Can I Use My Bowie Knife as a Punch?
Bowie knives are renowned for their versatility as general purpose knives. You’ll find that the blade can be used for a wide range of things, from skinning and cleaning game and fish to cleaning branches and much more. However, you will find a lot of uses that bowie knives are not suited for. These uses will not only damage your knife, but can possibly even break the blade, ruining your knife and possibly even leading to an injury, should sharp pieces of the blade come into contact with your unprotected skin.
Screwdriver – Your bowie knife is a precision tool, for all of its heft and length. However, many people simply cannot understand why you should never use a knife as a screwdriver. After all, if you can fit the tip of the blade in the slotted head of a screw, why can’t you turn it? The problem here is that your knife is a tool designed for cutting, chopping or slicing. It is not intended to do the job of a screwdriver. If you attempt to use it as such, you’ll find that you can damage the tip very easily.
Pry Bar – If you think that your bowie knife would make a great pry bar, you’re wrong. These knives are not designed with this use in mind. While you might have no choice in the matter, you should make this type of use a thing of last resort. If you do attempt to pry things with your bowie knife, you’ll find that you can damage the tip or even bend the blade of your knife. This will require expert precision to repair and might even break the blade off.
Chisel – Chiseling is something best left to specially designed tools. While your bowie knife might seem to have the right size and shape, and might even do a good job of it at first, you’ll find that it can quickly become blunted and damaged through this type of misuse. You’ll also find that use like this will void the warranty on the knife, if you have one.
As you can see, bowie knives, while ideal tools for a wide range of different uses, are not designed for some purposes. The basic rule of thumb should be that if another type of knife wouldn’t be right, then bowie knives would likely not be a good fit, either.
Dylan Sabot is the owner of an online bowie knife store featuring the Cold Steel bowie knife. Additionally, Dylan is also the President of an online butane lighters store.
