A lot of the Production Bowies are big, thick, and heavy... SOG stuff, Cold Steel Trailmaster, Gerber Bowies, etc.
Grab a distally tapered forged Bowie by somebody like Jerry Fisk, Joe Flournoy, Harvey Dean ... these are a WHOLE different ballgame and will very much surprise you as to weight and balance compared with big flabby production stuff by SOG or Cold Steel.
A lightweight sleeper: Bob Dozier does his "Ranger" tactical with a stick tang inside of Micarta in D2. Great heavy duty utility belt knife besides being tactical and double guarded like a fighter. Balance is just a bit blade heavy but it's so much lighter than the full tang knife I was surprised.
Also, got a chance to handle Darrel Ralph's fighter at Guild Show also. Very nice. I will put my money where my mouth is this year on this knife. Darrel says he'll do it in 3V, 420V, or 52100 forged for an extra $100. Darrel finetuned the design a bit since the pics were posted somewhere on-line a few months ago. Maybe he'll read this and post a new pic. This is another fighter that actually works as a great utility belt knife (unlike that UUK thing...whew).
Call me a goof, but I'm a WHOLE lot more likely to be surprised by a wild boar and need to "fight" it with a knife than I am likely to have a 6"-9" fighter on my belt when I need to "fight" a person. Either way I'm more likely to have a pistol anyway. I won't have anything like the UUK on my belt while hunting, that's for sure. So I have this bizzare preference for a useful outdoors knife that, oh, can serve as a fighter if need be. I'm also a terrible smart a$s and pretty sarcastic sumbitch, so don't anyone get bent too far outta shape too much by my UUK comments. ;-)
Also handled RJ Martin's new Odyssey at Guild. Les Robertson will eventually post the pic on his page, but it's not up yet. However, it is basically the same overall design as the "Quest" but upsized and made with a larger top side guard, with about 6-1/2" blade out of 1/4" CPM3V stock. I saw the 1/4" stock and interesting design, grabbed the knife and was immediately impressed at the perception of light weight brought about by the great balance. He skeletonized the full tang a bit to balance it, really slick and quick for being made of such thick, stout stock. Another one I'll put my money on later this year.
Smaller "sorta-fighters" that can again serve utilitarian tasks: RJ's Quest (5") and Trek (4") are gems.... Les Robertson's verbage about the handle comfort is no sales BS, these are really great knife designs to my eye and hand. I sprung for the Trek. Will grab the Quest when it's out in 420V.
Jerry Hossum's knives are very nice as well... he had all sizes on his table, including that big wicked two-handed-grip sword he does ... Millenium something-or-other. Pretty neat piece. Would be fun to own one of these.
Somebody mentioned Schuyler Lovestrand. He does some beautiful work in the Siska/Broadwell/Casteel vein, usually high end stuff. Great recurved, hollow ground fighters.
I broke down and bought the Broadwell MLR subhilt in 7" of recurved, double hollowground beauty. Kind of like a lightweight Brend Model 2 subhilt, light enough to be a true fighter while Brend's stuff is pretty heavy, but also tremendous.
Dave Broadwell is one of the most versatile and talented knife makers in the world today. He's a phenom. From tactical folders and fighters, to hunting knives, to full blown sculpted art folders and fighters, to these just tremendous art swords, and back down to sculpted letter openers out of Smolen damascus. The guy is a just tremendously talented. Again, Les Robertson turned me onto Dave a few years ago and I now own 9 of his pieces. Gems, all.
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rdangerer@home.com
[This message has been edited by rdangerer (edited 07-28-2000).]
