Your new bowie knife is an ideal tool for a wide variety of different things. These tools can be used to clean fish scales, to gut deer, to skin prey and to help around camp. They can help you cut wood, remove the bark from sticks and much, much more. However, if you think that a bowie knife would make a great throwing knife, you have another thing coming. Why shouldn’t you use your bowie knife in this manner?
What happens if you do use bowie knives for throwing? Aside from some rather unspectacular results, you might run into some other issues. While you will likely not hit the target correctly, you can also damage your knife, or even harm yourself, if you were standing too close to the target for example. A bowie knife is not correctly balanced for throwing, so there is no guarantee that the point will hit your target correctly. Even a small amount off and you can damage your blade.
For instance, if your knife hits the target slightly askew, the point might stick, but the sideways motion of the blade and handle might bend the tip, or the blade. You might also notice that bowie knives are so heavy that you are forced to stand closer to the target in order to hit with enough force for the point to stick at all. While this might not seem problematic, it can be an issue. For instance, it takes very little for the knife to bounce off and come back in your direction. While the knife will likely not have enough force to cause damage, or even to reach you, the potential remains.
These are only a few of the things that can happen when attempting to use bowie knives as throwing knives. A much better option is to use them as they were intended to be used – as handheld tools. Throwing knives can be purchased in almost any size and you can even find bowie style throwing knives that are balanced correctly for the purpose.
As you can see, using bowie knives as throwing weapons is not the ideal situation. You can damage yourself, your knife or someone else. In addition, you’ll simply find that you can gain more enjoyment using a knife designed for throwing, rather than attempting to throw a bowie knife.
Dave is the owner of an online bowie knives and glock grip extensions store.