Throwing Dispute

Rat Finkenstein

Rat Finkenstein

Joined
May 18, 2005
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22,966
A bit of a rant:

My buddy and I continually disagree about the proper balance for pointed objects that are thrown. He continually talks about Knives "with weighted Blades for throwing" I am of the opinion that this is a nonsensical statement, Since any knife can be thrown- isn't the Term "Weighted" being misused? I would think that the term "Balanced" Makes more sense. "Balanced for throwing" What he wants are knives that are balanced in the middle. I disagree. My opinion is that one should practice throwing anything and everything that has a point, so as to learn by feel. I personally like throwing slightly blade-heavy knives, or knives that are balanced just beyond the handle, but I will throw handle heavy objects as well.

On a side note, he has a persistant mall-ninja fantasy about throwing a knife in a self defense scenario. I keep telling him that it is impractical to do so, except maybe as a distraction to run away or close the distance. I also stated that if you are going to throw knives in a fight, you would have to practice throwing while moving, at varied distances, and at moving targets, Not while standing still at a set distance paced off from a stationary target.

Opinons? Do you guys say "knives with weighted blades"? It just sounds wierd to me.
 
Part of what you need to do when you throw a knife is to control the rotation. If it is rotating too fast it becomes impossible to judge the distance right and get the point into the target at a variety of distances. If it is rotating too slow you have ranges where you can't get the point turned around in time to stick. Most of all you need to be able to regulate the rotation speed and be able to get a consistant rotation throw-after-throw. A key to getting the control on the rotation is to NOT have the center of rotation (more of less the center of mass) too close to your hand when you throw. You want to have some mass above your hand to get the knife rotation going as you start your swing.

Where you put the weight also has some effect on the speed of rotation. When the blade is long and the main weight is far from your hand the blade rotates slow. A prime example of that is throwing a hatchet. A short blade with the balance in the center will rotate faster and takes a bit more control. Where you want the weight is greatly influenced by style and whether you throw your knife by holding the handle or the blade. Since a lot of moderate-sized knives are handle heavy I commonly throw knives from the blade. In that case the heavy handle makes for a modest rotation speed. I can easily throw a knife at about a 9-foot range that way. It starts to have a defense purpose since you are outside of immediate contact range and it is hard to miss someone when you are that close.

A problem with throwing heavy-handled knives is that they tend to break their points. The torgue of the heavy moving handle is increased by its distance from the point. I use special soft targets if I play with ordinary knives. The real issue with throwing knives is durability more than balance in most cases. A heavy handled knife is likely to break the point and a handle that is not made for throwing is likely to break. I have broken plenty of both.

Now if you get out to longer ranges you can find some funny things happen if your knife is very asymmetrical. Knives like to rotate along certain axes of symmetry. If you initially throw a knife with one orientation the knife will transition to its natural axis within a couple turns or so. It kind of twists funny when it makes the change. It is best to have a knife with a symmetrical shape (sort of leaf or spear shaped) to minimize that transition. You usually don't notice the problem, but it can be there, particularly with some styles of throwing.

So if you throw from the handle you probably want the knife a bit blade heavy and the knife shape axially symmetric. You can throw almost anything at short range. If the handle is heavy you may want to throw from the blade.
 
Jeff,

That was an amazing post. I'm still digesting it! Great job analyzing the situation... I'll get a lot out of that, for sure.
 
If you look at it considering the Physics (I'm not a pro thrower but when it comes to Physics...) The axis the knife turns around IS the mass center. So it is not really about where the knife is balanced, it's more about your grip according to that center. If you have a wrong grip, the knife will not spin around that axis from the beginning, but will tend to. The earlier it spins around that axis, the more you can control the throw. Balanced knife are just easier to grip according to the mass center.

I have a week without classes soon, I think I'll take some time to write those equations down. I don't want to get on the Balisong's physics yet :p
 
Cybrok, here are those equations you were going to write down. Ignoring the details of the equations the big generalization is that objects tend to have three principal axes. Usually these don't all have the same moment of inertia. Rotation around the axes with the smallest and largest moments of inertia are fairly stable. Rotation around the one with the middle moment of inertia is not.

Easy experiment. Take a hardback book and tape or rubber band it closed. You can make the book rotate stabily around its longest axis and you can make it rotate stabily if you sort of toss it like a Frisbie, but if you try and flip it end-over-end around the axis through the width of the book it will flip funny. Anyway here is the simple form of those equations:

http://theory.ph.man.ac.uk/~mikeb/lecture/pc167/rigidbody/stability.html
 
In what scenario would you want to throw away your only weapon?

It leaves you weaponless and gives your opponent another.
 
shappa said:
In what scenario would you want to throw away your only weapon?
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That knife was my only weapon? That's an underestimation of tragic consequences. :D

Also, not all throwing weapons are knives.
 
two books that present two methods of throwing knives. the first is a great resource for the traditional method of a rotating blade being thrown at a stationary target (this is what you see in entertainment venues.) the book is Knife Throwing: A Practical Guide by Harry McEvoy. great book.

