The bowie is the big American belt knife: a long clip point blade with a swage along the false edge, a guard, and enough weight to chop as well as slice. It became the byword for a serious fixed blade in the nineteenth century and it has not lost the reputation. Make one from a folded billet and you get the shape with a pattern running through it, which is what this page is about.
The blades and handles
Most of these are forge welded 1095 and 15N20 Damascus at 58 to 60 HRC, acid etched so the layers read the length of the blade, each with a leather sheath. The handles are where they separate: stag horn set against stacked leather over a Damascus bolster, buffalo horn with stabilized wood, a brass bolster and fiber spacers, rosewood with a steel bolster and a black fiber spacer, dyed camel bone, plain wood, and a stacked leather washer handle under an engraved steel pommel cap on a fullered clip point. One carries stag horn and black micarta with a steel guard and bolster. Alongside the bowies sit two skinners, one Damascus with a walnut handle and one in plain 1095 high carbon at 54 to 58 HRC with a wood handle, a camp knife with a walnut handle and an engraved brass bolster, and at the long end a Damascus sawback sword at 25 inches overall with a serrated spine and a knotwork guard. Prices run from 99 dollars to 349 dollars.
Choosing one
Blade length is the decision. Anything over 9 inches is a chopper wearing a knife handle, and anything under 6 is a hunting knife with a guard. Our notes on picking a bowie work through length, guard and grind. If you are comparing it against the Norse belt knife, the seax against the bowie is the honest comparison. The full range is in bowie knives, and the blades built for taking a hide off are in Damascus skinner knives.
Ransack Viking is a US company based in Chicago, Illinois. These pieces are handmade in the Czech Republic, then imported, inspected and shipped from Chicago. Engraving is done in the US after arrival: text 19 dollars, symbol 39 dollars, family crest 49 dollars.
Free US shipping
On most pieces. Heavier and oversized ones carry a flat charge.
Hand Forged
Heated, hammered and ground by hand.
Engraving available
Names, dates or Norse runes on most pieces.
