John Johnson
Gold Member
- Joined
- Feb 12, 1999
- Messages
- 1,055
Well, finally, the review is done. Although this isn't the newest version, I think this will be quite telling in how it performs. BTW, big knife, big review!
After living with the first variant of the AK Bowie, and eagerly anticipating the final version of it, all I have to say is that we have a winner, regardless of which version it is! This is a monster of a blade, no matter which way you look at it, whether it is total weight, blade thickness, or just the sheer size of it, which at first is deceiving. The knife appears much smaller then it is, until the scale is brought out to get exact dimensions. Blade length on this one was 9.5 inches, total overall length is fifteen inches. Blade width runs 2.5 inches at the widest point of the recurve. Stock thickness measures out to 9/16, and the handle stock tapers to 1/4 at the butt of the knife. Checking the edge hardness, it felt to be pretty even, with the file barely biting the edge, but getting softer around the cho area.
Initial Impressions:
BIG! Upon receiving it and taking it out of the box, the blade screamed to chop something. This one had a small crack in the edge of it, and part of what I wanted to do was to see how this very small (about a quarter of an inch, running perpendicular to the edge, about a half inch from the tip) crack would affect the overall durability. More on that later. Although its blade heavy (the blade balances at a point two inches in front of the handle), it doesnt feel dead in your hand. Make no mistake, when you initialize a swing, there is no changing the direction of where the blade will land. I like the length of the handle, as it allows several grip variations to be achieved with the length of it. The handle felt squarish with the shoulders of the horn needing to be rounded off some more. This was taken care of in very short order on a belt grinder, resulting in a much more comfortable as well as stable grip to be achieved. Finish was excellent on this one, with the blade grinds being dead on. The tapering of the tang was done very well, and evenly. The shape of the front of the handle allows choking up on the blade, allowing more control of the tip, although I dont think I would use it for brain surgery
. The sheath was very well made, with the stitching on the back being even, and no gaps between them. Initial draw out of the sheath was very tight, however now, it has stabilized to what I consider to be the optimum tightness. With no drop to the blade like a khukuri, I feel a tighter sheath fit is definitely called for, with tension taking the place of curved blade to maintain the knife in its position of the sheath. The frog, however, was disappointing. One rivet popped loose the first time I wore it. With Uncle Bill getting the sarkis to improve dramatically on the frogs, it will be a very welcome change, IMHO. I assembled a new frog from some latigo leather that I had, and the sheath is back to completely functional, and sturdier then ever. Drawing the knife definitely feels different then a khukuri. Its more of a straight pull to extricate the blade, and may be a tad faster in the presentation of the blade. Karda and chakmas were well formed with a total length of 4.5 inches. I actually like the idea of the small kardas with this blade. Since its obvious that the blade lacks in doing fine work, a smaller karda will take care of the finest work that could be done with the set.
