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first things first
What's the first thing everyone thinks of when they talk about
throwing knives - Balance!
Well its hooey! If balance were really that important, there wouldn't
be anybody throwing axes I can tell you that! The only thing balance
determines is the knife's suitability as a handle vs. a blade thrower.
A knife that is handle heavy, throws more easily when gripped from the
blade. A blade-heavy knife (for example a typical Bowie) is more
easily thrown from the handle. Only knives that are balanced very
close to their center point can be thrown equally well from handle or
blade. So what is important? Three things, weight, length, and
the weight/length ratio.
Length is important because a longer knife turns more slowly. This is
good. It means that the knife will travel further horizontally for every
turn or fraction of a turn it makes. In practical terms, it means that
for any given throw, the knife will stick in the target over a wider
throwing distance. That is, the difference between being too close and
being too far grows larger as the knife gets longer.
Weight is important for control and momentum. As the knife gets longer,
it is affected more by air pressure. If it is not heavy enough, it will
start to "float" or "wobble". Lighter knives that do well at 1/2 or even
1 turn will often begin to exhibit the effects of air pressure at 1 and
1/2 to 2 turns. A knife that is too light must be thrown harder to
insure its stable flight to the target. This can put an unnecessary
strain on the throwing arm, much like trying to throw a small pebble as
hard as you can. A heavier knife has more momentum even when thrown a
bit more slowly. Weight, because of the momentum effect, also makes a
great deal of difference in a hunting situation. Even a well thrown and
very sharp, but light knife will not do enough damage to kill any but
the smallest game, and possibly not even that. A heavy knife, by
contrast, can stun small game even if it doesn't strike point first!
As a rule, the ideal ratio between length and weight appears to be
somewhere around 1 ounce per inch. That is, a 12 inch knife should weigh
about 12 ounces. As the knife gets bigger, a slightly greater ratio is
preferred, say 1.25 ounces/inch, while a smaller knife, for example 8 to
11 inches, might do well with a ratio around 0.80 ounces/inch. Still
smaller knives in the 6 to 8 inches might throw well with a
weight/length ratio down around 0.6 or 0.7 ounces/inch. Such knives,
however, while they can be fun to throw, are more or less useless from a
survival viewpoint.
other considerations
Remember though that these are rules of thumb and can be over-ridden in
special situations. I have a very small indoor throwing range in which I
can perform half turn and full turn throws with very small knives and 6
inch nails. My knives, in this case have a weight/length ratio of about
0.5 which is just fine for indoors at short distances. Since I'm
throwing at cardboard targets, anything heavier would quickly go
completely through my target material and ruin the walls!
Location is another factor. Larger knives require larger, thicker
targets. In my first year of throwing, my largest knives were about 11
inches long. Most of the time I was throwing things in the 8 to 10 inch
range. My targets were made out of 2 inch thick Fir, and lasted months
before I had to change out boards. In my second year, I began throwing
larger knives, 11 to 16 inches. Some of these would shear through the
two inch boards in but a dozen throws! I had to upgrade to much heavier
4 inch thick Fir.
There is also, of course, cost. I have seen small and too-light sets of
throwing knives for as little as $4 a knife. I admit that my own first
set was one of these, and I broke them all, but not until after they
taught me the basics. The better off-the-rack throwers like the Hibbens,
Cold Steel TFTs run anywhere
from $15 to $25 each. The "Blazing Arrow", a cheap Chinese knockoff
of the Harald Moeller
VIPER, can be had for even less, usually about
$10, and while not very good, is more than adequate at this price.
The big BlackJack "broadhead", probably the best single off-the-rack thrower
at 12 inches and 14 ounces, used to be about $25, and was about the
best over-all deal around, but BlackJack stopped making them in early
1997, and then went out of business, so if you find any of these, buy
them!
There are also more expensive and higher quality hand made, or at least
mostly hand made throwers from such names as Branton, Lee, Karp, McEvoy,
Moeller, and a few others. They are nice knives, fun to throw, and can
run anywhere from $25 to $175 each. You can find listings for places
to buy all of these knives (except the blackjack) in our
catalogs and
custom pages.
back to balance
OK, so why so much talk about balance in the first place? Well it works this
way... A knife will spin about its center of gravity. If you have a 12 inch
knife balanced in its exact center, it will make a circle with a 6 inch radius, a 12 inch circle. Suppose you take the 12 inch knife that is balanced at 4
inches from one end? It will make a circle with an 8 inch radius, a 16 inch
circle.
Now if you throw both knives with the same forward speed
(say from the handle), it will take the
second knife a little longer to make a full 16 inch circle than the first
knife does a 12 inch circle. So if the center-balanced knife hits perfectly
at 12 feet for your throw, the off-balance knife will hit at 13 feet or
perhaps a little more. So what? So nothing. That is the point. The
off-balance knife will be just as consistent in its behavior (assuming it
is heavy enough) as the balanced knife. The only other issue is this:
If you pick up a longer or shorter balanced knife, you will have only one
variation to worry about. A 12 inch knife will describe a 12 inch circle,
a 14 inch knife will make a 14 inch circle, and an 8 inch knife will make
an 8 inch circle. This will NOT be true of off-balanced knives because the
size of their circle depends not only on how long the knife is, but also on
where it is balanced. Therefore, changing from one off-balance knife to
another requires an adjustment in 2 parameters. It isn't that it can't
be done, it's just a little harder. And that, my friend, is the story!
resources
Please have a look at the rest of the thrower page for more information.
On it you will find pointers to catalogs, custom fabricators, the thrower
mailing list, and more.
If you didn't get here from there already, just click
HERE to go to it.
Be well, and let gravity prevail!
Matthew Rapaport,
mjr@crl.com
This page is part of the official ARCHIVE COPY of the pioneering but abandoned Thrower website on knife throwing. Copyright and details