arming jackets which consisted of 6-12 layers of dense cloth or full body armor. That makes cutting with a knife quite inefficient, so stabbing was the main technique. Daggers were held mostly in reverse grip to get the power needed to push through this soft body armor. Sounds familiar considering soldiers gear today? Even thick wool coat could resist cutting with sabers during 19th century in Crimean war.

So if I really had to kill someone thoroughly dead even if he had thick clothing I would choose something like this:

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mattoverboard209 said:
In my opinion I would go ahead and get a karambit which may not be what your looking for yet but is overall te best fighting/defense knife you can get today.
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100% disagree. As a collector and user, there is a very specialized niche for use of a karambit, especially in a knife fight. Maybe with lots of practice and training in a myriad of scenarios against a sea of techniques, it could possibly work. But you also have to consider one thing: the design. You can't perform karambit techniques with a Bowie, and you can't exactly apply techniques used with a dagger to a karambit.
 
Loveless big bear style. I have a cold steel black bear classic. Both edges sharp, sub hilt so u don't have to put your foot on their chest to get it out, 8.25 inch blade and their Sanmai steel. Gets wicked sharp.
 
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Now here's the problem with bladed weapons.
They are a not entirely a permanent nor a natural extension of the self.
We clearly need titanium fang implants and perhaps some claws too
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Perhaps to forever rid the world of cumbersome bladed weapons...
But seriously, knives are fashioned to consist of a piercing point and slashing edge.
All somehow fabricated to fit the mechanics of the hand and arm.
I doubt there is much one can do to alter the angle of effective penetration
As it would be nothing more than overkill to shape some fancy pointed tool
when nature has already perfected and endowed an effective rudimentary kill system in predatory beast...
 
I don't guess I would care what it is called even if it doesn't match what Jim Bowie had but a Bagwell Hells Belle is in a league of its own. There is a lot more going on with it than just a long clip point blade. It has to be felt to be understood and has no comparison that I have ever handled personally. Bill has applied a lifetime of study to the design and it shows.
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crossada said:
I don't guess I would care what it is called even if it doesn't match what Jim Bowie had but a Bagwell Hells Belle is in a league of its own. There is a lot more going on with it than just a long clip point blade. It has to be felt to be understood and has no comparison that I have ever handled personally. Bill has applied a lifetime of study to the design and it shows.
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If Jim Bowie had the options we have today I could see him shelling out for something like that. I've seen pictures of mid-1800s bowies with that blade design, too. I have the Ontario version & hope to have a real Bagwell in a few years.
 
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