Using it:
Initially, I began chopping yellow pine and fir two by fours, since the material was at hand, and is a reasonable benchmark to determine chopping ability. I went easy at first, until I got a good feeling for the blade. I then went to a walnut stump, and flailed unmercifully on it, to see how bad vibration would be on the full tang, which there was none. I decided to re profile the handle corners, as they were forming sore areas on my chopping hand. After rounding the corners to my satisfaction, I was rubbing some mineral oil on the handle as a final finish, when I got carried away, and the blade slipped out of my oily hands, resulting in the knife dropping point first from a height of about three feet, point first. The knife then bounced a couple of feet up again, and fell to the floor. When I picked it up, about a quarter of an inch of the point was laying on the ground, neatly broken from where the crack had been on the edge. The point is in transit to Uncle Bill to give some feedback as to how the malfunction occurred. The odd thing was, there was NO damage to the physical point itself, and I feel the impact translated its energy to where the imperfection was in the blade. After spending a couple of hours very carefully regrinding a new point on, it was as good as new. It was NO small task doing it however, even with a belt grinder! Over half an inch of steel is a lot of material to move or remove, even with modern equipment. After getting a new point on and getting the profile of the edge grind back in shape, I decided to do a little experiment. Since I had already broke the point once, I decided to try dropping it from the height that it had originally been fumbled. The knife bounced again, landed, with absolutely no damage to the knife. My floor however, has a couple of gouge marks in the concrete where massive pointy metal contacted it. Satisfied with the results, I refinished the blade, giving it a nice hand rubbed finish. Needless to say, if the imperfection wasnt there in the first place, I dont think the point would have suffered any, no matter what height the blade was dropped, within reason. I also feel that in the normal course of chopping, the point flaw would have made itself unknown. A mass of steel that heavy, impacting concrete, would *probably* result in some type of damage, whether point or edge wise, and depending on the thickness of the stock material at the point it impacts. Moving on from this point, I set about doing what the blade likes best: Chopping! After refinishing the blade (to blend in the repair) and giving it a good edge back, I was able to almost completely sever a yellow pine two by four, giving a swing from each side while the board was anchored into a makeshift jig in a mounted vice. About 3/8 of wood was all remaining holding the board together. The edge itself did most of the cutting of the wood fiber, with the shoulders of the edge grind allowing itself to spread the cut deep enough to allow the edge to contact new fibers. On smaller two by twos, I was able to cut/break the wood in one swing. The fibers of the wood basically gave up and just broke from the momentum when the edge started reaching the opposite side of the wood, and this was done while holding the two by two freehand, with the wood resting on the ground. Moving on to unprocessed wood, I found it to work very well on hard woods, perhaps even better then on soft woods. Cutting oak branches that were about three inches in diameter, I was able to part them with a minimum of swings while using the walnut stump as my base to chop on. I feel the weight of the knife contributes to the chopping ability on hard woods. In my findings, a light knife doesnt penetrate hardwoods with much efficiency, but does better on softwoods. Perhaps this could be due to edge geometry, as well. Moving on to rope, it was no contest. The thickest line that was cut was inch nylon rope, which parted with one swing. Again, I think mass was the critical factor here. During testing, there was no edge chipping, and only minor rolling of the edge when going through a birch knot, which seemed to be composed more of steel then wood.Ranking the Bowie against a fifteen inch Ang Khola and a fifteen inch BAS, the Bowie comes out on top, by a narrow margin. With the drop of the khukuri blades, your going to have enhanced chopping effect due to the ergonomics, although that drop will affect utility usage, until you become familiar with them. With the Bowie, its a familiar shape, and your hand perceives it more as a normal (big) knife. I want to do some further usage tests on it, more directly comparing it to same length khukuris. I think where the khukuris chop efficiently is due to blade shape, whereas the Bowie does it by mass (as well as an efficient shaped blade profile). There is a very big perceptual difference between handling the Bowie and the Ang Khola, for instance, even though length wise, theyre in the same class. The AK felt like a feather after using the Bowie for any length of time! Using it in the kitchen, it chopped various chickens with reckless glee. While you could use it to cut vegetables, I feel your arm would be almost useless by the point you had everything chopped. This aint no apple peeler or slicer! It sliced large squash with no problems, again with the edge bevel providing a good angle for the edge to work efficiently, and I would dearly love to have a watermelon to cleave!
While it could be used for kitchen use, its just not its strong point. Kind of like using an Abrams tank for squirrel hunting.
Itll get the job done, but its just overkill on all fronts. Just for kicks and giggles, I tried chopping through a soup can, full. No contest again to the can, with no perceptible dulling to the blade where it impacted. It was a needless test, but sometimes ya hafta amuse yourself.
So where does the AK Bowie fit in?
