The Martialist: The Magazine For Those Who Fight Unfairly

After high school I “graduated” to more interesting,
high-speed flashy knives. In fact I was one of the first people in my
area to own a Spyderco Police Model. That strange looking folder with
the hole in the blade was exotic to me at that time. I considered the
Puma boring and “old school.”

Martialist Publisher
Phil Elmore recently sent me a new Puma fixed blade and I soon realized
how much I missed the old days. “Try this one out and tell me if
you like it,” Phil said in an accompanying note. “I think
this knife is right up your alley,” He quipped.

The Puma Original Bowie, (model 116396) came in a long black box
with no documentation in the box. As a consequence, I had to resort to
the Internet to find out details regarding this knife, but discovered a
great deal about it. The Puma sports a 6 and 1/2-inch blade and is 11
inches overall, which makes it long, but not thick like conventional
Bowie style knives. The website noted that this Puma is made of D1.4
special cutlery steel. Finding information in this particular grade of
steel was nigh on impossible, but here is what I discovered. It is
apparently related to a type of welding sheet steel used in the ship
building industry. The steel is also utilized in the manufacture of
very hard steel bolts used in the aforementioned construction process.
There is a marking on the blade, which indicates that it has a Rockwell
hardness of 57-59 as well. Not much to go by, I know, but know this.
Over two weeks, I cut basically everything that one could cut with a
large hunting knife other than wild game. The blade sliced through it
all with ease and didn’t need sharpening until a week into the
tests. I only needed to touch it up after a session of use cutting
scraps of leather out of an old couch my father and I are currently
reupholstering. That isn’t too bad and certainly is not unusual
for this sort of constant use.

The blade ends with a polished stainless guard that well protects
your index finger in any cutting situation. I personally like a
full-size guard with protection on the top of the blade as well as the
bottom. It just makes sense to me in terms of maximizing the control
the user has on his knife. This is especially good when you are digging
down into the guts of a recently shot game animal. Many people
don’t share my preference though. For them, the guard on this
Puma will be just fine.

The handles are made of Indian Stag, which are very nice looking.
They are fitted precisely and look almost as if they grew there. The
knife has three holes, which house brass fasteners, holding the handles
to the blade. The handles also have what I surmise is a lanyard hole in
the middle as well. The only thing I dislike about the handle is the
fact that it is too short. By that I mean I am used to hunting knives
sporting handles that go all the way across my palm. This model is just
a hair too short. I’m just a stickler for maximum control, for
some people the length of the handles would be just fine. I was born
with ham hands, and what is too small for me is perfectly acceptable
for some others.

The sheath supplied with this knife is unusual, but very nice. It
doesn’t really resemble the average fixed blade sheath. In my
opinion, it looks more like a handgun holster. More specifically a Sam
Browne style rig. Made of dark brown leather, it is almost square in
shape, and cants outward, pulling the butt of the knife away from your
body. When you think about, this sort of a cant makes sense if you are
wearing this with a long coat, or a heavy sweater and a normal sheath
knife might be hard to get your hands on. One this is very clear with
this sheath. With the safety strap and a leather loop that goes around
the top of the sheath, one would have to work awfully hard to lose the
knife from it in the woods.

If the user eschews new inventions like Kydex or Concealex, and
prefers old school designs that hearken back to the memory of
grandpa’s old hunting knife, he will like this one.

It would fit right in at any hunting camp of yesterday, and still does the job today.