Greetings All!
Well, I've now had a good couple of weeks to make friends with Ontario's Bill Bagwell Hell's Belle Bowie- thanks to Sing who so generously lent it to me for testing
- and, so, as promised, here are my test results.
First though, let me make it clear right now that I am in no way an authority on bowies nor a world class bowie fighter(but God Willing, as we say in Argentina
). But, I have been training with blades of all types since I was a little boy, and Argentine Facones and Dagas, as well as Filipino Bolos, are in some ways not so very different in feel and performance from the American Bowie- if you ignore the lack of backcutting potential, of course. So, let's just say that I feel sufficiently comfortable with long fighting blades in general, and now with the Classic American Bowie- after training with it- and sparring with trainers- a lot in the last couple of weeks, and after my discussions with Bill Bagwell, JAK, and others- to hope that this review will be of some use to you all.
OK, let's get to it.
The Stats:
Steel- Ontario's proprietary QS13 steel, 5/16" stock, heat treated to an Rc of 53-55.
OAL- 16 5/8".
Blade- 10 7/8" long, flat ground with a 3 3/4" profiled false edge or swag along the spine, the first 3/4" behind the tip sharpened. Round Spanish Notch at the ricasso. Notched rattail tang.
Weight- 15.7 oz.
Balance Point- 1" in front of the guard.
Double Guard- nickel plated brass.
Handle- Laminated birch, octagonal "coffin" shape, with prominent forward and rear pins, and an escutcheon plate on the R side.
First Impressions- Fit and Finish:
The bowie is nicely mirror polished for a production blade- although grinder marks are evident- with a scary sharp primary and secondary edge. The grind lines of the swag do not quite match. Likewise, you can see the overrun of the industrial epoxy that was used to affix the blade and the guard to the handle. None of this affects the knife's functioning- as we will see- and overall the bowie looks nicely finished and authentic. A very nice job for a production knife
.
The Grip:
The Ontario's handle is far different from anything that I've used in a long time, but it does its job extremely well. The octagonal shape, with its flat sides, lets you know exactly where the edges are at all times while moving the bowie at high speed. Similarly, the escutcheon plate on one side of the handle allows you to index, just by feel, which way the primary edge is facing at all times. The forward and rear pins not only help with grip retention, but they also help you index the handle the same way every time. Finally, the bottom edge of the handle curves and swells downward a bit at the rear, which also aids in retention, and facilitates snap cuts. All in all, a very well thought out handle for a bowie
.
The handle feels secure in all maneuvers, including backcut flows, witiks, abanicos, redondos, etc., both when executed in the air, and against hard targets. My hand does move back and forth a little on the handle due to its polished wooden scales, but I never feel insecure and the handle never torques in my hand during any hard target cutting. I experienced no hand fatigue or hotspots after hours of training.
Feel and Maneuverability:
The Ontario Hell's Belle moves very well. It is a little blade heavy, which makes it a little slower(maybe 10-20%) to get started or to quickly change direction than my custom long knives, but once it gets moving it has a lot of momentum and is quite fast and flows very well. And, it is definitely faster and has a better balance and feel than the CS Trailmaster, the Gerber Military Issue(I forget the model #), or even the Randall #12 Confederate Bowie.
Accuracy:
The Ontario Hell's Belle is extremely accurate, both in thrusting and slashing. Moving at speed, I can hit Sharpie dots and lines drawn on a sheet of cardboard at will
.
Impact Resistence:
The Hell's Belle handled itself with aplomb against the Dreaded De Cuerda. I executed full speed, full power slashes, witiks, backcuts, and parries against it- primary and secondary edges, flat, and spine of the blade- with no damage to the blade whatsoever. No rolled edge, no chips, no damage to the sharpened swag, nothing. And no shock or undue vibration up into my knife hand. It didn't cut chunks out of the rattan like the much thinner CPM-3V fighter did, but it did cut into the rattan. Most knives just ding the rattan a little. So an excellent performance
. And the blade/guard/handle assembly continued to feel perfectly tight after this abuse. That industrial epoxy did its job
.
BTW, I found that the double guard does, in fact, catch the blades of the trainers on the ends of my De Cuerda in realtime. I found that you can't go looking for the catches- that just gets you cut. Just let them happen, and when you feel the guard engage during the course of the fight, then disarm.
The bowie handled the training dummy quite well too, except for one thing. During backcut flows, the terminal 1/16" or so of the tip flattened and I had to reprofile and resharpen it. I've discussed this with Bill and he believes that it must have been either 1. a heat treating error where the tip remained too soft; or 2. the tip became overheated during factory sharpening and softened. He states that this problem has not occured with his custom bowies.
