Knife throwing to kill: True or false.

turk.919 said:
if you have a heavy knife and you can throw it hard you can u kill a person?
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You can kill a person with a lot of things if you throw hard enough.

The difficulty lies not in the mass of the weapon, or really the force of the throw, but with the actions of the target before impact!
 
Well, throwing with a half-spin is like 10 feet away, a full-spin could be like 18ft or more. That takes a pretty skilled pitch in my experience. I never did more then the half-spin, well.
 
I'm a newbie thats been lurking for a few days. I have just taken up throwing and enjoy it. My throwers consist of a CS true flight thrower, a few sks bayonets and some 12 inch spike nails from the hardware store that have the head cut off and the tip sharpened on a bench grinder.

I am confident with the CS thrower at 8 to 10 feet and gaining confidence at the 16 to 20 foot range. The sks bayonets are good at 12 to 15 feet. The home made spikes do a lot of bouncing off my target stump. The stump is an old sassafras tree that is about 3 foot hight and maybe 2 foot in diameter.

I think I would need a lot more practice before I considered beaver or raccoon hunting with a thrower. The raccoons can become pretty obnoxious if they feel threatened.
 
If you want to do a test of how much energy a knife throw has. Take a big heavy knife. Stab it as hard as you are able. Measure the penetration.

Now make a good solid throw. It will penetrate at least twice as much. You can stab a man hard enough to bury the blade to guard with a little bit of force, and a decent knife will split ribs with a good thrust. Imagine what a hard thrown knife will do.



the other question is can you throw a knife well enough to hit important bits on some one who is intent on doing you harm.

I can throw a heavy knife and stick it out reliably past 30 feet. I do much better with hawks. They are so much easier to throw reliably.

A professional knife thrower (or any one with that much practice could probably kill you easily at closer distances). Would I trust it? not really. Especially if I was throwing it at a Ninja, because Ninja's have cat like reflexes, and he would probably just catch it and throw it right back.

I would be willing to bet that thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) have been killed over the span of time by sharp thrown objects. I am reasonably confident that at least 10 of those were by thrown knives. Maybe 11, but that is stretching it.
 
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Bigfattyt said:
I would be willing to bet that thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) have been killed over the span of time by sharp thrown objects. I am reasonably confident that at least 10 of those were by thrown knives. Maybe 11, but that is stretching it.
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I think these are reasonably conservative numbers, and accept them.

Which, if you do the math, means that a thrown knife is lethal way less than a fraction of a single percent. Those are low odds of success.
 
Watchful said:
I think these are reasonably conservative numbers, and accept them.

Which, if you do the math, means that a thrown knife is lethal way less than a fraction of a single percent. Those are low odds of success.
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Ha. Good one. (I bet that high number is actually higher, when you count spears, javelins,sticks, boomerangs, stones from a sling, even big rocks, and atlatls (which are stupid fun to throw, and go super fast and far, if you have not tried one, find some one with one and try it).

The ninja comment, and the 10 or 11 were both joking comments.

I started throwing knives when I was just a kid. I have been throwing them for about 24 years. I have become more than proficient with certain knives. One knife in particular, an old WWII bayonet. Not really balanced for throwing, really handle heavy, but you can get used to just about any balance after thousands and thousands of throws. We had an ugly plug in electric Santa that made a great target for throwing. I could put hundreds of good sticks row without any miss in Santa's head from 50 feet (Santa did neat back flips when that heavy knife hit him in the face and stuck).

If you practice enough you can get very confident a throwing, and judging distances becomes easier.

I throw hawks a ton now, when ever I get a chance, and usually throw a knife too 4 or 5 hours of throwing a hawk and knife in combination is like therapy. My family makes fun of me.

There are knife throwers who can throw no spin, out past 50 feet and stick hard. One of those guys could actually probably kill you with a knife very very easily if you were not paying attention. If you see a guy that far throw something shiny at you in any kind of a war or fight situation your natural instinct will be to duck or move. You probably won't be standing in the same place you were when the knife was thrown (if you don't believe this, just watch the Bush shoe ducking video on you tube, Bush ducked both of those loafers with cat like reflexes).

If you were standing in my back yard, And not paying attention, I could probably kill you with my bayonet out to 60 feet (because that is where I run out of space, what with the fence and all). A bit closer the odds go way up for me skewering you like a kebab, again if you aren't paying attention. If I am within 25 feet, I might be able to stick you even if you are paying attention.

I am much better with my hawk, and can throw it while moving forward and backward And have gotten quite good at judging distances with it. (it is easier to throw than a knife in my opinion).

I am no pro thrower, or master at it. And I would only throw if I had to, and if I had a back up weapon, like another knife to use when I missed, or another hawk.

Realistically, If I had a knife and a hawk (ya, right, what are the odds of that outside a end of the world, Zombie, or RedDawn type situation), I would use the hawk or knife throw when I was closing with some one. Even if you don't kill them with the throw, you can distract and cause pain. I can be reasonably sure that if I throw a hawk at you from within 15 feet of you while I am closing the distance, you will be hurt, or at least severely distracted. The strategy seemed to be helpful in actual war against armed opponents (warriors use small throwing axes to disrupt the line of opposing warriors holding shield and swords etc).

Heck it might even work against a ninja too, especially mall ninja's, they don't stand a chance!
 
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I agree with Bigfattyt's premise.
Long time knife/hawk thrower here also... As much as I feel confident in my abilities, the last thing I would want to do is to throw away my weapon, with certain exceptions/situations being understood.
Being able to "throw" is just another ability that adds confidence to my stable of self defense mechanisms.
 