Good question! I think this knife will entice people who like the durability and functioning of a khukuri, yet are put off by the general shape or appearance of one. Function wise, I feel it to be no different then a khukuri, yet the Bowie approaches it from a different angle. Where the khukuri relies on blade shape for its efficiency in chopping, the Bowie does it by brute strength. With the recurve of the Bowie, I feel it to be the superior slicer, although personal bias may be playing into this. I want to further explore the limits of this knife. This blade blurs the line between "knife", and "tool". In defining the knife, its definitely more then heavy duty. It really melds the best of the khukuri, with a western design flair. While it wont produce wafer thin rotten tomato slices, it would handle say extrication of a car crash victim if the proper tools werent available. On large game, it would disjoint a carcass within a short amount of time, although it wouldnt be first choice for skinning, due to weight alone. As a fighter, a khukuri would be a better choice, although the earlier reference to disjointing a carcass would probably hold true for whoever is on the receiving end. There is no changing the swing direction on this, as the blade will go at whatever angle initial movement began on. This is one knife that I think should remain in the HI lineup, perhaps separate from the current version of the AK Bowie. Visually, the two are different in design, and until I get one in my hands, I cant comment on the performance differences. My only criticisms would be the handle design. The exposed tang on the butt of it would be a plus, and a lanyard is almost mandatory on this knife. More pommel flair would also be needed. Having the knife slip out of my hands, the correct pommel shape would have maybe prevented this, as when I felt it slipping, I tightened my grip, yet the handle slid through. More pommel flair would also translate to a more secure grip for choking back on the long handle, but as it stands now in the design of it, gripping the handle that far back wouldnt be recommended. I just dont feel that its secure enough in its grip in that area with the weight of it. As a first generation, its still awesome. I feel the new version is different from this one. Dont get me wrong, I REALLY like Yvsas version, but design wise, I think theyre two different beasts. This one more of a drop point, and Yvsas more of a clip point. Handle wise, I definitely like the looks of Yvsas more, although perhaps increasing the pommel swell on it would be in order as well. We have to remember, that with a khukuris handle shape, its a very secure grip, due to the flair at the butt. With the weight of the blade, we have to maintain that same level of grip security, just for safetys sake of people standing around. Bottom line, the khukuri handle is MUCH more secure, and its not until we start swinging a khukuri weighted blade that we appreciate the security the handle design provides. I found at first that my hand was tiring, partially due to just a very tight grasp, since it seemed the knife wanted to continue its forward momentum while swinging it. This is one knife that I WOULD NOT want to get away from me, since dropping it on yourself would be a parting experience with body parts that it came in contact with!
Overall, I would rate this a new breed of knife, and thanks to the minds of the Forumites here, and Uncle Bills means of production, the idea came to fruition. Somehow, I think if I were to approach most custom makers and tell them the dimensions of a knife like this to be made, there would be some raised eyebrows for sure! All in all, its been a pleasure working with this knife. After getting adjusted to the heft of it, its become my chopper of choice. Cobalt deserves a cold one and a hand shake for this. It is the knife to end all pissing contests when it comes to the whose the strongest knife on the block competitions. I would like to see one of these put in a vise and taken to the failing point. It would be interesting to see how long the cheater bar would be to make this one bend!
Take care, and with a more developed right arm,
John Johnson
It takes a village to raise an idiot.
[This message has been edited by John Johnson (edited 13 December 1999).]
After living with the first variant of the AK Bowie, and eagerly anticipating the final version of it, all I have to say is that we have a winner, regardless of which version it is! This is a monster of a blade, no matter which way you look at it, whether it is total weight, blade thickness, or just the sheer size of it, which at first is deceiving. The knife appears much smaller then it is, until the scale is brought out to get exact dimensions. Blade length on this one was 9.5 inches, total overall length is fifteen inches. Blade width runs 2.5 inches at the widest point of the recurve. Stock thickness measures out to 9/16, and the handle stock tapers to 1/4 at the butt of the knife. Checking the edge hardness, it felt to be pretty even, with the file barely biting the edge, but getting softer around the cho area.
