A 2″ Damascus neck knife with a mammoth ivory handle. Photo: Scott A. Roush
Every writer I’ve visited seems to have plenty of “stuff” within arm’s reach of their writing quarters to be admired, picked-up, held and fondled. Perhaps this common thread of ceremonial “examinations” stimulates the mind, bursting the dam of backed-up words?
Me? My writing quarters consists of my laptop computer on the kitchen table. Next to me are stacks of notes, magazines, used targets, product printouts, along with an old Jeep console insert. Inside the compartments are numerous cartridges, cast bullets, sixgun stocks, pens, screwdrivers and calipers. My nomadic “office” is functional, easily allowing me to move it at my wife’s whims, such as clearing room for dinner.
When needing a break, I reach over and fondle something from the console, consoling me until the “damned-up” words start trickling again. Sometimes social media jump-starts flatlined brain activity. Just yesterday, while scrolling, one photo causes me to pause with its “wow” factor …
A 5″ Damascus steel blade with Sambar stag handle and wrought iron butt cap.
Photo: SharpByCoop.com
Frontier Knives, Hawks and Leather
What I see is a Damascus steel bowie with fossilized walrus handle and the most unique forged handguard I’d ever seen. Partnered with the jumbo blade is a sheath looking like its darn near 150 years old, something an old mountain man would carry with its feather, fringe and bead adornments — and who hasn’t fantasized about being a mountain man? I’ve wanted to be a mountain man since I was six.
The more I stare, the more I drool, wishing I could grab this beauty from the screen. Talk about virtual brain stimulation! I’m excited, not even holding this rustic pig-sticker. I click on the maker’s name, drawing me further into a world of recreated tomahawks, smaller skinner blades, camp blades and utility blades, all with a distinctively unique finish and flair.
These tools are worthy of a shaman’s most secret of spiritual rituals, or a sourdough’s daily duties. With this modern thing we call the Internet, I contact the maker, chuckling at the irony of using a computer for vintage looking goods.
Bear jawbone Damascus Folder with elk antler bolster and 5″ blade.
Photo: SharpByCoop.com
John Cohea
John Cohea has been making knives for 22 years. Seeing a Fisk Damascus steel blade set him on the path of making a knife looking like it was old. Through trial and error, John succeeded. He gets his Damascus blade blanks from Chad Nichols, who forges them from 1095 and 15N20 Swedish tool steel, for the most beautiful Damascus patterns you ever saw.
Using a propane gas forge, John heats and hammers the blanks into form, grinds for final shape and heat treats them for an extremely durable and sharp edge holding blade. He uses natural handle materials of bear jawbone, fossilized walrus tusk, sambar stag, elk antler or ornamental hardwoods. These blades are working pieces of art. They are made strong to be used hard!
The bolsters, and guards are made of forged wrought iron, many times using age-correct period steel, such as chain links or wagon-wheel hoops, adding to authenticity of the blade or hawk.
Warhawk! Weathered barn-oak handle with 5160 steel. Weathered oak on neck knife.
Visual Stimulation
Words are useless describing these treasures. Rather than ramble on, I’d rather have pictures do the talking of John’s work as they tell the tale better than anyone ever could.
John can be reached through Facebook and Instagram under John M Cohea Frontier Style Knives, Hawks and Leather, or simply call him at (662) 322-5916. Let him fulfill your mountain man fantasies with authentic looking/working knives, hawks and leather. His lead time is anywhere from 1–6 months. One of his knives, hawks and leather may be what I need to keep the words flowing. It couldn’t hurt.
From the first recorded use of a firearm in the middle of the 13th century until 1840, guns had to be loaded from the muzzle, one shot at a time. Nearly 30 years later the first self-contained cartridge with a central primer came about, and about the same time the concept of a repeating rifle operated by an under-lever debuted.
So it took roughly 450 years to go from the idea of using black powder as a fuel to launch projectiles from a tube to a breech-loading, repeating rifle. The last two decades of the 19th century were arguably some of the most fascinating due to a flurry of firearm development.
John Moses Browning took B. Tyler Henry’s concept of a lever-action rifle and began improving it. First came the Model 1886 Winchester that discarded the toggle-link lockup of the 1860,’66,’73 and ’76 lever actions and replaced it with two vertical, rectangular bolts of solid steel.
