Pistol Grip Bowies / choppers?

[Elijah Williams]

Hello all,

Recently I've become somewhat intrigued with the "pistol grip" design on big knives.
From my limited experience, the pistol grip provides a very ergonomic design for use as a chopper that allows your wrist to stay straight during use, which makes it stronger and should lead to less fatigue.

I have seen a few pictures of (to my knowledge rare) Bowies with pistol grips. I don't know the intent of the pistol grip in these blades, which I assume were intended for the typical use of the Bowie knife; defense or fighting.

Can anyone shed some light on this topic, particularly in light of historical examples?

For clarification, I am not talking about knives with the handle patterned after the pistol stocks as in the French style trade knives, the handles on these are still more or less straight and inline with the blade. Instead, I'm referring to a handle that angles aggressively down from the blade.

Thanks!
Elijah

 

[Vlade]

Are you talking about a finger choil?

 

[USMCPOP]

You mean like this?

 

[GIRLYmann]

pistol grip handle

 

[Elijah Williams]

You mean like this?

That is pretty slight compared to what I'm talking about...

 

[fishface5]

I can see it for fighting, but not for chopping where a pistol grip lessens the range of mobility for "whipping" the blade into the target

 

[Danke42]

 

[E.D.C.]

That is pretty slight compared to what I'm talking about...

There's no frame of reference, so you don't really know how big that knife is. How big are we talking here?

 

[tltt]

Like this -

.

Or

.

Moran design for Charlton / Damascus USA.

.

Wilkinson RJH Knife.

You see it sometimes on older pre WWII machetes and Moran used it sometimes. I think it fell out of favor because it requires a lot of work with the customer to get right. You either have a great fitting handle to hold or a horrible one, there is no in between.

 

[Elijah Williams]

There's no frame of reference, so you don't really know how big that knife is. How big are we talking here?[/QUOTE
I mean, as far as the angle of the handle..

 

[Elijah Williams]

I can't seem to find the one pic I saw a while back. Should have screen shot it when I had the chance. Here is one that's described by the auction site it is for sale at as an "early American" knife, obviously much smaller but the type of grip I'm describing.
One also sees this design in other cultures such as with the Indonesian badik, which is a bigger knife.

 

[skippyW]

Not a Bowie but it is a BIG knife.

Laci Szabo UUK (Urban Utility Knife)