Bowie Knife Designs

Some knives are legendary

Some knives are legendary. The daggers of Europe, the flint knives carried by Apache warriors and the knives carried into the battles of World War 2 all carry with them fearsome reputations, and justly so. Bowie knives are among those blades which have become the stuff of legend. Like a samurai's sword or a Spartan's spear tip, these Bowies have characteristics that make them easily identifiable and unfailingly deadly.

A Bowie knife is probably most defined by its blade shape. In fact, some knives sold as Bowies have nothing about them that qualifies them as Bowie knives other than a slightly clipped blade. In common parlance, a Bowie is any long-bladed, non-folding knife that has a clipped blade. Properly, however, there is more to it than that; much more, in fact.

Like any sensible fighter, those who relied on Bowie knives needed to protect their bodies. The hand guard on a Bowie features a forward pointing design on the top of the handle. This was intended to protect the user against both other blades and against having their hand slide up their own blade when making a thrust. Without this hand guard, a knife is not a Bowie at all.

Daggers tend to be double-bladed weapons, as do many other fighting knives. Bowie knives have a single edge. This sets them apart in many ways. One might think that this amounts to having half a weapon versus a double-edged knife, but this is not at all the case. There is another characteristic of Bowies that more than makes up for the lack of two edges. The single edge actually makes practical work with the knife much easier. These knives were designed to be tools as well as weapons, after all.

A Bowie knife has only one edge. Some knives are sharpened along the false edge created by the clip, but this is a user modification and more characteristic of sabers than of knives. The single edge on a Bowie has enough mass behind it that it can function almost like a machete or a hatchet when needed, making them very versatile knives. The agile end of the blade meant that one didn't need to carry separate knives for rough and precise work. These knives have their origins on the American Frontier. In that era, a knife was as likely to be used to prepare food as it was to defend oneself, and this unpredictability made the Bowie a very useful tool to have on-hand. These knives were first make by Jim Black at the request of their namesake owner, who designed the blade.

by: Dave Sabot

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