But, What your friend wants is something else. With the traditional method of knife throwing the objective is to reproduce the same throw over and over untill you can do it in your sleep. this is very hard to do in a fighting or hunting situation. to throw a knife as a weapon at a moving target you need the point to always be pointed at the target no matter the distance (spear like.) most people believe this is impossible. There is a history of this type of throwing in Japan and China and was more used with nail or dart like knives. but the second book i was talking about is Combat Knife Throwing by Ralph Thorn. It tells how to modify almost any knife to be thrown point first and how to weight and grip the knife to make this possible.

From personal experience i can throw both ways but my catch all in any situation is the point first method. i can pretty much hit anything from any distance, if I use my knives.
 
Quasimorte said:
From personal experience i can throw both ways but my catch all in any situation is the point first method. i can pretty much hit anything from any distance, if I use my knives.
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you've got my admiration if you can hit anything from any distance. using knife of your choice of course.

After countless hours of practice, I can only hit accurately from distances that corespond to knife rotation. then only up to aprox. 35 ft. have hit up to 50ft before, but not real reliably.

this is using Newt Livesay matched set of throwing knives.
 
My Max Dist has been about 40ft. but it is all in the method used. check out the books i recomended.
 
I used to throw knives a good deal when I was a teenager. I used various pawn shop throwing knives and got fairly decent at it. Lotsa fun. Something I read one time made sense: you want the blade to be heaviest so it will tend to stick on a less than perfect throw. Handle heavy may tend to rotate more even after striking and in some cases dislodge the blade.

U
 
Quasi, how do you throw from odd distances? meaning distances that's inbetween rotations?

I like throwing my knives, sticking butt slightly downwards. this gives me max chance to stick target hard.

I can compensate for distance slightly by throwing harder or softer controling speed of rotation. but no way I can do it for any distance.

close in would be the exemption. edge first with no rotation, I can stick a knife with deadly accuracy with enough power to more than bury blade.

in this instance I would throw my only blade. for I know with certainly target would be in extreme hurt.
 
The way to do this is discribed in the second book i mentioned Combat Knife Throwing by Ralph Thorn the basic idea is that if the knife is balanced correctly and shaped correctly it can be throw like a very short spear. that is it doesn't rotate in the air. as soon as it leaves your hand the point of the knife is facing the target.the knives for this method are ideally either bayonets with the handels removed or sword blades with the handles removed.
 
Quasimorte said:
The way to do this is discribed in the second book i mentioned Combat Knife Throwing by Ralph Thorn the basic idea is that if the knife is balanced correctly and shaped correctly it can be throw like a very short spear. that is it doesn't rotate in the air. as soon as it leaves your hand the point of the knife is facing the target.the knives for this method are ideally either bayonets with the handels removed or sword blades with the handles removed.
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would you please explain in more detail? don't really want to get book.. thanks
 
First let me say to truely learn how to throw with this method you almost have to get the book. but with that said i can give you a basic idea. Think of how you would throw a knife into the ground at your feet. there is no rotation and it just sticks in. now slowly work the trow further and further from yourself using the same throw. at some point with a standard throwing knife it will start to rotate as you thow it. to compensate for this the book gives you a method (wraping the handle with tape) to balance the knife to counter the rotation. this is a tricky procedure as it is a catch 22. you need a balanced knife to learn to throw and you need to know how to throw to balance the knife. aside from this he also recomends using bayonets or sawn off sword blades as learning weapons as they are more like a spear than the typical throwing knife. You need at least 12" total length to wrap the handle and still have the weight to throw well. if you want any more detail you'll have to get the book, sorry.
 
I have to agree with Quasimorte... there's nothing that can be summarized in Thorn's book that can be summed up in a post or two. It's worth the $12 to pluck it off Amazon. I believe I have a book review somewhere here, too, located via the search utility.

(Of course, having said that, I now realize the Search function is momentarily disabled. Please be patient; I'm confident it will return.)
 
I throw soley non-rotationally. Balance doesn't matter too much, but a neutral balance is best.

Throwing for self defense is not particularly viable - if someone is closing with you quickly you simply don't have enough time at a range at which the throw will be effective. It could be effective if someone is squaring up with you and expecting to have some sort of duel/boxing match.

Since I'll be heavily armed in a bad situation anyways resorting to knives to kill somoene is highly unlikely - a tertiary weapon or worse. But hypothetically considerin the situation, I usually carry a Cold Steel spike as a scraper/prybar and a Greco Whisper - in a bad situation the spike goes at his face in the manner of a light dart and I close with the larger knife intending to scoop out his guts.


Edit: I've posted before about non-rotational throws with pictures/movies - not going to do it again in detail, so I hope the search function works soon. In short, the knife travels in a nearly flat arc - the rotation is suppresed on release by your hand's pressure on the handle part of the knife.
 
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