In the day, the semi-standard decent production throwning knife was the Olsen #409, and we sold a lot of them. The broke infrequently, but Olsen was good about replacing them, zero questions asked.

The 600 pound gorilla of the production knives was the Bowie Axe, sold by Tru-Bal. Harry McEvoy ran the company, and he was the Grande Olde Man of the throwing knife art. I never saw one of those behemoths broken. We sold a fair few, a lot less then the Olsens, but for a not inexpensive toy, pretty well, certainly around a dozen a year. McEvoy had some relationship with Randall, btw.

In more modern print....if a half-century ago is modern. J.D. MacDonald's beach bum protagonist is marooned due to being shoaled awaiting a favourable tide and passes the tedium by learning to throw and stick an oyster knife. Using that experience and finding himself and accompanying piece of fluff in the involuntarily custody of the antagonist, he sharpens a garden trowel and tosses it enough to reacquaint the technique. It almost works when he sticks the bad guy but loses the girl in the fracas. See "a long and lavender look".

This is more about tossing knives at stationary targets, not even the screaming lady on the spinning wheel.

Otony

Exactly. Hold onto the knife with one hand.
Hold onto the sixgun with another.
Throw a bullet with the sixgun.

In NW Arkansas we have a place to do this in Tontitown Arkansas. Ozark Sportsman has an area dedicated to this. I do not participate in this, as if I threw an axe or knife at at an enemy I would just be giving him a weapon to use against me.

Now you mention the tommyhawker thingy, David Orchard gifted me one many years ago, and I find myself wondering what I ever did with it. Don't recall seeing it in the cache up north and it's definitely not down here.

But I digress, give SOG a looksee, although they are no where near "reenactment grade", just purpose built steel projectiles.

We had a fence around the backyard that had been put up in 1956 or ‘57, and it was truly stout. Made from dimensional redwood, the fence planks were an actual 1” thick, and it was coated with red barn paint.

I got it in my head that I was going to start throwing that old knife, and very quickly learned how to hold and toss it so that it stuck in the wooden fence. Somehow this endeavor escaped the notice of my Dad, else I probably wouldn’t be here to report this.

About twenty years later, I was busy involving myself in living history, reenactment, and one of the typical events of strength involved throwing knives and tomahawks at slabs of tree trunks.

Well, I could still stick a knife, but somehow throwing a ‘hawk escaped me. I never learned the angle of the dangle. If I stuck a tomahawk once out of a couple of dozen attempts it would have been considered a miracle by those present, but with a knife it was virtually first time, every time.

Unfortunately, the common practice was that if you were in the knife competition, naturally you were going to demonstrate your prowess with a tommy chopper as well. Thus ended my interest in that particular slice of manliness and I more or less resigned myself to the shooting competitions.

Flash forward forty years, and I now find myself interested in throwing knives again, but I’m wondering if anyone else practices the sport, and if so, what are you using? In my batman in the boondocks days (incidentally, I portrayed a woodsman of the French & Indian War period, not a mountain man) the ideal throwing knife was from an outfit called HB Forge, and I see they are still in business. But I’m sure that there are other types out there, beyond the mind boggling number of offerings from China and Pakistan (how did Pakistan become the world’s most prolific maker of cheap knives btw?). Surely there are other choices, something that would be considered “professional” grade?

So long story made interminable, if you are throwing knives, what are you using? Considering the end use, I suppose even the questionable steel of Pakistani cutlery would suffice, but that still leaves the question of which ones. Any suggestions?

Otony