As made by most modern makers, especially by many smiths, the bowie
IS a superb cutter/slicer. This is achieved by full hight flat or convex grind,
typically accompanied by distal taper. While modern makers do use 3/16"
stock in some bowies most are 1/4" stock. A properly made bowie with a 10"
blade a 1/4" thick, and 1 1/2" wide, full flat or convex grind, distal taper to
about a 1/8" near the tip, usually only weighs between 13 and 16 ozs,
depending on the desired balance. They are superior cutter/slicers that retain
great chopping ability for their size and weight.
It is a mistake to translate this into thinking that original bowies were
made or balanced this way. Some of them were. This is particularly true
of the American made bowies, although some of the Sheffield made were
also similar to the modern smiths bowie. A very large number of the original
were not like this at all. Many of them use a partial saber ground, rather
than a full hight, often on very thick stock. They are heavy, and not
particularly well balanced by our smith standards. They are very blade
heavy, and often have handles much smaller than modern knives.
The Bowie Knife Book and a number of others quote original accounts
from British "tourists" of the 1830's and 1840's that comment repeatedly
on how long and heavy bowie knives were. There was no real standard.
The British Sheffield makers that actually made most of the originals would
make them in lots of as small as a couple of dozen, to anyone who would
pay, to any design desired, since Sheffield knives were essentially hand
made. The American knives that were often made by surgical instrument
makers were almost all one off customs made for a particular customer. The
same is true of the frontier forged bowies, and many of them are quite
thick and blade heavy.
The modern smiths have copied and developed the very best of the
originals, and we tend to define best as fast, light, and strong for the
weight. In my opinion the modern knives, whether forged or ground, are
superior in feel, fit, finish and performance to all but a very small proportion
of the originals. Nevertheless, I am judging by our standards. The original
users often had their own preferences, which were not the same as ours.