Bowie knife help!

With that budget you could have Sam Cade make you one. His use of simple carbon steel heat treated by heating in the forge and quenching in oil is about as historically accurate as you're going to get on the method of manufacture. Having an individual craftsman like Sam make you a knife is also following in the historical aspect of having the knife made by the local blacksmith. Sam's well versed on the history of large fixed blade knives too, so I'm sure he could make a proper Bowie to your liking.

yes that !

Cooldill said:

I'm looking for a historical style Bowie, something along the lines that Davy Crocket would carry or something carried by a bushwacker in the Civil War or something.
*snip*

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Nine times out of ten something similar to a boning or butcher knife would be in their belts.

Cooldill said:

So, what do you all recommend for a historically accurate Bowie knife that is capable of the mentioned tasks and is not much over $250 in price?

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Well..."historically accurate" and "bowie knife" aren't phrases that get along very well since knife folk have been arguing for nearly a century about what constitutes a "bowie" knife.

Rezin "Don't make me call my little brother" Bowie said:

The first Bowie knife was made by myself in the parish of Avoyelles, in this state (Louisiana), as a hunting knife, for which purpose, exclusively, it was used for many years.

Rezin P. Bowie, Planters Advocate: August 24, 1838.

"The length of the blade was nine and one-quarters inches, its width one and one-half inches, single edged and not curved"

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That said:

The Svord Von Tempsky Bowie fits the ideal that most folks have of what a bowie knife should be, has a historical precedent and is under $200 with a good sheath. The ergonomics are non-existant. Grip retention is very low and the monster guard is constantly in the way.

http://www.svord.com/SvordMainFrameset.htm


The real question is this "What does Cooldill think a Bowie Knife is?"

http://www.coldsteel.com/Product/39L16CT/TRAIL_MASTER_O-1_High_Carbon.aspx

here's what i bought

Gary Wheeler in Clarksville, TN

He makes excellent knives both period and modern. Good man and great value. He and Kim Breed work together.

Cheers,

ts

I think Mr.Wheeler's big knives might be outside of the OPs price range now.

Now that I think about it, other than the (easily removed) plastic scales, a BK9 wouldn't look a bit out of place tucked into the sash of a 19th century American man of action.



Pictured with a Greco bowie and a MONSTER Crow Bowie from HI that blurs the line between knife and sword.

So, dig this:



So...Bowie typology is a very nebulous thing.

Will this be a bowie after I clip the point? I honestly don't know.

That is pretty close to what a lot of the "trade" knives were.

Lifted directly from Carl P. Russell's "Firearms, Traps and Tools of the Mountain Men," a comment of two of my own added because I just couldn't help myself, and with full credit given to the author:

"In the autumn of 1836, after the fall of the Alamo and and after the early orders for bowie knives had reached England, Hiram Cutler [great name for a knifemaker, huh?] of Sheffield sent to Ramsay Crooks of the American Fur Company a sketch of a "Texian knife tha would probably suit Indians." Crooks replied: "We have the drawing of the Texian Knife for which we thank you. The article is not wanted yet in our region." [Green river skinners and butcher knives, however, were in great demand, and I've seen the term "butcher knife" used over and over in Fur Trade-era writings.] There is small evidence that the true bowie knife ever found favor in the northern Plains and the Rockies until after the day of the mountain man; it did come into limited use among trappers and traders in the Southwest and among emigrants in the North before the close of the 1840's."

I love the look of that Svord bowie, but can see where it would be awful to actually use; additionally, it really doesn't resemble many of the examples from Russell's book. I built a pair of bowies from German-made "Natchez" blades bought from Dixie Gun Works, and won one of them back in a shotgun competition. They have full-tang "coffin" handles, and I put some thought into shaping the scales to make them as usable as I could, but...... well, I've never found anything I could do with that bowie that I couldn't do with my Green River knives. People just love the look and the romance of a bowie, and don't think about having to lug that half-pound of steel around all day.

