Cowboy Knives - Custom v Production

These days you can't hardly find anyone not carrying a knife, usually a folding knife with the ever recognized clip showing outside a pocket on their wranglers. Folders are very utilitarian excepting that maybe they are hard to open one handed by some people, especially when wearing gloves. Folders are safe too, providing you have a manual opening or spring assist mechanisms. The auto opening folders, using a push button to fully extend and lock the blade raise the potential of accidentally opening and cutting yourself, in my opinion, which comes from experience as I had one 25 years ago and spent hours at Urgent Care waiting to get my thumb sutured up. But then again, most people aren't as accident prone as me. In fact, sometimes I wonder why God hasn't just let me die yet for my ignorance.

Back to knives.....I have been carrying small fixed blade knives for practically all my life. I had a local custom knife maker build a couple of small fixed blades to my specifications. But Joe passed many years ago, however not before I sent several guys his way who rode with me and admired by knifes he made for them.

Between Joe passing and a couple years ago I had no option but to direct people to a couple custom knife makers, but many balk at $200 + price tags. Then I discovered a knife maker who makes several knives I found suitable for a cowboying knife. By suitable I mean a blade length of 2 7/8 to 3 1/2 inches (4 inches wouldn't be too long either), full tang and decent thickness for durability under rough use, and, forged from a steel that will hold an edge. These are the knives I offer on my site. Seven inch total length with a 3 1/2 inch blade, 1/8 inch thick for toughness, Damascus steel forged from 5160 and 4340 steel, finger groove for retainability when hands are slick or when wearing gloves, full tang blade with either cow bone or stabilized rosewood handle secured with five pins, and a lanyard hole where I rattlesnake braid a strip of leather to aid in drawing.

These knives are very reasonably priced at $60 and can be offered at that low priced because they are made from Damascus blanks and cut on CNC machinery, so they are not custom knifes, except maybe for the fit and finish, but they sure look it and perform as well as any knife I have owned.

I recently did a search of custom makers on the internet, which prompted Google to think that's all I wanted to see and be reminded of in the weeks since, but showed me many production knife makers offering alike knives at prices exceeding $250. However, there are other options that offer good value and a good knife. Cow Camp Supply has very reasonably priced quality knifes, fixed blade and folding, suitable for carrying horseback. One the knives that Sparky Wallace, the owner of Cow Camp, offers is a very popular palm knife. On the higher priced side there is the Montana Knife Company who offer very stunning small fixed blade knives suitable as well for the working cowboy, hunter or anyone else who finds a small fixed blade knife a tool they can't do without. A nice fixed blade knife is certainly a great tool to have on hand, as well as being a very nice gift to pass onto someone.