THE Hollow Handle Knife Thread

TAH said:
They might fail in balance for your chopping needs, but that doesn't mean the balance is wrong on "many" hollow handle knives. Colin Cox hollow handle knives are properly balanced for their intended purpose - to double as a fighting/combat knife, hence their narrow pointy blades, sharpen top edge, large double guards, and skull crusher buttcaps. Just because a knife has a 10" blade, that doesn't mean it was designed for chopping or will be efficient/effective at chopping. Compare the features of a Colin Cox hollow handle knife to Sam Wilson's M.O.A. knife. Just looking at the two, Colin's knife screams "fighting knife" and Sam's knife screams "let's go chop down a tree, baton some kindling, and make a fire".

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When I purchased my Running River knife, I knew it wasn't designed for chopping and I didn't want a blade heavy knife. The balance is perfect for general camp use, however the handle is long enough to shift the weight forward if needed for light chopping.

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I think you hit the nail smack dab on the head T. You gotta pick the right tool for the job you might be most apt to need it for, and then use it for other things as needed. No one knife will be perfect for every job. If you intend to chop, pick a chopper, if you intend to baton, pick one well suited to batoning. If you intend to fight people with it (I hope I never have to fight with a knife) get one better suited to fighting.
 
Well I just got the Cox back from Josh at REK, and he did everything I asked to an incredible degree of perfection: Two-tone re-grind of the primary hollow to 0.020", and the pommel was trimmed to perfection into a narrower flat rounded corners square (looks, amazingly, just right). Balance point is finally into the blade, which is a huge achievement as that pommel was steel and full hardness (poor Josh!)... I'll post pics soon...

As to the Cox being intended as a fighter: Probably true as the blade is really surprisingly narrow in person, narrower even than the 10" Buckmaster clone Oryx "Raider II", which I thought was too narrow...

I like blade width in a Survival knife, and blade narrowness in a dagger....

Gaston
 
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BladeScout said:
Im sure, that the Cox is a quality knife, but for my use Ill take Sam's knife every day of the week.
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The Cox knife is beautiful. I like everything about its appearance - blade, guard, buttcap, sheath, and the fantastic knurling. I just prefer a knife that leans more towards wilderness use than combat.

BladeScout said:
That bottom knife is (still) absolutely gorgeous.
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Thanks BladeScout. Steve Allen did a great job designing it.


Mark Knapp said:
You gotta pick the right tool for the job...
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Amen, Mark!

Gaston444 said:
Well I just got the Cox back from Josh at REK, and he did everything I asked to an incredible degree of perfection: Two-tone re-grind of the primary hollow to 0.020", and the pommel was trimmed to perfection into a narrower flat rounded corners square (looks, amazingly, just right). Balance point is finally into the blade, which is a huge achievement as that pommel was steel and full hardness (poor Josh!)... I'll post pics soon...
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Glad you're happy with the mod, Gaston. Looking forward to the photos!

Gaston444 said:
I like blade width in a Survival knife, and blade narrowness in a dagger....
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As much as you enjoy chopping, I think you would have a blast with one of Sam's knives. :thumbup:
 
Open question.

What would you like to see in a HH knife that you have never seen?
 
Mark Knapp said:
Open question.

What would you like to see in a HH knife that you have never seen?
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Can't think of anything that I haven't seen, but for me, a large double guard (specifically the top guard) is awkward and is usually a deal breaker for me. I would like to see more small and large hollow handle knives offered with single guards. Something like this Randall at the top right.

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I would also like to see the return of smaller knives with stacked leather and hollow handle storage similar to the old Case knives of the 40s.

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When it comes to hollow handle knives, unfortunately there isn't a great selection of "different" designs. Most of them continue to follow the same basic design of long blades, sawteeth, and oversized double guards.
 
Mark Knapp said:
Open question.

What would you like to see in a HH knife that you have never seen?
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That one's easy: A downward angled handle. Maybe 15 degrees or so.

The problem is that this would probably worsen the rolling tendency on impact with a round handle (straight handles are actually better in this regard). Either a contoured sleeve/shape as on some of Sam's knives, or the finger grooved hollow handle in the Rambo III style, would alleviate the rolling tendency.

I would supplement that with a "shelf" shape on the guard to rest the thumb and help further prevent rolling.

