Knife Design ~ The Killing Knife

Raymond Richard said:
Here's something that makes alot more sense to me: http://www.civilwar.si.edu/weapons_pike.html
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Kinda hard to meet the "concealed" requirement for most states concealed carry laws...:D But the pike. along with the longbow and eventually, the musket were the "great equalizers' for the common infantryman back in the days of the mounted knight. Their effective use of pikes and related pole arms way back when is why there is STILL an old treaty barring the Swiss from providing mercenaries to anyone other than the Pope even after 400 or so years....imagine the humiliation and dishonor of noble knights being slaughtered by peasant mercenaries and conscripts from Wales, Switzerland, Northern Italy, etc wielding cheap modified farm implements and poaching weapons........lol
 
"knife for killing" hmm this day in age i dont think there is a place for a knife on a battle feild any more accept as a tool, or even to hunt with. reason one most of us except maybe the "old timers" have been displaced from a kill with the use of a fire arm that we dont get the full impact of our action when taking the life of a person/animal. There has got to be a huge differance if you shoot a deer from yards away then if you were to plunge a peice of steel into the victom, at which that point your pretty likely to feel the life fade outa the deer/person or what ever. knives are a tool today more then a weapon. and i gotta say im glad cuz i dont think id like to be stabbed over shot.. and well if i can die of old age that'd be swell -=)

but if i had to pick a blade design to kill something... id pick a dagger. in my eyes this design lack purpose much else then to stick and stick deep. slashes hurt but holes bleed out. allot if you twist so ive been told. so yeah i gotta say a dagger.

ps. you ask me.. this was a darn good subject to discuss
 
I posted the same topic on the HI CANTINA...

ANd one of my buddies posted a pic of the Larry HArley knife design I used to kill my 2 hawgs...

Larry and I talked a lot aobut the single edged "Battle Bowie" vs the double edged version...

Larry will tell you...the double edged blade is the real deal when it comes to killing hawgs.

Yes it does not necessarily perform as well in the field for daily chores....but as a killing blade it is the highest form of refinement.

So I chose to use it.

When you kill a hawg...there is no need to stab or thrust with great force...it is more of a firm insertion...then you must work the blade inside the animal.

The double edge cuts in both directions as the hunter pumps the handle.
Which lacerates all of the internal organs (heart,lung)

WHile this is extremely graphic...the case in point (no pun) in that form is designated by function.

ONe must understand function before one can create form.

As a sidebar....I have been a hunter all my life...but I have never seen a cleaner way to harvest an animal.

THis is one of the oldest hunting traditions in our country...and it taught me a lot more about knife design than I would have imagined.

SHane
 
This topic kinda makes me cringe as I've never thought about "killing" knives. A knife to me is just a useful tool. However, the definition of the knife you're describing would probably be Bob Loveless' Big Bear.
 
That sounds intense. What is your non-knife hand doing during the process? Also, what are the specs on Harley's battle bowie?
 
Mark,

It was intense...there are no words for it...

But if you want to learn about using a knife...designed for this purpose...that's the only place to do it...other than an actual War Zone...

As a maker...I learned more about knife design in 15 minutes...than I have from any book...magazine...or bull session....

The Harley knife...can be seen...on the thread I started in the HI cantina...a buddy posted it for me there...or you can go to lonesome pine knives...look in the gallery section...it is the 1th blade down...on the left hand column...

This is a no BS...straight on...killing knife...

ONe of the things we were talking about in the other thread...was chopping vs. stabbing ability...

Larry won an ABS cutting comp with a single edged version of this knife...but I know the double edged version...will chop...should the need arise in a "killing" situation...

Lastly...I sort of have to apologize to some of the folks who take excpetion for my terminolgy.

The term "killing knife" is pretty cold. UNderstand the first kinfe book I ever read...about using a knife to hurt/injure/disable...was "Get Tough"...by W.E. Fairbairn...he lays it out...exactly how it is...written with real time experience...

He does not talk in PC jargon...so I hope you all can understand...why I
chose to cut to the chase...

WHen I see somebody writing or talking about a knife used against another person...it seems to me that...a knife is never used in defense...a shield may be used thusly...but in my experience it is different with a knife

I admit limited experience... as there are those with vast knowledge who can block and perform defensive move with knives and swords...

But I also understand the simple ideas...was it Musashi...who talked about the strategy of the blade...when he said a swordsman must only concentrate on cutting the opponent...there is nothing else...(probably I need to go back and refresh myself on this thought...

So for somebody like me...when I think of using or making a knife...I must concentrate only on the work a knife is made to do...cutting and stabbing into an animal or a person...

I used more words here than was necessary...I am not a good writer...with the ability to craft ideas...so I hope you all get what I am trying to say so awkwardly...

The Larry Harley knife...IMO...is a knife...that could not be improved upon to perform the chore it is made for.

Larry's knives have killed a lot of hawgs...and have seen a lot of time in the War Zone...with no failures.

It is also an original. What is it they say? It has "Face"

Shane
 
hp2spare said:
The way to tell the winner of a knife fight... he's the guy who gets out of the hospital first.
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Yep if you fight with a knife no matter how good you are you will get cut. Ive spared with blunted blade with a friend of mine. Ive had so many little nicks and scrapes and bruises from that its not even funny. Hes much much better than i am and guess what he ends up with the same sorts of scrapes and such as i do. BTW sparing with a blunt blade can be one hell of a good work out.
 
shane justice said:
WHen I see somebody writing or talking about a knife used against another person...it seems to me that...a knife is never used in defense...a shield may be used thusly...but in my experience it is different with a knife
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The only time a knife is a defensive weapon is when blocking another blade or you could use it agaisnt a firearm armed assailant in a manner that would jam the gun. You can also use a knife to inflict massive ammounts of pain with out cause much in the way of long term damage. Depending on how you use it. Example and a warncliff blade would work nice for this. If you were to place your pointer along the spine of the blade and only expose say 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the tip then use the knife in a tip slashing manner you would only cut as deap as the exposed tip of your blade.