The result was a rifle that was easier to operate and capable of handling some of the most powerful cartridges of the time. Then Browning miniaturized the ’86, scaling it down to handle the popular pistol cartridges of the day—the Model 1892. The development of smokeless gun powder prompted Browning to completely redesign the lever-action lock-work, producing the Model 1894 Winchester, the most successful lever-action rifle ever made.
But the development in Europe of the turn-bolt rifle and its bottlenecked, high-velocity cartridges with their pointed bullets piqued the interest of American shooters. They liked the flat-shooting, hard-hitting cartridges, however, the pointed bullets were unsuited for the tubular, under-barrel-mounted magazines of the lever actions. Americans—with their innate penchant toward the biggest, fastest and most powerful—wanted a fast-operating, lever-action rifle that could safely shoot the new bottlenecked cartridges with their pointy bullets.
Once again, Winchester turned to John Browning, and the Utah gun designer did not disappoint. Within a year of the debut of the Model 1894, Browning designed and Winchester produced the Model 1895 lever-action rifle.
The challenges facing Browning were basically twofold: First, he needed to design a magazine that could safely store and load to the breech cartridges with pointed bullets. Secondly, he needed a receiver with enough strength to handle the new high-intensity cartridges. Actually, one could say there was a third consideration, one that constantly spurred the genius gunmaker throughout his lifetime. That is, the rifle had to perform smoothly and be pleasing to the eye.
To address the first issue, Browning designed a single-column, integral box magazine that positioned the cartridges under the receiver and just behind the breech. A staggered-column magazine—a la Mauser—would increase the bulk of an already robust rifle to an unacceptable degree. The single-column magazine is utterly reliable, sleek and lightweight. Its follower is powered by a spring that extends underneath the barrel and into the fore-end. Notches toward the rear of the magazine box allow the cartridges to be freed as the round is guided up a short ramp at the breech. The bolt can then push the cartridge into the chamber.
If this system had any shortcomings, it would be the loading procedure. It is more an unfamiliar routine than a shortcoming, though. It is easier to perform than to explain. To properly load a ’95, grasp a cartridge mid-section with the thumb and forefinger; depress the follower toward the front with the head of the cartridge; slide the head of the cartridge in the hand to the rear, ensuring the head of the cartridge passes underneath the magazine lips; and tilt the front of the cartridge down to the follower or cartridge. Since most of the cartridges chambered in the ’95 had external rims, following this procedure is critical to ensuring proper feeding.
In order to harness the power of the cartridges intended for the Model 1895, Browning modified the cross-bolt locking lug he utilized in the 1894 rifle, shortening and thickening it, and mounting it in a more massive receiver. Initial Model ’95s had a round-top bolt, a flat-sided receiver that flared slightly toward the front to accommodate the fore-end and a one-piece lever. Around serial number 5000, approximately 1/16th of an inch was added to the width of the top of the receiver, along with a tapered scallop toward the bottom of the receiver to save weight. Later versions also went to a flat-topped bolt. The second model was when the one-piece lever evolved into a two-piece one.
The Model 1895 was initially offered in .30-40 Krag (often stamped .30 U.S. Army), .38-72 and .40-72. These later chamberings were never big sellers and were discontinued in 1909. The .303 British was added in 1898; 1903 saw the debut of the .35 W.C.F.; a year later, the great .405 Winchester became part of the Model 1895 line. In 1905, the .30-03 was added, only to be supplanted by the .30-06 in 1908. A contract with Russia that scooped up nearly half of the total production of Model 1895 Winchesters were chambered in 7.65x54R.
Rifle versions had barrels from 24 to 30 inches in length, depending on chambering and the customer’s order. Carbines had a standard barrel length of 22 inches, musket barrels stretched to 28 inches. Stocks were usually of straight-grained wood. Crescent buttplates were standard on rifles, while carbines and muskets had a modified shotgun-style buttplate. True shotgun-style buttplates of steel or hard rubber were available on special order. Pistol-grip stocks were seen on some early ’95s with flat receivers, but when the second models came about with heavier, fluted receivers and two-piece levers, the pistol-gripped stock was no longer an option. Three specific second-model rifles were specially adapted to pistol grips.
