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Bowie Knife Size Ranges
By: Blake Benson
Modern Bowie knives come in a wide range of sizes. Most often, the practical sizes are between six and 12 inches in length. For purists, this is also within the range that a knife can safely be declared as a Bowie knife. The other options on the market mostly represent smaller knives, which imitate the blade shape of a Bowie, or larger knives that are designed principally as novelty items for display rather than for practical use.
Most who have an affinity for the Bowie knife and who know a great deal about its origins consider anything under 6 inches to be something less than a Bowie. There are many knives, however, within the 4 to 6 inch range which have clipped blades, false edges and Spanish notches; some of the ways in which Bowie knives are typically recognized. The length, however, is integral to a knife being properly called a Bowie. Most people will agree that a Bowie knife starts at six inches. They get far longer.
There are Bowie knives of between six and 10 inches in length, which make excellent hunting tools. A Bowie knife of this size has a blade large enough to handle tough tasks, such as dealing with bone, but precise enough to elegantly fillet meat. These are among the most useful and practical of knife designs. This size range is also the one in which one is likely to find the highest quality metals and the best standards of manufacture for these knives.
The very long models of Bowie knives starts at around 10 inches and extend to about 14. These knives are undeniably huge. They are also very much in line with the original designs of Jim Bowie. These knives are most suitable for weapons. They are too large to be practical for cleaning any game, and at the threshold size for being useful chopping tools. One can see, just from looking at these blades, how seriously the wielder of these knives would've been taken in the frontier era.
Where Bowie knives are concerned, one is really talking about something else if the knife is under 6 inches in length. Some knives advertised as Bowies are merely long, as well. It is the mix of practical features, innovative design and a long length that makes a Bowie what it is. Without all of these characteristics, one is merely talking about an everyday knife and not about this legendary frontier and fighting blade.
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