RE: Cold Steel Laredo Bowie
TS, not really sure who makes them for Cold Steel. I personally like the feel of it, and I've owned lots of Bowies.
SK-5 high carbon steel is essentially 1080 whereas Carbon V is 1095. Not a lot of difference. The 1095 has a bit more carbon in it. Some say 1095 is tougher whereas SK-5 (1080) takes the heat treatment better. The debate goes on an on. I've had knives with both and, in my opinion, the difference is negligible.
You might want to take a look at Cold Steel's video on the Laredo Bowie. Fairly impressive. I think, for the price, it's a heckuva deal.
I know 5BeansintheWheel doesn't seem too favorably impressed with the Laredo Bowie and the SK-5 steel, and I can certainly understand where he's coming from...but then again, not everybody has $1500-$3500 to put down on a Bill Bagwell knife. Like I said, for the price, this particular knife is a pretty good value.
Someone made a post that seems to disparage the tang and the butt cap securing nut on what I think was the Laredo knife. What is he talking about? Does it have a normal width narrow tang, and how is it secured?
THEUR-
The knife on the right in your first picture is very much what I'd want in a Bowie style, very typical of Sheffield production of that day.
I used to write extensively for cutlery magazines and once wrote an article on what Tarzan's first knife must have been like, had Tarzan been a real person. I concluded that it was most likely a Sheffield or London made Bowie much like that knife, but without the blade inscription, and with stag antler handle scales and a silver initial plate. The guard would have been a little thicker. Or, he may have had a very similar knife, except that it'd be a dagger. Either is fully plausible given the time that Tarzan's parents set out from Britain en route to his government post in Africa. Blade length would be from eight to nine inches.
As you Tarzan fans who really read he books know, mutineers seized the ship and marooned the Greystoke family somewhere in French West Africa. In fact, French was the young Lord Greystoke's first spoken European language.
Can someone please post a photo of the Fallkniven NL-1 or NL-2, preferably the latter? I think that will express very well what I think a modern Bowie with traditional inspiration should look like. No one here seems to be bothering to visit their site, but here again is the address:
www.falkniven.com
Work the subject titles and see the knives. But candidly, I'd carry an A-1 over the larger knives in most circumstances.
While there, look at the modern lockblade folders in various handle materials. My U-2 folder is probably even sharper than a new Swiss Army knife and the Super Gold Powder steel has performed very well for me, although I've not asked it to do anything spectacular. But that little knife makes a great spare and the blade is well under three inches. So I sometimes carry it in a city that has a three-inch blade limit, although state law provides for a 5.5-inch blade.
In his catalogs, Randall said that his Model 1 was about as close to the true Bowie as any knifesmith has got since Jams Black's time. He was quoting a Bowie knife authority of the late 1940's.
I don't agree, having seen knives designed and made for the real Bowie brothers. That made for an officer of dragoons named Fowler is Rezin Bowie's conception of a fancier knife along the lines of the one his brother made famous. But the Randall Made Model 1 with seven or eight-inch blade is indeed a better fighting and general purpose knife than are almost all original Bowies of the 19th Century.
It is not, however, the style sought by the OP. (Or in his price range.) Of the photos posted here, either the Hanwei knives from Theur or the Laredo Bowie make the most sense. And look at Lindermesser's Bowies with 440 steel blades and real stag handles. Some are quite practical and of reasonable size.
For the realist who can legally carry a large knife, anything larger than the Fallkniven NL-2 or the Randall Model 14 really should be a short machete. Mine is a Corneta brand from El Salvador, with 12-inch blade. An 18-inch blade is even better for general use, including beheading a snake. But this takes us from traditional Bowies into modern jungle knives.
For what it's worth, my daughter and I have visited the site of James Black's forge at Washington, AR and seen and talked with the man who operated it then. He has seen the Bart Moore knife out of California and thought it might actually be as Mr. Moore's family believes, the actual knife taken from Jim Bowie's body at the Alamo. His ancestor acquired it from an old Mexican who said that he picked it up there on Mar. 6, 1836. I disagree, but the knife is certainly well thought out and unique and very possibly of that period. Mr. Moore showed me the knife and I was impressed. I just think some aspects of it are too crude for it to have been owned by the wealthy Col. Bowie.
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