Bowie Knife power pic

[hillbilly]

Here is a picture taken when I had some fellow faculty out to field test weapons that would have been used in historical fights and duels in frontier Arkansas.

Pictured is a history prof having a go at a gallon milk jug full of water with my bowie knife.

The knife is from http://www.Polkknives.com, and has a 9 inch blade with elk antler handles.

This was the first time the prof had taken a swipe with the knife.

Note the bottom half of the jug still sitting solidly in place with water still in it.

Bowie knives are bad......very, very bad............

Can you imagine two big, strong, angry frontier backwoods guys going at each other with such instruments of destruction?



Egads............

hillbilly

 

[hillbilly]

Oh yeah....almost forgot.

If you look closely at the "man with a gun" target on right, you can see the .50 caliber holes left in it by a smoothbore flintlock pistol at 20 paces.

Not really a "dueling" pistol, but close enough for our testing purposes.

hillbilly

 

[Soap]

Bowie knives...I love 'em! I think people grossly underestimate how much damage a good bowie will do. Maybe it is because the kukri has overshadowed it somewhat with modern knife enthusiasts...

 

[eab]

May I point out that the man is holding the Bowie knife wrong?

Proper way to hold a Bowie knife is with the back clip facing out. A Bowie knife then has a brass back on that edge too. This prevents the oppoents blade from sliding down when they clash. When fighting, the brass edge stops the oppoents balde, you twist the wrist and the back clip cuts the guys hand. You then stab foward, pull up and the main blade edge guts him open, really fun stuff....

 

[Kestrel]

Does anyone have a Camillus Fisk Bowie? Are these as strong as can be expected from a bowie? Are they worth the price?

Thanks.

 

[CARRY'IN]

Been looking at ancient weapons books and articles. If you surf "scramasax" you will find the knife the germanic peoples used AD and by gosh the blade on many of them looks alot like a Bowie. Right up to the 1400's English archers were using them as their personal weapons and carrying them in a very interesting sheath design. Wonder if Jim Bowie happened to see one of these things in a collection somewhere and got inspired?

 

[MICHAEL T]

You will find the Bowie style blade in spanish knives and since they were in La Might have had some influance.

 

[hso]

Very impressive.

The OVB Fisk Bowies are worth every penny.

The origins of the "Bowie" are as strongly debated by the experts as what the original knife used by Jim Bowie at the Sandbar Fight might have looked like. The simple truth is no one knows. As to how the Bowie is "supposed" to be used, again the answer is no one knows (since no one knows what the original looked like and Bowie left no instructions).

What is known is that there were many styles of Bowie knives represented to the public once the legend developed and there were schools for fighting with the Bowie. None of them were based on Jim Bowie's knife or Jim Bowies tutelage.

Now-a-days if you want to learn how to fight with a Bowie then learn from Bagwell or take one of Keatings courses or anyone either of them will refer you to.