Bonecliff Hand Forged 1095 Carbon Steel Viking Bowie Knife with Bone Handle & Brass Guard | 13 Inch Overall | Clip Point Blade and Leather Belt Sheath | Hunting Gift | RK-1704

This is a hand forged bowie knife with a long clip point blade in 1095 high carbon steel, a pale bone handle pinned over a full tang, a brass guard and a brass butt cap. The blade carries an Elder Futhark maker line cut into the flat. It comes with a fitted brown leather belt sheath. It is built as a working hunting and camp knife rather than a wall piece, and it is finished to a satin polish that hides scratches instead of collecting them.

The bowie became famous through a fight rather than a design. In 1827 Jim Bowie was part of a duel gone wrong on a sandbar in the Mississippi near Natchez, was shot and stabbed several times, and killed a man with a large knife anyway. The story travelled, the knife travelled with it, and within a decade Sheffield cutlers were shipping thousands of blades to America stamped with his name. What settled into the recognised bowie form is what you are looking at here, a long blade with a clipped false edge along the top of the point, a substantial guard and a handle you can hold with a wet hand.

Each knife is forged, ground, heat treated, polished, engraved and handled in our Memphis workshop, and the sheath is cut and stitched here. It ships in the sheath with blade oil and a care card.

Specifications

What the clip point is for

The clip is the concave sweep along the top of the blade near the tip, and it is the feature that defines the type. It exists to move the point. On a blade with a straight spine, the tip sits high, in line with the back of the knife, and it is thick and blunt in section. Clipping metal away from the spine drops the point down toward the centre line of the blade and makes it thinner, which does two useful things. The tip becomes far better at piercing and at fine work, and it lines up with the axis of your forearm so it goes where you point it.

The false edge along the clip is sharpened on some bowies and left as a swedge on others. This one is a swedge, ground thin but not sharpened, which keeps the tip strong and keeps the knife legal in more places. It also means you can put a thumb on the spine behind the clip for control during fine work without cutting yourself.

The trade off is that a clipped point is weaker than a full spine point. Do not use this knife as a pry bar. It is a superb slicer, skinner and camp knife, and it will snap a tip like any other clip point if you lever with it.

The steel and the bone

The blade is 1095, a plain high carbon steel with just under one percent carbon and almost no alloying elements. It is the classic American working knife steel for good reason. It takes a very keen edge, it sharpens easily on a simple stone in the field with no diamond plate required, and its heat treat behaviour is completely predictable. It is hardened and tempered to 54 to 58 HRC, which for a large knife is the range that balances edge holding against toughness. A big blade takes lateral loads that a small one never sees, and steel taken harder chips at the edge instead of rolling.

1095 is not stainless. It will patina and it will rust if you leave it wet. A working carbon blade develops a grey blue patina over the years that is a passive layer and is genuinely protective, and most people who use these knives learn to like it.

The handle is bone, hand sanded rather than polished glassy, so it has a slight tooth to it. Bone is dense, it does not swell or shrink much with humidity, and it warms in the hand in a way that no synthetic does. Every scale carries its own pale cream to honey tone and its own faint grain lines, and none of it is dyed.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel, the leather or the wood. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us where it goes. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it.

This knife carries a cut Elder Futhark line on the blade flat as standard, so a chosen inscription goes there in its place. The other option that works well is the face of the leather sheath, which takes a longer name or a date and keeps the blade line intact. Say which you want in the order notes and see the engraving page for lettering and lead time.

Handling and balance

The balance sits just ahead of the guard, which for a knife of this size gives you enough blade presence to chop small wood and enough control to do close work with the tip. The brass guard is a real guard with a downswept lower quillon, so a wet hand cannot slide forward onto the edge, which is the single most common serious knife injury in a camp.

It is a working knife. It will skin, butcher, prepare food, cut cordage, split kindling by batoning if you are careful, and do everything else a large camp knife does. It is not a throwing knife and it is not a pry bar. As with any large fixed blade, check the law where you live before carrying it, because blade length limits vary a great deal between states and countries.

Care

Wipe the blade and oil it after use, every time, and especially after cutting anything acidic or salty. Bare 1095 will spot within hours in the wrong conditions. A food safe mineral oil is the right choice if you use the knife for food. If rust appears, lift it with a rust eraser worked along the length of the blade and re oil. There is more in steel care.

Sharpen on a stone at the angle the edge already carries rather than trying to reset it. 1095 responds to almost any abrasive and a few passes will bring it back. Wash the bone handle with soap and water and dry it, and give it a wipe of mineral oil once or twice a year. Feed the leather sheath with a neutral balm, and do not store the knife in the sheath long term, because leather holds moisture against carbon steel.

Forged in Memphis

This knife is forged in our shop in Memphis, Tennessee. It is not bought in from an importer catalogue and stamped on arrival. We forge the blank, grind the clip and the bevels, harden and temper the blade, polish it, cut the rune line with gravers, fit the brass, shape and pin the bone and cut and stitch the sheath here. Current lead time is one to two weeks before it leaves us, and shipping inside the United States is free. It carries a lifetime warranty against defects in forging, grind, heat treat and fittings, with no end date and no receipt needed.

A note on handmade variation

Every knife is hand made rather than machine made or bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. Bone is a natural material and every pair of scales carries its own tone, from pale ivory to warm honey, with faint grain lines and occasional darker flecks. The line of the clip is ground by eye, so the sweep carries the hand that ground it. Brass polishes differently depending on how it was filed. The leather sheath is cut from natural hide. The length, the steel, the heat treat and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Is it sharp out of the box?

Yes. It arrives with a working edge that will shave. Open the parcel carefully and get it into the sheath before you start admiring it.

Is the false edge sharpened?

No. The clip carries a swedge, ground thin but left unsharpened. That keeps the tip stronger and keeps the knife legal in more places.

Will the blade rust?

It will if you leave it wet. 1095 is carbon steel and not stainless. Wipe it and oil it after use and it will develop a grey patina that protects it rather than damaging it.

Is the handle real bone?

Yes, hand sanded bone scales pinned over a full tang. You can see the grain under a raking light and feel the density against a synthetic scale of the same size.

Can I throw it?

No. It is a hunting and camp knife with a clip point and a bone handle. Throwing knives are a different design with no scales to shatter and a point built to take the impact.

Is the sheath included?

Yes. A fitted brown leather belt sheath ships with the knife, formed to that specific blade.

What is in the box

• One hand forged 1095 carbon steel bowie knife with bone handle and brass fittings
• Fitted brown leather belt sheath
• Bottle of blade oil
• Care card covering oiling, sharpening and bone handle care
• Lifetime warranty against defects in forging, grind, heat treat and fittings
• Forged and finished in Memphis, Tennessee

Explore the range

Browse the rest of the bowie knives, the hunting knives and the Viking knives, or read the guides for more on clip points, carbon steel patina and sharpening.