A shot of the Gil Hibben Highlander Bowie :
and drawn :
This is a production version of the Gil Hibben Highlander Bowie made by stock removal out of quarter inch thick stainless steel (unknown grade). The knife weighs 380 grams and balances a quarter of an inch in front of the guard. It has a half height sabre-hollow grind on a blade that is just under two inches wide, and has an almost full length hollow ground false edge. The edge is 0.022-0.026" thick and ground at a semi-standard 20.0 (1.3) degrees per side. The blade was shaving sharp when new, the fit and finish were in general high. Before any work was done with the blade it was sharpened and the edge profile adjusted to enhance ease of sharpening.
Push cutting 3/8" hemp required 25-29 lbs lbs through the tip.
With a full grip, the Highlander bowie had 67 (5) % of the performance of the Gransfors Bruks Wildlife hatchet on scrap wood as well as felled 2-3" pine and spruce.
The point on the Highlander bowie is rather acute in profile given the swedge. With a 50 lbs push it sank 138 (3) pages into a phone book and with a hard vertical stab penetrated deeply to 763 (31) pages. The point could not be used to dig through a 2x4 as lacked the strength due to the soft steel and slim profile.
On trimming fats and slicing meats, the Highlander bowie did well as this reflects simply sharpness, similar for soft fruits and vegetables. However its large size limits functionality, it is near impossibly for precision tasks such as peeling potatoes, the thick blade also fracture stiffer vegetables preventing thin slices and requiring more force to be used on the cut. The heavily recurved blade shape and large guard also effectively eliminates its use as on a cutting board.
The Highlander bowie actually works well for brush work, the chopping ability is easily enough to handle limbing two to four inches trees for shelter, fire, etc. . While thick bark can be pried off and rotted wood generally broken apart, the knife has little ability to dig/pry in solid woods due to the deep clip and mainly the soft steel.
The biggest issue is with limbing. All the force of the swing is directed on a small section of edge and thus the pressure is many times greater than when chopping through thick woods. The Highlander Bowie was first used to limb out some pine. The branches were open and thus there was no possibility of glances. The bowie worked well, easily lopping off the branches of trees four to five inches thick at the base.
On harder woods, working up to where a significant elbow swing and fast wrist snap were used, the blade forcefully cut through even hardwoods stubs. The edge again held up fine with no problems. For a harder task, a piece of soft pine was selected with heavy ingrowth of branches, which were twisted together in a heavy lattice work. It would be near impossible to cut through the branches without the blade likely hitting one of the limbs at an odd angle.
After about a half a dozen chops into the tangle of limbs, the bowie took a large dent, about a quarter of an inch deep. The edge had bent significantly to the side (a few millimeters), and was deep, the blade was 0.050" thick at the back of the dent which was about 0.35" wide. With the blade so damaged, further such work was continued and the edge continued. After about two hundred and fifty chops, the edge had over six large visible ripples of about one centimeter or so wide, and multiple millimeters deep.
To restore the edge, a hammer was used to pound the dents back in line (the poll of the Wildlife hatchet) and then a bastard file was used to reset the edge, total time was under ten minutes.
The edge even with the 20 degree micro bevel did not stand up well to chopping hard woods. It would tend to roll readily when cutting through knots. However a substantial amount of wood would have to be cut before such deformations were visible. On average, after about 250 chops, a few sections of edge, a centimeter or so long would be rolled and reflecting light. The chopping performance of the blade was not significantly degraded, however the fine precision cutting ability (such as cutting light grasses, paper, etc.) was noticeably reduced.
The grip has a decent swell though slight, it tapers from 0.933" thick at maximum, to 0.847". In width it also reduces slightly down to 1.18" from a maximum of 1.34". The chain is slightly abrasive, not as much as the checkering on the Reeve Project, but much more so than normal Micarta or G10 finishes. The biggest problem is that, the grip is a little slippery in spite of the chain wrapping and thus combined with the end hook being too severe has the grip get uncomfortable quickly when chopping and general hacking - the pinky takes a pounding readily.
The sheath is made from leather with solid stitching. The blade was held in place securely, and could be drawn and sheathed without danger of cutting the material. The belt loop was nice and wide and the sheath also had a handle snap to secure the blade in place.
The cutting ability of the Hibben bowie with the slightly modified edge is in fact decently high. While not of the chopping power of a truly optimized large bowie, the Hibben easily out chops many tactical knives. It actual works decently well for brush work however care would have to be taken while limbing as even with light elbow swings the edge visibly dented when it took lateral impacts.
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| Last updated : | Jun 23 : 2004 |
| Originally written : | Jun 23 : 2004 |