Want to iliminate the threat with out killing how about a nice shallow cut across the forehead. Head wounds bleed like mad but can be very far from fatal in fact they can be so shallow as to not need more than a bandaid.

People should also understand that even a knife such as the gerber apple gate mini covert folder thats a whopping 4. something inches over all could kill as effectivly as a 18 inch long bowie dagger hunter what ever. After all a inch deap cut is just as deadly as any other inch deap cut.

Its funny but read the history about the main goughe daggers they were used for every thing including cutting food.

No matter what a knive is designed for it ends up being as much a tool as a weapon at least in some ones hands.
 
Shane , that is quite the awesome blade. Effective design. Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts.
Mark
 
This
137200071BigBearII.jpg
isn't your every day letter opener!
 
personally after about 7 years studing the blade arts of the philipines, one of the most blade oriented cultures in the world, unless it was a sword most blades started as a farm tool. Everyone seems to know what is and isn't a "fighting knife". Depending on what kind of knifing you are planning on doing will choose the weapon. a duel would be better fought with as large a blade as possible with as much belly as possible without raising the tip to much. street defence i would prefer something with an idiot proof draw and carry system, also with size being realitive to it, as large as concealable. warzone, that goes back to the idea of a duel, but with heavy consideration given to carry position and design.
 
Too many knife makers try to hide what we are....
They try to hide from the history of how we got to this spot.

But the truth is that a bladesmith is the weapons maker of human history.

This is our history....

Now a good fighting knife would be of a design that would allow you to sneak up behind a person, clamp one hand over their mouth, and plunge the blade into their back to the guard, then twist, remove.

You want the blade long to get as far into the back of the person as you can.
Sharp enough to be a easy push movement.

And you dont want any crap like saw teeth on the blade that could snag clothes on the way in our out.

Thus, the photo posted by mlovett, would make a good pick as a fighting knife.
 
Alan Molstad said:
Too many knife makers try to hide what we are....
They try to hide from the history of how we got to this spot.

But the truth is that a bladesmith is the weapons maker of human history.

This is our history....

Now a good fighting knife would be of a design that would allow you to sneak up behind a person, clamp one hand over their mouth, and plunge the blade into their back to the guard, then twist, remove.

You want the blade long to get as far into the back of the person as you can.
Sharp enough to be a easy push movement.
"
And you dont want any crap like saw teeth on the blade that could snag clothes on the way in our out.

Thus, the photo posted by mlovett, would make a good pick as a fighting knife.
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i concure whole heartedely
except!!!!
i good killing knife dont realy need to be but long enough to reach to the bottom of a pnutbutter jar
but then again nothing exceeds like excess
and wide
wide kills better than long
also thers no such thing as a fighting knife and never never such a thing as a tactical knife
thats was a term a knife writer came up with so as to be
pc

"But the truth is that a bladesmith is the weapons maker of human history"
u r sooooo right.
an d what a lot of us guys forget along w this baggage goes a real responsibility
a responsability to make the best functioning tool we can
we dont know what the knife will be called on to do in yrs to come
i hope that when they throw dirt on me that my knives will
still have face
harley
 
Vinny203 said:
but if i had to pick a blade design to kill something... id pick a dagger. in my eyes this design lack purpose much else then to stick and stick deep. slashes hurt but holes bleed out. allot if you twist so ive been told. so yeah i gotta say a dagger.
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I think you have that backwards. Even bullet holes may or may not "bleed out"; the deep but narrow channel left by a dagger or knife might close up on itself. "Reality" TV is full of stories of people who were stabbed a bunch and still managed to fight on or escape... at least for a while.That same knife drawn across a leg or arm will leave a deep cut 2 or 4 inches long, THAT'S going to bleed fast and hard. Not to mention severing tendons; I have a friend who was cut badly across his inner forearm (not in a fight) and his hand was nearly useless for a year, it was almost 3 years before he could play guitar again. He was sure in no shape to fight with it at the time. Hopefully one of our EMT friends around here will weigh in on this.

I would also much prefer to stand back and slash at a bad guy if I needed to, rather than get as close as I can to stab him. The first 6" of my blade gives me some breathing room, the last 3" opens up what I'm cutting. As well as the usual arguments about leverage/tip speed/ etc. As you can tell, I'm another Bagwell guy. I read his take on this 20 years ago and haven't been convinced otherwise, since.

jdm61 said:
Just for fun, take a larger bowie, even one with an unsharpened clip, and try a hard "backcut' on something like a a cardboard box or bag of cement or fertilizer and you will see what I mean.
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Heck YEAH! Even you have no desire to carry a bowie, borrow one and try this. It's just plain fun to see how quick this move is, and how aggressively the clip slices. Even my "lowly" Ka-Bar is way, WAY more effective slashing with the clip, rather than the belly.
 
I give what is the "HI cantina"?

Just curious...................

Syn
 
As a pig hunter. I like a patten 1907 Lee Enfield Bayonet. drop point sharpened both sides.

It's long enough to reach a pigs vitals and do a lot of damage, theres enough length of blade to gte a good chpping swing with it to hack bush lawyer out of the way when heading for the sound of the dogs bailing up the pigs, and it makes a damn good pry bar to open the rusted lock of the gate you climbed over on the way in but now want to open to get the 4wd bike in to haul out the pork :D
 
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