02Nov05

Sage advice from a friend at the front:

"Comment on folding knives: Nearly all have no discernible hilt be tween handle and blade. The design makes for a slim profile, but, when your blad e is employed to save a life, for example; persuading someone (whom it is inconvenient to shoot at the moment) to let go of you, inadvertently cutting your own index finger to the bone in the process is unlikely to be helpful!

One must concentrate on cutting, scraping, and avulsing with these knives, rather than stabbing directly into the body cavity. When you must stab, confine your target to the abdomen where the blade is unlikely to encounter

anything hard. You can then cut strongly on the way out. Stabbing into th e chest, or other bony area, carries with it the risk of inadvertently sliding your own hand onto the blade.

A better strategy is to scrape the forearm of the person who just grabbed you, starting with the wrist and pushing the blade toward the elbow. He'll

probably let go! If not, you can then cut across his neck and/or bicep, avoiding deep, direct thrusts when possible.

A fixed blade, with a genuinely functional hilt, obviously offers more options and can be drawn and employed faster than most folders. For seriou s carry over here, heavy, strong fixed blades are the best choice, particularly where concealment is not an issue. However, we are wallowing in a sea of incomprehensible and constantly changing 'restrictions' here . Where concealment is an issue, one must become creative, and folders may be the only option. =9D

Comment: A good blade is a wonderful complement to one's pistol(s) a nd rifle. It is no secret that my favorite maker is Cold Steel, but there are

others, like Gerber and Al Mar, who put out a good product too. These are things that must be considered carefully, before the critical moment.

As Confederate General AS Johnson put it at the dawn of the Battle of Shilo h on 6 Apr 1862, "The battle has opened, gentlemen. It is too late to change our dispositions."

/John