The Model 1895 was a popular rifle among hunters. Most famous, of course, is President Theodore Roosevelt and his son, Kermit, who took three Model ’95s —two in .405 Winchester and one in .30-03 to Africa in 1909. Martin and Osa Johnson were also known to favor Model ’95s, as did the author Stewart Edward Wright. The U.S. Army contracted for 10,000 copies in May 1898, but delivery was fraught with problems. A year later, 100 Model ’95 muskets were sent to the Philippine Islands, but the local Ordnance Board’s unfavorable report resulted in the sale of those muskets to a Boston dealer. The remaining 9,900 muskets were shipped to a New York dealer who sold them to Cuba in 1906. Some 293,816 Model ’95 muskets were sold under contract to Russia from 1915 to 1916. A few other smaller nations procured nominal amounts of the Model 1895 muskets, and Mexican revolutionaries—particularly Pancho Villa and his henchmen—were fond of it as well.
Some of the rarest versions of the Model 1895 are the NRA muskets. Beginning in 1904 with the .30 Army (.30-40 Krag), these special-ordered muskets featured 24- to 30-inch barrels, Model 1901 Krag-Jorgenson sights and flat buttplates. From 1908 to 1917, NRA muskets were available in .30-03, and the .30-06 was chambered in it from 1907 through 1926.
This last lever-action rifle designed by John Browning had a pretty good run, from 1895 through 1936—though a few more were assembled from parts as late as 1940. In all about 425,000 Model 1895 rifles were produced, more than three quarters of them muskets. Forty-eight years after production in New Haven officially ceased, Browning introduced a limited-edition Model 1895, manufactured by Miroku in Japan. Calibers were .30-06 and .270 Winchester. Eleven years later, in 1995, USRAC offered a limited edition Model 1895 in .405 Winchester; then offered it again in 2005 in a takedown version, of which I have one.
In the end, what precipitated the demise of the ’95 was the cost to produce it. This rifle requires a lot of costly machining and hand fitting. Hunters and shooters could get the same performance and cartridges from less expensive surplus bolt-action rifles. The Depression was the final nail in the coffin for this elegant and graceful rifle.
Tank’s first pocketknife given to him by his grandpap (center), complete
with his name and a custom grind job, along with a few others that followed.
What self-respecting boy didn’t want a knife when growing up? Back when I was a kid, all boys pined for their first knife. It was akin to the first step of adulthood to my way of thinking. Plus, Danial Boone and Davy Crockett (both played by Fess Parker) carried a Bowie knife hidden in fringed high-top moccasins, always at the ready.
Almost every episode showed him using his knife to help him escape or kill something, in a last-ditch effort to save his life. If that isn’t reason enough, I don’t know what is. There are a lot of dangers lurking in a 7-year-old’s mind.
Ruana Knives of Montana are a favorite of Tanks. Started by
Rudy Ruana, the company is known for bevel cut elk stag aluminum
handles and forged leaf spring blades.
Obstacles
Moms are less enthusiastic about these cutting yearnings, fearing unexpected trips to the emergency room. Fortunately, dads, uncles and grandads understood these struggles. For boys, sharpened steel is mythical. Why wouldn’t it be? Having your own shiny, sharp folding blade pocketknife, while not as cool as a Bowie knife, could still get you out of trouble.
My own fascination started on my grandpap’s dairy farm. Following my uncles around during chores, I noticed both carried pocket knives. They’d cut feed bags, bailing twine from hay bales, pick out splinters, or even cut a hunk of venison sausage for a quick snack. These observations proved the handiness of a pocketknife. I surely and sorely needed one.
Knives can tell a story and are an integral part of history. From left to right: A WWII-era knife rehandled by soldier using plexiglass for handle and sheath, an old Marbles knife, and a custom from NC.
Pap To the Rescue
My Pap retired from farming when he turned 50, selling the farm to my two uncles. Having the gift of gab, the trust of fellow farmers and knowledge of growing corn, he was a natural at becoming a corn seed salesman. Part of being a successful salesman is making the customer feel appreciated. Hats, down vests, sweatshirts, gloves and pocketknives were common fare for buying clients.
