MAGNUM MAGNUM - Jeffersonian

For their 20 th wedding
anniversary,
Yvonne surprised
Duke with this
Damascus
Bowie knife
by custom
maker
Steve Brooks.
SHOOTINGIRON
Mike “Duke” Venturino
TM
Photos: Yvonne Venturino
THUMB BUSTIN’
MUSINGS FROM
THE DUKE
Our Editorship gave
Duke this K-bar years
before Duke became
a staffer here at
Handgunner.
SHARP EDGES
Recently there was a letter printed in these pages mould maker and a friend for over 20 years. His beautifully
bemoaning the fact Handgunner sometimes prints crafted Damascus knives bring hefty prices, but about 15
knife articles. That caused me to give a moment’s years back I finally afforded one for myself — a modest sized
thought to my own sharp edges. I said to myself, “I’m not hunting knife. Then for our 20 th wedding anniversary Yvonne
much of a knife guy: I’m a gun guy. That is except for my knocked my socks off. She surprised me with a beautiful
Spyderco folder and my Steve Brooks Damascus Bowie. Brooks’ Damascus Bowie knife. It has an 8" blade and a handle
And except for a couple of Damascus hunting knives. And made of buffalo horn. Bowie knives are not the most practical
except for the British Commando dagger I stumbled onto. of items nowadays but I treasure mine for obvious reasons.
And except for that big box full of bayonets that go with my Two of my knives have my name on them. One is a
military rifle collection. And except for my replica US Model Damascus hunting knife with deer antler handle that has my
1860 cavalry saber and oh yeah, I can’t forget the newest one: name scrimshawed on its base. It simply arrived in the mail one
a genuine Japanese World War II officer’s saber.”
day with a letter. Its West Virginia maker is a reader and since I
Well, I guess the bottom line is I do have a lot of sharp was born and raised in that state he said he made that knife for
edges. Some of them, like the hunting knives, have seen their me as a friendly gesture. The other one carries my nickname
share of use. Others, like the replica US cavalry saber, are “Duke” engraved on its blade and was a birthday present from
used only as photo props.
a friend. Again for obvious
Steve Brooks is a Montana based custom knife and bullet reasons I treasure them too.
Useless Edges
To a civilian bayonets are just about as useless as
swords, which today are perhaps the most useless
of all edged weapons. Still when I began
assembling a collection of military rifles it seemed
natural to obtain bayonets to go with them. I have
a couple of the triangular type bayonets going with
late 1800s rifle/muskets, a similar one fitting a
Winchester 1873 .44-40 musket and other bladetype
bayonets fitting Krags, Garands, Springfields,
Enfields, Mausers, Arisakas and more.
Another rather useless edged weapon of military
origin was one I found on one of my numerous
road trips in a pawnshop in Fort Collins, Co. It’s a
dagger of the type the British issued to their Commandos
in World War II. I believe they are called
Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knives. This one has a 6"
blade and grooved hilt of some sort of non-ferrous
metal. Its only markings are “England” on the handguard
and the numeral “1” near the end of the hilt.
Besides dressing up an occasional photo with it, the
only purpose it sees is in opening boxes. Its edges
aren’t that sharp but that point is wickedly so.
This replica cavalry saber is good for one thing —
as a photo prop!
Uh-Oh, here we go again. Duke
with a helmet and weapons! This
time he’s showing off a genuine
Japanese World War II officer’s sword
recently given to him by a friend, and
a Nambu. If you don’t laugh at this,
there’s something wrong with you!
Sword Silliness
And lastly there are the swords.
I say they’re the most useless
of all edged weapons today
because swords have absolutely no
other practical use than in fighting.
Guns serve much better for that. The
replica cavalry saber is inexpensive
and came from Dixie Gun Works.
Except as a photo prop the only thing I’ve ever done with it is to tie a
long piece of ribbon from the hilt. Then I’ve jammed it in the ground
at the firing line of a silhouette match to serve as a wind-flag. That got
laughs from my buddies.
The Japanese officer’s sword is special to me. A few months
back when I arrived at one of our Montana BPCR Silhouette events
a friend walked up and handed me this “Samurai sword.” He said,
“Here add this to your World War II collection.” It had Japanese
writing under the hilt, which turned out to indicate it was handmade
by a rather well known sword maker during World War II. That one
will be with me forever.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Years before our editor Roy was my
boss, I was visiting at his home. He gave me a K-bar like the US
Marine Corps has issued for decades. It’s not going anywhere
either. I guess I am sort of a knife guy too.
*
30 WWW.AMERICANHANDGUNNER.COM • MARCH/APRIL 2011