Derrick's Bowie

This is Derrick's Bowie. The handle is similar but different than the Zac Bowie, being slightly shorter and smaller. The blade was based very closely on the Cold Steel Natchez Bowie, but I changed the design of the Tang around.

I don't like the way the Natchez Bowie had a cable tang - a cable tang for a blade that size is not acceptable. A bowie knife should be usable as both a utility knife and a weapon; saying it's meant for 'flesh and blood, yielding targets' is not acceptable for a Bowie Knife! While the cable tang is designed to absorb some of the shock of hitting hard targets, I prefer a full tang for the simple reason of extra durability.

The original Zac Bowie was designed to be used in saber grip, where the thumb is placed on the handle in line with the 'spine' of the blade. This originally carried over to this design, but was eventually replaced to make the knife easier to hold in Hammer grip instead. As a result, the finger grooves are smaller, closer together, and the grip is much shorter. The hump of the grip has also been moved forward. I also took the time to do a bit more on the crossguard, adding the little balls to the ends for added appeal.

The blade is 11.5" long curved profile with a convex grind and full clip, making it still large for a Bowie, but not something oversized like the South Texas Stampede.

Also unlike the other knives I've designed, Derrick's Bowie features a distinctly hilt-heavy balance, placing the point of balance somewhere between 7/8" and 3/4" behind the crossguard, for better handling characteristics, and the knife weighs only 1.76 lbs (28.2 ounces, roughly 800 grams), and so is roughly 2 lbs lighter than the South Texas Stampede.

Being a direct evolution from the other designs, namely Zac's Bowie and South Texas Stampede, Derrick's Bowie features the same peened construction and solid tang bar, along with a linen-impregnated LM-105 thermosetting resin grip and cast 6061-T6 aluminum hardware, and an AISI 5160 steel blade, specified as double-tempered with differential hardening with a back hardness of 42-45 HRC and an edge hardness of 59-62 HRC.

By computer simulation the blade is rated to take a load of six and a half kilonewtons concentrated on its primary cutting arc before it deforms permanently. A generous safety factor has been included in this figure.