Bmk-UL-08 Boas High End Handmade Forged Steel Bowie Knife Hunting Knife 14 Inches Blade Made in USA

Description

Fourteen inches of forged blade, a polished steel guard, a stabilized wood handle and a hand-stitched leather sheath. The Boas is the largest bowie on our bench.

Intended use: camp work, brush clearing and the display case, in roughly that order. At 19 inches overall this is not something you tuck into a daypack and forget about.

What fourteen inches is for

Past about ten inches a blade stops being something you use for detail and starts being something you swing. That is the point of this profile. The length gives you reach for limbing and clearing, the mass forward of the guard does the work on the chop, and the deep belly still slices cleanly when you choke up behind the guard for camp tasks. What you give up is any pretense of a fine tip, and any chance of carrying it discreetly.

The guard and the handle

The guard is high-polish steel and full width, which on a knife this heavy is a safety feature rather than a styling one: your hand stops there whatever happens on a wet handle. Behind it sits stabilized wood, timber that has been resin impregnated under pressure so it cannot absorb moisture, swell or shrink around the tang. Stabilizing is what lets a natural handle survive being soaked and dried repeatedly, which is exactly the cycle a camp knife lives through.

The steel

Forged high-carbon stock, oil quenched, with hardness in the 58 to 60 range. On a blade with this much mass behind it, toughness matters more than the last point on the scale, and that range is chosen so the edge takes a beating on seasoned hardwood without chipping out along the bevel.

Care

Dry the blade every time, especially after sap or wet wood, and keep it under a coat of oil between outings. Store the knife out of the leather rather than in it: vegetable-tanned hide holds moisture and its tannins will mark a carbon blade if the two sit together for weeks. Wipe the wood down and re-wax it once a season. The steel guard takes polish if you want the shine back.

Before you order

Is it full tang? Yes, and on a chopping knife it has to be. Full tang versus partial tang explains why that matters here far more than on a small blade.

Is this too much knife for hunting? Almost certainly. Our guide to choosing a hunting knife makes the case for something much shorter.

What is the mid-size option? The Dragon fixed blade at 12 inches overall covers most of the same ground.

Model: BMK-836