Another thing I would like to see is the flared Tanto shape of the Hawke Hellion, but with thinner edge geometry. Or any kind of "flared" blade, but without any recurved edge...

I also came up with a blade shape that is like half of a very pointy leaf, with a flat straight spine, where by far the broadest part of the blade is the rounded flare that is very close to the guard. The idea being to combine a very pointy tip with a very broad blade near the guard.

The idea for this shape came to me when I observed that pointy knives chopped deepest by hitting close to the guard with a rigid wrist (bringing the weight of the arm into the chop): A completely different style of chopping than the "spinning wrist" style encouraged by flared tip blades. The idea being to combine a pointy tip with high chopping performance.

Gaston

[Edit]: On the extra-fancy side, the Aitor concept of a V metal piece interlocking on the pommel to create a slingshot is appealing, but I would go one step further and add an arrow holder ring between the V's arms. The single arrow would be in two parts, and fit inside narrow sleeves on either sides of the sheath, running the whole length of the sheath to the tip of the belt loop. I figure at least one arrow in two parts could be supplied without thickening the sheath too much, a single broadhead being stored dismantled in a pouch at the tip of the sheath, along with the V and ring module, plus the rubber bands, in the main sheath pouch above it...

(I find the concept of using the sheath itself as a handle poor, as it requires removing the sheath from the belt, and makes for a poor handhold of clumsy weight with the knife inside: Aitor actually used the pommel/ V part idea in early JK1 models with leather sheaths)
 
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TAH said:
Can't think of anything that I haven't seen, but for me, a large double guard (specifically the top guard) is awkward and is usually a deal breaker for me. I would like to see more small and large hollow handle knives offered with single guards. Something like this Randall at the top right.

1991_p37a.jpg


I would also like to see the return of smaller knives with stacked leather and hollow handle storage similar to the old Case knives of the 40s.

s-l1000.jpg


When it comes to hollow handle knives, unfortunately there isn't a great selection of "different" designs. Most of them continue to follow the same basic design of long blades, sawteeth, and oversized double guards.
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Yeah, more smaller ones would be nice to see.
 
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Gaston444 said:
That one's easy: A downward angled handle. Maybe 15 degrees or so.

The problem is that this would probably worsen the rolling tendency on impact with a round handle (straight handles are actually better in this regard). Either a contoured sleeve/shape as on some of Sam's knives, or the finger grooved hollow handle in the Rambo III style, would alleviate the rolling tendency.

I would supplement that with a "shelf" shape on the guard to rest the thumb and help further prevent rolling.

Another thing I would like to see is the flared Tanto shape of the Hawke Hellion, but with thinner edge geometry. Or any kind of "flared" blade, but without any recurved edge...

I also came up with a blade shape that is like half of a very pointy leaf, with a flat straight spine, where by far the broadest part of the blade is the rounded flare that is very close to the guard. The idea being to combine a very pointy tip with a very broad blade near the guard.

The idea for this shape came to me when I observed that pointy knives chopped deepest by hitting close to the guard with a rigid wrist (bringing the weight of the arm into the chop): A completely different style of chopping than the "spinning wrist" style encouraged by flared tip blades. The idea being to combine a pointy tip with high chopping performance.

Gaston

[Edit]: On the extra-fancy side, the Aitor concept of a V metal piece interlocking on the pommel to create a slingshot is appealing, but I would go one step further and add an arrow holder ring between the V's arms. The single arrow would be in two parts, and fit inside narrow sleeves on either sides of the sheath, running the whole length of the sheath to the tip of the belt loop. I figure at least one arrow in two parts could be supplied without thickening the sheath too much, a single broadhead being stored dismantled in a pouch at the tip of the sheath, along with the V and ring module, plus the rubber bands, in the main sheath pouch above it...

(I find the concept of using the sheath itself as a handle poor, as it requires removing the sheath from the belt, and makes for a poor handhold of clumsy weight with the knife inside: Aitor actually used the pommel/ V part idea in early JK1 models with leather sheaths)
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I've always had better results with a weight forward blade, letting the weight of the knife do the work. The rigid wrist thing sounds like a lot of unnecessary work to me.

As a knife maker, I think I would have trouble selling knives like the ones you described. I've never seen a knife like those in any cutting competitions. Probably, the only way to know if one would work would be to build one.

