Looking for high quality Bowie knives

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Dec 10, 2022
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Any one know a good place to get Bowie knives I’ve been looking for a bone or wood handled one for a while but all I really find is the badly made Pakistani or Chinese stuff with fake wood or bone or are complete scams I really need something I can put through hell and back
 
Cold Steel, factory or rehandled.
Ontario Spec Plus SP 10, 5, or 6, rehandled.
Bear MGC Western copy "Gold Rush" models.
Windlass Cutlery, They are rough but workable.
You could also have one of the Nepal based Kukri makers make a custom design. That is becoming very popular.

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I'd go custom. A lot of makers could do it. There are also a lot of good custom second hand Bowies around.
 
Would've suggested the CS Laredo, but saw the OP mention chopping wood. At one time the carbon Laredos had a cable tang, and the san mai version had the cable replaced with a solid rod. Not sure if that's still the case these days, but don't think either is very suitable for heavy chopping.

Stag handled CS Trailmasters are nice, but rare and expensive these days.
Boker Arbolito El Gigante
Several custom makers here
 
You could also have one of the Nepal based Kukri makers make a custom design. That is becoming very popular.

Indeed. Kailash (Nepal) made this custom to my specs, a couple years ago:

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Since you’re looking for a Bowie chopper and you’re willing to go custom, you should look into Bill Siegle from Oregon.

His blades win chopping competitions in part because he uses 5160 and a thin grind.

This one is about .02” thick at .025” behind the edge. I’ve chopped some extremely hard, dead, down trees and have only experienced tiny micro chipping on the hardest stuff (like the Madrone pictured below) that has easily sharpened out.

The only “downside” is that he isn’t taking orders so you have to search around and wait for what you want.

He calls this a “Chopper/Fighter”.

18oz. and one of my absolute favorite knives:

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I’ve been admiring these for a long time and have almost pulled the trigger. How do you like it?? If you have a chance I’d love to know what grind you got and how much it weighs…

Love it.

It's 1 lb. 11 oz. with a 10" blade. It is nicely balanced for this weight, as I specified a metal pommel to help with the weight distribution.

I requested a "standard grind" (vs. a thinner performance grind, or a more obtuse heavy duty grind), which appears to be about 20 DPS. It has a slight convex grind right from the edge to spine. It is an insane chopper with this profile and weight, yet cuts arm hair with ease, and is fast in the hand.

Kailash Blades Kailash Blades (Andrew), Bisnu and the Kailash team were a pleasure to work with.
 
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Look up Svord Peasant VTB - Von Tempsky Forest Bowie for a good beater.

They are kinda crude and heavy. The guards will be a bit loose, but I doubt you will get better for the money
I've heard of that, I own mine for over a year now and the guard is still not loose. Hacking and batoning on a weekly basis, I only had to sharpen it once. The L6 steel is a brutal beast in edge retention and toughness, love it. Only things I did was to look out for not hitting the guard and gave the grip a little oil bath now and then.

If anyone hates the leathersheath as much as I do, my tempsky lives in a 9$ tramontina sheath (12 inch fits perfect)😁

The VTB is a must have for bowie guys in my mind. I would also recommend the CS wild west bowie and the 1917 frontier bowie. These both come with very nice and usable leathersheats.
 
OP says: "I need something with good balance so I can move it with ease from swinging it to chop wood to slashing fast with the finesse of a fencer..."

My take is that a Bowie knife is a fighting knife, not especially good at chopping or batoning because of the clip point. With choppers, you want more weight toward the tip. Bowies don't chop well. Choppers don't slash well. No knife is going to move well from one activity to the other, although any knife can do both tasks at least poorly.

Also, if you plan, as you say, to take your knife to hell and back, wood and bone handles are not the best choices, either.

So one suggestion would be to get a beautiful Bowie knife with the wood or bone handle and style you like. Use that one for your knife fights.

Then get a real chopper with full-tang construction, a rough-and-tumble steel and nearly indestructible handle scales. Use that one in the real world on your trip to hell and back. I'd recommend a chopper from Nathan Carothers.
 
You can check out Mineral Mountain Hatchet Works as well. Super tough and hand finished for a great price. I’ve used all sorts of knives to chop all sorts of wood. Hatchets and axes obviously work the best, but I prefer to use large knives more than anything. In my experience, I’ve successfully used a large knife to do everything that a knife/axe/saw combo while being 75-95% as efficiently as said combo depending on what knife I used, YMMV. Check Mineral Mountain Hatchet Works out, they make good stuff. Carothers and Busse and kin are amazing but a little harder to find.
 
Unfortunately, there is no definitive Bowie knife or type. As, you can see from the previous posts just about any knife can and has been called a “Bowie“. You have already told us that you would prefer a large fixed blade of 9-10”. Tell us about your intended use. A self-defense knife (light, fast, with a sharpened back edge) is very different from a general utility knife or a wood chopper. Sharing your thoughts with us can help us to better focus this conversation to knives that you might actually consider.

n2s
Very true! Still, I'm surprised that no one has recommended Randall Made Knives. Options on the Model #12 Bowies include 6", 8", 9", 11" and 13" blade lengths and many choices on handle material, shapes, guards, etc. I think the #14 #12-9″ Sportsman Bowie is especially pretty. There is a 5+ year wait to order direct, but some dealers can get you what you want in less than a year.
 
Tony Mont in the knifemaker section makes spectacualar knives to your specs. He hasn't gotten popular enough to be expensive, yet.
I always check to see what Perry Knife Works has in stock from Tony too. I just ordered another one. There is a 10" Bowie in stock right now I think.

OP could also check out MMHW... a few large bowies there... like a large Pig Trail... for me, the 8" blade on a "small" Pig Trail is a huge knife... and what a steal. MMHW is all phenolic / micarta though and the blades are 5160 and all parkerized (which I think is great).
 
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Any one know a good place to get Bowie knives I’ve been looking for a bone or wood handled one for a while but all I really find is the badly made Pakistani or Chinese stuff with fake wood or bone or are complete scams I really need something I can put through hell and back
When I think of nice wood handles I also think of Winkler.


and... maybe Lon Humphrey will come out with a batch of larger knives soon.... exclusively at Knives ship free now I believe. There are Rangers in stock now... 7.3" blades pick your wood... but they are not as cheap as they used to be.
 
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