Cutting Ability:
Dense Targets- Against the training dummy, the Hell's Belle cut beautifully- especially using backcuts, where it really shined. The primary edge cut into the dummy's arms well, but the backcuts were truly awesome! They cut deeply and cleanly into the dummy at any angle- really ripping it open, both at the head and the belly.
Against the hanging roll of exam room paper, the primary edge cut well, all the way through the paper, but not through the cardboard core or into the rattan rod inside. I think that the flat grind creates a bit more friction in that primary edge than does a hollow ground edge. But, here again, the backcuts were in their glory
. All the way through the roll of paper, through the cardboard tube, and into the rattan core! Just outstanding.
Soft targets-
Against single hanging sheets of paper, the Hell's Belle cut clean and straight with both the primary and secondary edge- absolutely perfect.
I then took a large cardboard packing crate, single-layered cardboard 1/4" thick. I was consistently able to cut slashes with the primary edge a good 8" into the edges of the box. Backcutting horizontally into the corners of the box, I could consistently cut 4" through either side of the corner- so essentially the whole swag. Perfectly clean cuts. That's very impressive.
Finally, this morning I was able to get some more legs of lamb from my trusty butcher for the flesh and bone cutting test
.
The leg of lamb I chose measured 11" long by 7" wide by 4" thick at its widest, tapering down to 4" wide by 3" thick at its lower end.
I hung it and as usual took a #3 angle- horizontal forehand- exploratory slash through the lower end of the shank- neatly transected a 4" by 3" piece of lamb with just the tip of the bone
.
Encouraged, I next took a #1 angle- forehand diagonal- slash through the thickest part of the shank. The Hell's Belle cut through 5" of fascia and muscle and one-third of the way through the 2" dia. bone.
OK, so I tried coming the other way, where the bone was nearer the surface with a #2- backhand diagonal- slash. This time the Belle cut through 2 1/2" of fascia and muscle and 1/2 way through the 2" bone. These results were reproducable all up and down the shank of meat where there was bone.
Just to be sure, I pulled out a second leg of lamb of approximately the same dimensions and cut it- same results.
I think once again that the flat ground massive 5/16" stock creates friction which slows the Belle down as its primary edge cuts through the meat- I can feel the resistence as I'm cutting.
Backcuts, on the other hand, were fascinating. #1, #2, or #3(using JAK's Backcut Video nomenclature) consistently cut 2"- 3" deep triangular wound channels in the meat- massive wounds. One of the backcuts even cracked one side of the bone after cutting in through 2" of fascia and muscle- that's impressive. Backcuts are where this bowie's design really shines.
Finally, I threw several thrusts into the shank. I again experienced a little resistence, but the blade consistently buried itself halfway up its length in the meat. The meat was spinning pretty good, and I accidentally hit the bone with one thrust, which bent the tip of the Belle somewhat. I was able to straighten it easily by placing the edge on my workbench and applying contralateral pressure- its as good as new
.
Overall Impressions:
The Ontario Bagwell Hell's Belle is fine production bowie in the classical tradition. Bill's design- both of the handle, the sharpened swag along the spine of the blade, and the double guard, are fantastic. The Belle does exactly what it was meant to do- backcut- with aplomb. In fact, it backcuts like a demon!
The knife moves better than other production knives of similar length and style that I tried, and the handle indexes the edges beautifully. Personally, I would prefer less slippery scales, but again the handle never felt insecure.
The knife handles impact extremely well, other than its minor tip problem- which may be a factory problem unique to this knife. Bill told me that this bowie is a first generation Ontario Hell's Bell because only the first 3/4" of the swag is sharpened. Later generations correctly have the entire swag sharpened as in Bill's customs.
Its cutting ability with the primary edge, while certainly good, is not extraordinary. I haven't had a chance to discuss this with Bill yet, but I believe that if the Spanish Notch were deleted, allowing the use of thinner 3/16" blade stock, ideally with a reinforced edge hollow grind, or if that is not feasable, with a narrow flat grind, that the Ontario Hell's Belle would cut dramatically better with its primary edge. I do not believe that this would make the knife too light to maintain momentum during backcut flows based on my experience with other lighter, thinner, long blades.
Backcuts are a whole other story- this bowie does some serious damage backcutting.
Bottom line? This is a one hell of a production bowie for the money- the best that I tried. If you can't afford a custom Hell's Belle from Bill- which I understand are faster and cut better than the Ontario- or want a close facsimile to practice with for the year and half while you wait for your custom to be ready, or you simply want a cheaper version of your custom to really bang around in training, then the Ontario Hell's Belle is definitely for you!