Kukris are very much like one of the knives you described, but they are decidedly blade heavy, and wicked cutters. How about a hollow handled kukri. That might be pretty cool, the handle design lends itself easily to a HH.
 
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The Kukri will not work at all (in my opinion) with frontal inside the waistband carry, but a hollow handle kukri might be popular with other users... The problem is that the hits being so far below the axis of the round handle, the slightest misalignment of the hit by the user will bring a huge rolling tendency...

The rigid wrist chopping method is unpleasant, but it does outperform using mainly the blade weight -by spinning the wrist- on most straight pointy knives below 11" in blade length, 2" in blade width and not flared: Narrower pointy knives are simply fundamentally different to dedicated choppers in behaviour, and below 10.5" in blade length they will not perform as well without bringing the hits back closer to the guard and "locking" the wrist to one extent or another...: Centering the hits 3-4" down the blade is pretty much as far as they will go. My 11.25" blade Voorhis "Rambo" that "flares" slightly from 2" to 2 1/8" wide is vastly different, and can be used with large amounts of wrist spinning, centering the hits almost 5" down the blade: Not typical of a pointy knife, and consequently large beyond practicality even for me...

On smaller knives, typically a mixture of the two wrist motion styles (spinning and then rigid on impact) naturally evolves, to get both performance and comfort combined: My Lile Mission's wear shows the center of hits is 3.5" from the guard on 10", which is the best "mix" of wrist spin vs wrist rigidity...: All out performance would be 2.5" with no wrist spinning at all... Even 3.5" from the guard is still close enough to the hand to require a serious bottom quillion...

Knives that are not pointy lose too much versatility in my view, as does the inclined point thrust angle of the Kukri (which I find unacceptable): The Kukri can still stab with a slight curving arc motion, but to me it is similar to other flared end knives in being specialized for chopping. The interesting thing about a flared Tanto point (maybe like the Hellion but slightly more pointy) is that it might retain more initial point aggressivity within a given amount of point flaring (my Hellion certainly had a surprisingly aggressive point for the amount of flare it had).

Since to me survival is unpredictable and can involve digging then leveraging planks, making holes through a wood door or plaster wall, IWB concealment and fighting, all this means the "Survival Knife" is not quite the single purpose item that a pure chopper is. Blade flaring, a lack of "pointiness", or an inclined point axis, all these in my view come at a cost to the versatility of what the knife might do.

Gaston
 
My hollow handle knife at the more humble end of the scale.

My buddy threaded and installed a homemade stainless steel plug in the hollow compartment in the handle of my GLOCK Field Knife.

(Plug can be removed and the original synthetic plug installed).

A tungsten core was fitted to the plug.

I lightly tapped a decent chunk of tempered glass with the tungsten core.



The glass didnt just fall apart - it EXPLODED!









The GLOCK knife with the tungsten core is spectacularly efficient.



(pls disregard motorcycle apparel - we had earlier been out riding).
 
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Gaston444 said:
The Kukri will not work at all (in my opinion) with frontal inside the waistband carry,
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Yes, stuffing a kukri down your pants in a tube sock will be even more uncomfortable than the knives you currently do that with.

But since most folks carry knives in far more normal ways, that won't be a concern for them. :thumbup:
 
Gaston444 said:
If anything you should be more picky, not less... I also know from the experience of a guy who spent a year in the woods that even some sizeable mammals are completely inedible, no matter what you do to them, including some beaver-sized creatures...

Gaston
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We should talk about this a little, it's been bugging me since I read it. Please let us know which mammals you're talking about.

I've eaten a lot of off-the-wall things. The only thing I wouldn't eat for obvious reasons is skunks.

Beavers, musk rats, raccoons, opossums and porcupines are commonly eaten.

Members of the cat family, lynx, bobcat and mountain lion are actually quite tasty and good for you. Lynx is my favorite wild meat, I've eaten hundreds of them on the trapline.

Members of the dog family like fox and coyote, especially the males don't taste real good but the protein is good.

I don't care for the smell of members of the weasel family like mink, marten, otter and wolverine, (they're musky). Marten is the only one I've eaten, it's less musky than the rest. None of these will get you sick.

Of course, it should be mentioned that bears, members of the pig family, (javelina, Russian boars, and feral pigs), all the cats and all the dogs need to be well cooked to prevent trichinosis. Rabbits and other mammals need to be watched for tularemia, check for spots on the liver. Cook all your wild meat well to protect against parasites.