Initial Impressions:
BIG! Upon receiving it and taking it out of the box, the blade screamed to chop something. This one had a small crack in the edge of it, and part of what I wanted to do was to see how this very small (about a quarter of an inch, running perpendicular to the edge, about a half inch from the tip) crack would affect the overall durability. More on that later. Although its blade heavy (the blade balances at a point two inches in front of the handle), it doesnt feel dead in your hand. Make no mistake, when you initialize a swing, there is no changing the direction of where the blade will land. I like the length of the handle, as it allows several grip variations to be achieved with the length of it. The handle felt squarish with the shoulders of the horn needing to be rounded off some more. This was taken care of in very short order on a belt grinder, resulting in a much more comfortable as well as stable grip to be achieved. Finish was excellent on this one, with the blade grinds being dead on. The tapering of the tang was done very well, and evenly. The shape of the front of the handle allows choking up on the blade, allowing more control of the tip, although I dont think I would use it for brain surgery
Using it:
Initially, I began chopping yellow pine and fir two by fours, since the material was at hand, and is a reasonable benchmark to determine chopping ability. I went easy at first, until I got a good feeling for the blade. I then went to a walnut stump, and flailed unmercifully on it, to see how bad vibration would be on the full tang, which there was none. I decided to re profile the handle corners, as they were forming sore areas on my chopping hand. After rounding the corners to my satisfaction, I was rubbing some mineral oil on the handle as a final finish, when I got carried away, and the blade slipped out of my oily hands, resulting in the knife dropping point first from a height of about three feet, point first. The knife then bounced a couple of feet up again, and fell to the floor. When I picked it up, about a quarter of an inch of the point was laying on the ground, neatly broken from where the crack had been on the edge. The point is in transit to Uncle Bill to give some feedback as to how the malfunction occurred. The odd thing was, there was NO damage to the physical point itself, and I feel the impact translated its energy to where the imperfection was in the blade. After spending a couple of hours very carefully regrinding a new point on, it was as good as new. It was NO small task doing it however, even with a belt grinder! Over half an inch of steel is a lot of material to move or remove, even with modern equipment. After getting a new point on and getting the profile of the edge grind back in shape, I decided to do a little experiment. Since I had already broke the point once, I decided to try dropping it from the height that it had originally been fumbled. The knife bounced again, landed, with absolutely no damage to the knife. My floor however, has a couple of gouge marks in the concrete where massive pointy metal contacted it. Satisfied with the results, I refinished the blade, giving it a nice hand rubbed finish. Needless to say, if the imperfection wasnt there in the first place, I dont think the point would have suffered any, no matter what height the blade was dropped, within reason. I also feel that in the normal course of chopping, the point flaw would have made itself unknown. A mass of steel that heavy, impacting concrete, would *probably* result in some type of damage, whether point or edge wise, and depending on the thickness of the stock material at the point it impacts. Moving on from this point, I set about doing what the blade likes best: Chopping! After refinishing the blade (to blend in the repair) and giving it a good edge back, I was able to almost completely sever a yellow pine two by four, giving a swing from each side while the board was anchored into a makeshift jig in a mounted vice. About 3/8 of wood was all remaining holding the board together. The edge itself did most of the cutting of the wood fiber, with the shoulders of the edge grind allowing itself to spread the cut deep enough to allow the edge to contact new fibers. On smaller two by twos, I was able to cut/break the wood in one swing. The fibers of the wood basically gave up and just broke from the momentum when the edge started reaching the opposite side of the wood, and this was done while holding the two by two freehand, with the wood resting on the ground. Moving on to unprocessed wood, I found it to work very well on hard woods, perhaps even better then on soft woods. Cutting oak branches that were about three inches in diameter, I was able to part them with a minimum of swings while using the walnut stump as my base to chop on. I feel the weight of the knife contributes to the chopping ability on hard woods. In my findings, a light knife doesnt penetrate hardwoods with much efficiency, but does better on softwoods. Perhaps this could be due to edge geometry, as well. Moving on to rope, it was no contest. The thickest line that was cut was inch nylon rope, which parted with one swing. Again, I think mass was the critical factor here. During testing, there was no edge chipping, and only minor rolling of the edge when going through a birch knot, which seemed to be composed more of steel then wood.Ranking the Bowie against a fifteen inch Ang Khola and a fifteen inch BAS, the Bowie comes out on top, by a narrow margin. With the drop of the khukuri blades, your going to have enhanced chopping effect due to the ergonomics, although that drop will affect utility usage, until you become familiar with them. With the Bowie, its a familiar shape, and your hand perceives it more as a normal (big) knife. I want to do some further usage tests on it, more directly comparing it to same length khukuris. I think where the khukuris chop efficiently is due to blade shape, whereas the Bowie does it by mass (as well as an efficient shaped blade profile). There is a very big perceptual difference between handling the Bowie and the Ang Khola, for instance, even though length wise, theyre in the same class. The AK felt like a feather after using the Bowie for any length of time! Using it in the kitchen, it chopped various chickens with reckless glee. While you could use it to cut vegetables, I feel your arm would be almost useless by the point you had everything chopped. This aint no apple peeler or slicer! It sliced large squash with no problems, again with the edge bevel providing a good angle for the edge to work efficiently, and I would dearly love to have a watermelon to cleave!