Mario
ps.- If any of you out there who own a custom Bagwell Hell's Belle would like to lend me your Belle for just a few days to see how it moves and cuts in comparison to the Ontario, I, for one, would be highly interested to find out. MLD
[This message has been edited by Gaucho (edited 03-08-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Gaucho (edited 03-08-2000).]
Well, I've now had a good couple of weeks to make friends with Ontario's Bill Bagwell Hell's Belle Bowie- thanks to Sing who so generously lent it to me for testing
First though, let me make it clear right now that I am in no way an authority on bowies nor a world class bowie fighter(but God Willing, as we say in Argentina
OK, let's get to it.
The Stats:
Steel- Ontario's proprietary QS13 steel, 5/16" stock, heat treated to an Rc of 53-55.
OAL- 16 5/8".
Blade- 10 7/8" long, flat ground with a 3 3/4" profiled false edge or swag along the spine, the first 3/4" behind the tip sharpened. Round Spanish Notch at the ricasso. Notched rattail tang.
Weight- 15.7 oz.
Balance Point- 1" in front of the guard.
Double Guard- nickel plated brass.
Handle- Laminated birch, octagonal "coffin" shape, with prominent forward and rear pins, and an escutcheon plate on the R side.
First Impressions- Fit and Finish:
The bowie is nicely mirror polished for a production blade- although grinder marks are evident- with a scary sharp primary and secondary edge. The grind lines of the swag do not quite match. Likewise, you can see the overrun of the industrial epoxy that was used to affix the blade and the guard to the handle. None of this affects the knife's functioning- as we will see- and overall the bowie looks nicely finished and authentic. A very nice job for a production knife
The Grip:
The Ontario's handle is far different from anything that I've used in a long time, but it does its job extremely well. The octagonal shape, with its flat sides, lets you know exactly where the edges are at all times while moving the bowie at high speed. Similarly, the escutcheon plate on one side of the handle allows you to index, just by feel, which way the primary edge is facing at all times. The forward and rear pins not only help with grip retention, but they also help you index the handle the same way every time. Finally, the bottom edge of the handle curves and swells downward a bit at the rear, which also aids in retention, and facilitates snap cuts. All in all, a very well thought out handle for a bowie
The handle feels secure in all maneuvers, including backcut flows, witiks, abanicos, redondos, etc., both when executed in the air, and against hard targets. My hand does move back and forth a little on the handle due to its polished wooden scales, but I never feel insecure and the handle never torques in my hand during any hard target cutting. I experienced no hand fatigue or hotspots after hours of training.
Feel and Maneuverability:
The Ontario Hell's Belle moves very well. It is a little blade heavy, which makes it a little slower(maybe 10-20%) to get started or to quickly change direction than my custom long knives, but once it gets moving it has a lot of momentum and is quite fast and flows very well. And, it is definitely faster and has a better balance and feel than the CS Trailmaster, the Gerber Military Issue(I forget the model #), or even the Randall #12 Confederate Bowie.
Accuracy:
The Ontario Hell's Belle is extremely accurate, both in thrusting and slashing. Moving at speed, I can hit Sharpie dots and lines drawn on a sheet of cardboard at will
Impact Resistence:
The Hell's Belle handled itself with aplomb against the Dreaded De Cuerda. I executed full speed, full power slashes, witiks, backcuts, and parries against it- primary and secondary edges, flat, and spine of the blade- with no damage to the blade whatsoever. No rolled edge, no chips, no damage to the sharpened swag, nothing. And no shock or undue vibration up into my knife hand. It didn't cut chunks out of the rattan like the much thinner CPM-3V fighter did, but it did cut into the rattan. Most knives just ding the rattan a little. So an excellent performance
BTW, I found that the double guard does, in fact, catch the blades of the trainers on the ends of my De Cuerda in realtime. I found that you can't go looking for the catches- that just gets you cut. Just let them happen, and when you feel the guard engage during the course of the fight, then disarm.
The bowie handled the training dummy quite well too, except for one thing. During backcut flows, the terminal 1/16" or so of the tip flattened and I had to reprofile and resharpen it. I've discussed this with Bill and he believes that it must have been either 1. a heat treating error where the tip remained too soft; or 2. the tip became overheated during factory sharpening and softened. He states that this problem has not occured with his custom bowies.
Cutting Ability:
Dense Targets- Against the training dummy, the Hell's Belle cut beautifully- especially using backcuts, where it really shined. The primary edge cut into the dummy's arms well, but the backcuts were truly awesome! They cut deeply and cleanly into the dummy at any angle- really ripping it open, both at the head and the belly.
