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
All of my practical knowledge of knife ergonomics comes from martial arts and not knife making, but I'll give it a go.
I'm assuming by "allows your wrist to stay straight" you mean that if you were holding a rod in your closed fist it would be at a perfect perpendicular angle to the centerline average of your radius and ulna. And so a very aggressive pistol grip would be almost perpendicular to the blade edge?
I've seen a couple blades like that at knife and guns shows and never been a big fan.
The strongest alignment for both delivering and receiving force along the path through your closed fist is with your wrist slightly tilted so that the II and III metacarpals (hand bones behind your first and middle fingers) are brought into alignment with your radius and ulna. This is how most martial arts teach punching. This is also why modern pistol grips are the shape they are. When held correctly the pistol recoil is directed against the backup mass of your whole arm and body, and not just against the strength of your wrist.
For a chopping blade, a slightly curved handle (like the historic muzzle loading pistol handles) puts your wrist in the alignment to correctly support and absorb most of the recoil force from the impact with whatever you may be chopping.
If you had a modern pistol grip angle on a fighting knife or chopper (almost like a punch dagger handle?) you are moving the moment of inertia at the contact point to a much steeper angle that will actually destabilize your wrist. So, I'm not a huge fan of the idea for practical purposes, but it might look cool anyway.
-Zach