So where does the AK Bowie fit in?
Good question! I think this knife will entice people who like the durability and functioning of a khukuri, yet are put off by the general shape or appearance of one. Function wise, I feel it to be no different then a khukuri, yet the Bowie approaches it from a different angle. Where the khukuri relies on blade shape for its efficiency in chopping, the Bowie does it by brute strength. With the recurve of the Bowie, I feel it to be the superior slicer, although personal bias may be playing into this. I want to further explore the limits of this knife. This blade blurs the line between "knife", and "tool". In defining the knife, its definitely more then heavy duty. It really melds the best of the khukuri, with a western design flair. While it wont produce wafer thin rotten tomato slices, it would handle say extrication of a car crash victim if the proper tools werent available. On large game, it would disjoint a carcass within a short amount of time, although it wouldnt be first choice for skinning, due to weight alone. As a fighter, a khukuri would be a better choice, although the earlier reference to disjointing a carcass would probably hold true for whoever is on the receiving end. There is no changing the swing direction on this, as the blade will go at whatever angle initial movement began on. This is one knife that I think should remain in the HI lineup, perhaps separate from the current version of the AK Bowie. Visually, the two are different in design, and until I get one in my hands, I cant comment on the performance differences. My only criticisms would be the handle design. The exposed tang on the butt of it would be a plus, and a lanyard is almost mandatory on this knife. More pommel flair would also be needed. Having the knife slip out of my hands, the correct pommel shape would have maybe prevented this, as when I felt it slipping, I tightened my grip, yet the handle slid through. More pommel flair would also translate to a more secure grip for choking back on the long handle, but as it stands now in the design of it, gripping the handle that far back wouldnt be recommended. I just dont feel that its secure enough in its grip in that area with the weight of it. As a first generation, its still awesome. I feel the new version is different from this one. Dont get me wrong, I REALLY like Yvsas version, but design wise, I think theyre two different beasts. This one more of a drop point, and Yvsas more of a clip point. Handle wise, I definitely like the looks of Yvsas more, although perhaps increasing the pommel swell on it would be in order as well. We have to remember, that with a khukuris handle shape, its a very secure grip, due to the flair at the butt. With the weight of the blade, we have to maintain that same level of grip security, just for safetys sake of people standing around. Bottom line, the khukuri handle is MUCH more secure, and its not until we start swinging a khukuri weighted blade that we appreciate the security the handle design provides. I found at first that my hand was tiring, partially due to just a very tight grasp, since it seemed the knife wanted to continue its forward momentum while swinging it. This is one knife that I WOULD NOT want to get away from me, since dropping it on yourself would be a parting experience with body parts that it came in contact with!
Take care, and with a more developed right arm,
John Johnson
It takes a village to raise an idiot.
[This message has been edited by John Johnson (edited 13 December 1999).]