Against the hanging roll of exam room paper, the primary edge cut well, all the way through the paper, but not through the cardboard core or into the rattan rod inside. I think that the flat grind creates a bit more friction in that primary edge than does a hollow ground edge. But, here again, the backcuts were in their glory
Soft targets-
Against single hanging sheets of paper, the Hell's Belle cut clean and straight with both the primary and secondary edge- absolutely perfect.
I then took a large cardboard packing crate, single-layered cardboard 1/4" thick. I was consistently able to cut slashes with the primary edge a good 8" into the edges of the box. Backcutting horizontally into the corners of the box, I could consistently cut 4" through either side of the corner- so essentially the whole swag. Perfectly clean cuts. That's very impressive.
Finally, this morning I was able to get some more legs of lamb from my trusty butcher for the flesh and bone cutting test
The leg of lamb I chose measured 11" long by 7" wide by 4" thick at its widest, tapering down to 4" wide by 3" thick at its lower end.
I hung it and as usual took a #3 angle- horizontal forehand- exploratory slash through the lower end of the shank- neatly transected a 4" by 3" piece of lamb with just the tip of the bone
Encouraged, I next took a #1 angle- forehand diagonal- slash through the thickest part of the shank. The Hell's Belle cut through 5" of fascia and muscle and one-third of the way through the 2" dia. bone.
OK, so I tried coming the other way, where the bone was nearer the surface with a #2- backhand diagonal- slash. This time the Belle cut through 2 1/2" of fascia and muscle and 1/2 way through the 2" bone. These results were reproducable all up and down the shank of meat where there was bone.
Just to be sure, I pulled out a second leg of lamb of approximately the same dimensions and cut it- same results.
I think once again that the flat ground massive 5/16" stock creates friction which slows the Belle down as its primary edge cuts through the meat- I can feel the resistence as I'm cutting.
Backcuts, on the other hand, were fascinating. #1, #2, or #3(using JAK's Backcut Video nomenclature) consistently cut 2"- 3" deep triangular wound channels in the meat- massive wounds. One of the backcuts even cracked one side of the bone after cutting in through 2" of fascia and muscle- that's impressive. Backcuts are where this bowie's design really shines.
Finally, I threw several thrusts into the shank. I again experienced a little resistence, but the blade consistently buried itself halfway up its length in the meat. The meat was spinning pretty good, and I accidentally hit the bone with one thrust, which bent the tip of the Belle somewhat. I was able to straighten it easily by placing the edge on my workbench and applying contralateral pressure- its as good as new
Overall Impressions:
The Ontario Bagwell Hell's Belle is fine production bowie in the classical tradition. Bill's design- both of the handle, the sharpened swag along the spine of the blade, and the double guard, are fantastic. The Belle does exactly what it was meant to do- backcut- with aplomb. In fact, it backcuts like a demon!
The knife moves better than other production knives of similar length and style that I tried, and the handle indexes the edges beautifully. Personally, I would prefer less slippery scales, but again the handle never felt insecure.
The knife handles impact extremely well, other than its minor tip problem- which may be a factory problem unique to this knife. Bill told me that this bowie is a first generation Ontario Hell's Bell because only the first 3/4" of the swag is sharpened. Later generations correctly have the entire swag sharpened as in Bill's customs.
Its cutting ability with the primary edge, while certainly good, is not extraordinary. I haven't had a chance to discuss this with Bill yet, but I believe that if the Spanish Notch were deleted, allowing the use of thinner 3/16" blade stock, ideally with a reinforced edge hollow grind, or if that is not feasable, with a narrow flat grind, that the Ontario Hell's Belle would cut dramatically better with its primary edge. I do not believe that this would make the knife too light to maintain momentum during backcut flows based on my experience with other lighter, thinner, long blades.
Backcuts are a whole other story- this bowie does some serious damage backcutting.
Bottom line? This is a one hell of a production bowie for the money- the best that I tried. If you can't afford a custom Hell's Belle from Bill- which I understand are faster and cut better than the Ontario- or want a close facsimile to practice with for the year and half while you wait for your custom to be ready, or you simply want a cheaper version of your custom to really bang around in training, then the Ontario Hell's Belle is definitely for you!
Mario
ps.- If any of you out there who own a custom Bagwell Hell's Belle would like to lend me your Belle for just a few days to see how it moves and cuts in comparison to the Ontario, I, for one, would be highly interested to find out. MLD
[This message has been edited by Gaucho (edited 03-08-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Gaucho (edited 03-08-2000).]
