1/4-inch-thick steel and a near-indestructible handle on that one. Plus, it would, I'm sure, be capable of inflicting horrendous wounds if called upon to do so.
1/4-inch-thick steel and a near-indestructible handle on that one. Plus, it would, I'm sure, be capable of inflicting horrendous wounds if called upon to do so.
Those'll do nicely. I've long carried an Ontario pilot-survival knife, the short little 5-inch bowie. I pitch the *sharpening* stone from the pocket for it on the sheath and pop in a cutdown magnesium firestarter instead. The one I've got now was an issue *gift* dated 1968, pretty well beat up, but it works.
Rather than a traditional Arkansas/Texas Bowie, I tend to prefer the Gurkha Khukuri, which I've also got decades of practice and familiarity with.
So far as a real full-length sword, I've seen the Ontario *Black Wands* used by some as both fighter and near-machete-much like the cutdown cavalry sabers issued as *Machete, substitute* during the early days of WWII in the Pacifac, to Coastwatchers and Marine Raiders, among others. I've made do with an 18-inch blade Blackie Collins d-handle machete, but more as tool than fighter. If it came right down to that, I think I'd prefer an entrenching tool in a real fight [BTDT] rather than the shorty machete, I might feel otherwise if I was more used to one with a bit more length.
But I'd like to do some serious practice with the sword/saber, and shorty shovels aren't much for ceremonial presentations, either. Maybe after I've seen the Mel Gibson Christos movie I'll have a taste for Gladius Iberius again, but I think their time has come and gone....