Unless you're talking about carrion I don't see any problems with eating most mammals.
 
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I agree and it's a mystery to me: Must have been a smell gland issue...

That animal was in a fairly "well-known" video a guy made several years ago under the title "A year in the woods" or something close to that (it may still be on Youtube, but I could not find it): It is over one hour long, so it is unusual in that category ... It took place in the Canadian north somewhere in northern Ontario: Very Remote but not artic: Densely wooded in fact... His experiment was to last out one year, with a fair amount of equipment including rifle, and he found it was very rough indeed: I think he almost died...

I have to say it surprised me as well that he could not eat even a single bite out of it... I don't get it... It looked like a stocky round creature, as wide as it was long(!) and about two feet in diameter, so really quite large... Even stranger, it routinely climbed on trees, and he shot it from a tree right on video... I'm sure we would all have a rough idea what it is, but English names of such things escape me... It was not something aggressive like a Wolverine I don't think, but the smell aspect may have played a role in making it unedible... I can't quite remember the color or fur, but it was short-legged in a turtle-like fashion... The broad circular appearance was very pronounced and very surprising for something climbing on trees...

In a similar vein to what I was saying about food intake, there is this: "The Truth About Wilderness "Survival" [on TV shows?]: No Better Than Fasting"

https://youtu.be/iAdl63XpXX8

He goes on how there is no real calories intake on any of the shows, and how they are just using out the excess "city" calories they had from the start...

He even describes how one 400 pounds man ate nothing but liquids for 380 days, still moving around the whole time, and how the biggest problem was re-introducing solid food into his organism after this type of fasting... He mentions how a really fat person can in theory go on for months in the wilderness... (I think articulations/joint problems would then be the biggest issue, as it is on overweight cats...)

If someone knows the original video of the one year experiment, it would be a nice find to link here....

Gaston
 
Gaston444 said:
I agree and it's a mystery to me: Must have been a smell gland issue...

That animal was in a fairly "well-known" video a guy made several years ago under the title "A year in the woods" or something close to that (it may still be on Youtube, but I could not find it): It is over one hour long, so it is unusual in that category ... It took place in the Canadian north somewhere in northern Ontario: Very Remote but not artic: Densely wooded in fact... His experiment was to last out one year, with a fair amount of equipment including rifle, and he found it was very rough indeed: I think he almost died...

I have to say it surprised me as well that he could not eat even a single bite out of it... I don't get it... It looked like a stocky round creature, as wide as it was long(!) and about two feet in diameter, so really quite large... Even stranger, it routinely climbed on trees, and he shot it from a tree right on video... I'm sure we would all have a rough idea what it is, but English names of such things escape me... It was not something aggressive like a Wolverine I don't think, but the smell aspect may have played a role in making it unedible... I can't quite remember the color or fur, but it was short-legged in a turtle-like fashion... The broad circular appearance was very pronounced and very surprising for something climbing on trees...

In a similar vein to what I was saying about food intake, there is this: "The Truth About Wilderness "Survival" [on TV shows?]: No Better Than Fasting"

https://youtu.be/iAdl63XpXX8

He goes on how there is no real calories intake on any of the shows, and how they are just using out the excess "city" calories they had from the start...

He even describes how one 400 pounds man ate nothing but liquids for 380 days, still moving around the whole time, and how the biggest problem was re-introducing solid food into his organism after this type of fasting... He mentions how a really fat person can in theory go on for months in the wilderness... (I think articulations/joint problems would then be the biggest issue, as it is on overweight cats...)

If someone knows the original video of the one year experiment, it would be a nice find to link here....

Gaston
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I would almost swear it was a porcupine. They are quite edible
 
Mark Knapp said:
Where are you from?
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I'm from Quebec. My parents were French, so I consider myself as actually French more than anything else, because of the French accent...

Yes, now that I think of it, it could indeed have been a huge tree-climbing porcupine, if such things exist...

Gaston
 
Gaston444 said:
I'm from Quebec. My parents were French, so I consider myself as actually French more than anything else, because of the French accent...

Yes, now that I think of it, it could indeed have been a huge tree-climbing porcupine, if such things exist...

Gaston
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Porcupines absolutely climb trees. They eat the bark of trees.
 
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