Rough Rider Bowie history

Joined
Feb 24, 2022
Messages
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I am looking into making some reproductions of historical knives. Bowies of course have a lot of history. There are many different Bowie designs, but I did like what I saw on Forged in Fire when they recreated the Rough Rider bowie. According to the show, each Rider was issued a bowie knife that had:

  • 9 to 9.5 blade length
  • 2 inch width at base
  • Clip point 3 to 3.5 inch
  • W1 steel
  • Full tang
  • Brass guard with lobes
  • Brass liners with decorative filing
  • Buffalo horn handle, coffin shape, 4 brass pins

Water hardening steel was invented in 1868 so they might have used W1 . Beyond that, though, does anyone know if this is at all historically accurate? I've been looking around but so far have not found where FiF got the specs. I do see articles saying that the Riders did indeed carry bowies but not much beyond that. And of course Roosevelt famously carried one made by Tiffany.

I may be on a wild goose chase here!
 
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