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.
This depends on the usage of the knife. The Bowie knife design has been around for around 200 years. In that time, the innovative blade design has proved incredibly useful in a variety of applications. Some of these applications, such as cleaning game, are best performed with a knife shorter than the typical Bowie. These Bowies are properly hunting knives though, given the right design, they are also Bowie knives.
A Bowie knife is usually thought of as being a bit longer than the average hunting knife, however. A clip-bladed knife of between 10 and 12 inches will be instantly recognized by most anyone as a Bowie. This harkens back to the early days of these knives. They were designed for fighting as much as they were for anything else. To that end, the blade needed to be long enough to be indisputably deadly.
The very long Bowie knife models on the market can be fun. They can also provide some practical applications, such as cutting down light brush or chopping wood. The difference between these knives and their machete and hatchet competition, however, is that a Bowie was never designed to be over a certain length. This blade design offers its optimal performance at lengths under 14 inches, which is still a very long knife. Beyond that length, one is more or less dealing with a short sword rather than a long knife.
A Bowie knife should be selected for comfort and practicality. For instance, if one is small game hunting or fishing, a 12 inch Bowie is certainly overkill. Worse still, it will prove essentially useless for those applications. A six or seven inch Bowie, however, will still rival any modern blade in function and form. This is the strength of these blades: their practical design makes them useful for many tasks. All that needs to be changed is the length of the blade.
Blake is a business consultant for an online bowie knives store featuring hunting knives.
