The Fowler Dismemberer

Dismember:

To tear apart or tear limb from limb, to divide into little pieces, that is the prime directive for a knife such as this one. Bladesmith Stephan Fowler custom built this incredible subhilt vivisector for another man. Due to the hard economic times the original owner decided to sell it to help fund his child’s college fees. Sadly there is a lot of this going on as people make personal sacrifices to hedge against the lingering recession. I was pleased to have the opportunity to purchase it and honored to now own it.

This is truly a monster of a knife. The forged blade has a prominent undulating hamon. The knife’s perfect proportions belie the fact that it has an 11.25 inch x 2 inch recurved blade for a total OAL of 16.5 inches! Yes this is indeed one big knife. A fine piece of gnarly stag (Elk I am guessing based on the size) graces the grip. The handle is slightly big for my hands, but I can learn to adjust to that. A steel buttcap matches the contours of the stag and it is fitted seamlessly. This knife’s point of balance falls precisely at the ricasso. High grind lines create a very sharp primary edge and the long unsharpened false edge improves the overall balance. The weight of this piece is similar to the Kukri and Barong in my collection. A friend of mine who is a knife-maker told me there is no such thing as a slow knife, only a slow knife-fighter. This knife may prove him wrong. To be fair, I have not had a chance to work with this knife yet. But I suspect it will not be as agile as some of my other “smaller” Bowies. I will withhold judgment on its maneuverability until I have had adequate time to work with it. In my opinion, subhilt knives tend to be less flexible in flow drills than a standard grip knife. In exchange you gain improved weapon retention. Giving this Fowler knife (and my right wrist) a workout is something I am looking forward to.

Stephan Fowler also made the high quality, hand tooled, leather sheath. The sheath features an innovative removable belt loop secured in place by snaps. This design feature provides you with the option of using either the belt loop, or a simple stud to retain the knife IWB style. All in all, it is a splendid fighting knife of the highest quality workmanship and materials. to Mr. Fowler’s credit, this is a grand fighting knife! The rifle is a Cooper Super Varmint rifle in .308 winchester with a bushnell 4200 elite 10x mildot Scope.