Bigfattyt said:
If you want to do a test of how much energy a knife throw has. Take a big heavy knife. Stab it as hard as you are able. Measure the penetration.

Now make a good solid throw. It will penetrate at least twice as much. You can stab a man hard enough to bury the blade to guard with a little bit of force, and a decent knife will split ribs with a good thrust. Imagine what a hard thrown knife will do.
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I'm also new to knife throwing, but I've found this very true. I throw at a cardboard box in my basement, and, when I throw a knife, it will go through at least one side if not both. But I really feel like a weakling when I've tried to stab the box with the same knife... I temporarily store my knives in the target while I go find the ones I lost from the last set of throws... it's a large basement. :D

Earlier, someone mentioned a "combat throw" technique in this thread... is there any particular method of throwing which is more suitable for such situations? I've only been doing what McEvoy says in his book, "Knife Throwing: A Practical Guide" - seems like the normal/classic way to throw it.
 
nitestocker said:
if you have a knife dont though it keep it in your hand and use it ive thown knives scewdrivers and axes but never give up your weapon or at least have two knives my 2 cents
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Agreed--Your relinquished weapon is their found weapon if you miss...and I don't trust my throw quite that much.
 
TheFighter88 said:
... is there any particular method of throwing which is more suitable for such situations? I've only been doing what McEvoy says in his book, "Knife Throwing: A Practical Guide" - seems like the normal/classic way to throw it.
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Ralph Thorn's method is vastly better suited. As a plus, Ralph posts here quite frequently and is very amenable to answering questions. Do a Google search on his name to see videos of his method and how to learn it.
 
Dave28210 said:
Agreed--Your relinquished weapon is their found weapon if you miss...and I don't trust my throw quite that much.
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That's a common misperception based on the lore of the throwing knife.

Yes, if you throw your knife, you stand a reasonable chance of missing or hitting him with a non-critical part of the weapon. But consider:

1. Don't throw a knife. If your throwing technique is sound, you can hurl--with powerful effect--just about anything you can grab. Here's one to try sometime: take a lowly teaspoon sometime and "knife throw" it into a cardboard box. What happens? I still have four dots in the base of my thumb where I caught a dinner fork thrown at me. The guy who threw it had a basic technique but didn't think it would stick. It did.

2. If you are engaged with a person determined to do you harm, he will not stand there as a target and let you throw at him. In fact, you will likely not have sufficient time to respond with a weapon at all: his attack will be sudden, spontaneous (from your point of view), and brutal. And he will be within a few feet of you: most times, this will be a swing at your head or face or an upper body tackle. No one squares off during an actual fight: that's schoolyard stuff. Instead, unless you're the instigator, the fight starts when he's ready!

*If* you manage to locate, draw, orient, and ready your knife in that half-second, throwing it will not be your option. You will have a strong instinct to stab repeatedly, not throw, under stress.

I'm not bashing on Dave at all: actually, Dave has got it exactly right when he says we should never trust our throws all that much! :thumbup:
 
Fatstrat said:
...I've always been skeptical that a knife could be throw w/enough force to bury into a human chest deep enough to kill. Is it true or just a good movie stunt?
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That depends on such variables as the knife, the thrower, and the hit location.

To make a long story short yes; under ideal but realistic conditions it is possible.
 
Remember that the Vikings and others had battle axes which were throwing weapons, and they must have been effective or they wouldn't have spent so much trouble making them. The same thing goes for spears meant for throwing, for those metal throwing rings that were used as weapons in India centuries ago, even down to the use of slings in prehistory. The use of throwing weapons isn't just theoretical, it was used effectively in the past. The only difference is, perhaps a knife doesn't have quite the range or weight of some of those weapons. But knife throwing should not be dismissed out of hand. It's just a matter of degrees of effectiveness; anything you can throw at somebody can cause some kind of damage or at the very least throw them off balance.

Thanks to Watchful for the plug...
 
You guys should post this over on the Mythbusters forum!
You never know they might do knife throwing in their next Ninja myth segment.
 
tholiver said:
You guys should post this over on the Mythbusters forum!
You never know they might do knife throwing in their next Ninja myth segment.
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They would just fek it up.

There's no need anyways; it's pretty obvious the kind of damage that a flying razor sharp bowie knife can cause.
 
Fatstrat said:
When I was a kid, I taught myself how to throw & stick a knife because I'd seen it in movies and thought it looked cool. Got pretty good at it too. I can throw pretty much anything knife shaped or similiar (screwdrivers etc) and stick them.
I see here there seem to be several methods or styles. Not sure what mine is. Basically I start by holding the blade and when thrown the knife makes 1/2 rotation. Basically blade and handle switch ends. Not very good at long distance, but I used to stick it reliably up to maybe 10 yrds. (been awhile since I've done it).
Anyway, I've never thrown a knife at any living thing except perhaps a tree. But I've always been skeptical that a knife could be throw w/enough force to bury into a human chest deep enough to kill. Is it true or just a good movie stunt?
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poland and hungary both issused combat throwing knives to their militaries in the past.. and bothi trained most airborn and specilist troops in knife throwing .. i know poland still does
russia also trains special security police and military unites in knife throwing , but there is not a special throwing knife made or issued, just a dagger or bayonet..
the poles have made several including a very very weird 4 pointed thworing knife the blade spring open when thrown , the pommel had a spike, normaly it looke dlike standard knife but when launched the blade split in 3 and the nknife became mor elike starknife or so,

this was not an issue item and only experimental,
hungary had a knife with a special sheath that was used to throw the knife with more power
 
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