Granted, no single source should be considered the last word on anything, but in the context of the Fur Trade era, Russell's work has held up admirably since its publication in 1967.He also reports that demand for bowies surged again during the War Between the States, then fell off again. Maybe the thought of carrying a huge, heavy, dedicated fighting knife paled once it became unnecessary.....

At Sam......... both the Caiphas Ham bowie and the unfinished blade in your hand strongly resemble a knife reportedly made and carried by mountain man Jim Baker, per Russell.

Hso- if one were to make it more of a spear point, it would bear more than a passing resemblance to the Rio Grande Camp Knife, reportedly the arm used by John Wilkes Booth to stab Lincoln's bodyguard, and wielded by him when he took that ill-advised "stage dive."

The second knife down here is my Natchez bowie, 12" overall with a 7" blade. Probably more functional than a lot of bowies, but I've never used it. The next three blades are Green River blades that have been on a lot of camping trips and hunts. The skinner with the antler handle has unzipped three elk in one day before it needed the edge touched up. The little feller at top is another German kit knife that has nothing to do with this thread. I apologize for the cruddy cellphone pics.

Great thread, very interesting stuff

JShirley said:

A butcher knife with a bit of a guard would be my ideal of a "bowie".

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Like the Hyde Tools 14" butcher knife, John?

AJumbo said:

I love the look of that Svord bowie, but can see where it would be awful to actually use; additionally, it really doesn't resemble many of the examples from Russell's book.

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It is supposedly based on a historical pattern ca. 1863, though from the other side of the planet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavus_von_Tempsky

Piraticalbob said:

Like the Hyde Tools 14" butcher knife, John?

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He has one of those.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=720692&highlight=hyde

1. Why would you want a Bowie knife like, say, Davy Crockett carried? Davy Crockett AND Jim Bowie died together at the Alamo! So, how about a knife like, say, Jim Bowie, himself, carried. (Crockett was NOT known to be a, ‘good man’ with a knife.)

2. Nobody knows what kind of knife Jim Bowie carried. The only thing that's authentically known about Bowie’s knife is that it had a large blade. Many large early American knives have far from flawless designs. For instance smooth handled and, ‘coffin-handled’ large knives are difficult to hang onto’ and a large knife with a substantial crossguard isn’t well suited for use as a utility knife.

3. So, where’s this leave you? Most of the really good, well-designed, and well-made large knives that I know of are going to cost you a heck of a lot more than $250.00 dollars. (Like, at least, double that amount!)

4. One of the finest large knives in America, today, is a modern, ‘Bowie’ design manufactured by Randall Made Knives in Orlando, Florida. I don’t know if you’d consider it, ‘tactical’ or not; but I’ve owned mine for almost 40 years; and it’s one helluva big knife - Better in my opinion than anything Jim Bowie might ever have carried.

5. The other name for Randall’s Model #14 is, ‘The Vietnam Jungle Knife’. Many of the Army Officers who served there carried one of these knives. Lt. Colonel Anthony Herbert even mentions using his Model #14 in his well regarded book, ‘Soldier’. Here’s mine:

Glock Doctor said:

One of the finest large knives in America, today, is a modern, ‘Bowie’ design manufactured by Randall Made Knives in Orlando, Florida.

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How do you define "fine"?

While they have very nice fit and finish, there isn't anything special about a Randall performance wise. It is just a simple stick tanged knife in a common steel.


If we ignore the mystique, based on materials and finish, a Randall is worth a couple hundred bucks bare of sheath.

Sam, your picture shows the construction details of a Randall-Made Model #1. The construction of a Model #14 is appreciably more substantial. Which takes nothing away from the Model #1's design. It's a solid knife design! I've owned and used three of them for several decades, now, and haven't broken or worn one out yet.

Besides, with the history of American knives in mind any blade originally designed by Wm. Scagel is more than worthy of serious consideration.

Buy the knife, not the story.