Pap, being a good Pap, saw fit to buy pocketknives for all his kids, grandkids, neighbors and any potential customers. I had my resource to pocketknife ownership. The knives were three-bladed Stockman style, with one “blade” being a combination bottle cap/screwdriver — handy indeed. One side had the Trojan Corn emblem on it and the recipient’s name in red cursive writing on the other. I finally had my knife!
Kabars are another favorite. From top to bottom: vintage WWII
USMC KA-BAR brand, Camillius USN MKII, Camillus Kabar from
the early 90s, and KA-BAR USMC Fighting Knife from late 80s.
Turbo Grind
Happy as a lark for my pocketknife, I noticed it wasn’t hair-shaving sharp, even though I was lacking hair on my forearms. My pap had a tool/tractor shed with just about every kind of tool known to man. On his heavy work bench were bench grinders. Surely, I could hone a hair-popping edge with a course stone bench grinder? And it would be much faster than using a sharpening stone, right? Those were for amateurs.
I flipped the switch to the bench grinder. When reaching full RPM status, it hummed along almost silently. I figured I’d just grind a nice, neat edge on my newly obtained prized possession. After all, I’d had it for a whole 40 minutes at this point. Boy, won’t everyone be jealous of how sharp my knife is?!
Holding the knife to the spinning grinding stone, a hail of sparks erupts. This is good, right? That grinder ate up more blade faster than I could eat grandma’s iced Christmas cookies. I quickly switched sides, to maintain an even grind. Can’t do one side without the other. Even I knew about blade geometry and symmetry back then.
The blade was sharper but had a rough-edged appearance to it. A lesson was learned, but it took years for me to appreciate it. This knife was the catalyst for the rest of my life. I’ve pretty much carried a knife with me from that day forward.
Knives come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. The bottom
utility knife was designed by his editorship, Roy Huntington.
Present Day
Since I managed to keep all my fingers intact, a Cub Scout knife quickly followed from mom. Then it seemed like the floodgates opened. Knives appeared everywhere. Folding Stockman are always a favorite, along with single-bladed Buck Knives, handy Victorinox Army knives, Al Mar blades, and then … fixed-bladed Bowie knives.
The KA-BAR brand “Kabar” was my first fixed-bladed knife. Though the brand has since become synonymous with the style, Kabars were also made by several other manufacturers, including Camillus, Case and a few others.
It wasn’t long before I started collecting Kabar-style knives. They had a simplicity to them, made from 1095 carbon steel. A rattail-styled tang with stacked leather washers for a handle, if you worked them enough, you could hone a razors edge on them, but it defeated the utilitarian edge the blades were made for.
Kabars were made for digging, opening crates of ammo, hammering nails with their flat-steel pommel, opening C-ration cans in a pinch, or any other duties called upon. They could, and have been used, to take out enemy combatants, too.
Tomahawks are a special type of edged weapon. Shown are two Tyler Gun Works ‘hawks with a Cold Steel Vietnam remake from the 90s.
Others
The Kabars lead to Randall Made Knives, followed by other big Bowie-style blades. I guess once knives get into your system, you become a lost cause. Or are we predestined to become knife nuts? I think it’s a little of both, but one thing’s for certain: knife collecting/accumulating is fun and educational. What better way to learn about history than the type of knives, axes, and hatchets our forefathers used and carried?
I could easily go into far more detail on the different brands of knives I’ve collected over the years. Perhaps I will at a later date? I could go on forever talking about different Randalls, Buck Knives, my Ruana Knives from Montana, and much more.
I just wanted to scratch the surface and let you know you’re not alone in your quest for sharpened steel. Guns and knives go hand in hand and are the perfect way to complement any outfit before venturing out.
At 7:30 p.m. on 3 July 2023, North Carolina State Trooper Jeffrey Dunlap pulled to the side of Interstate 26 to assist what he assumed to be a stranded motorist. The driver, Wesley Scott Taylor, then inexplicably produced a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle handgun and shot Dunlap in the chest at near-contact range. The massive 240-grain jacketed hollow point flattened on Trooper Dunlap’s armored Kevlar vest.
Despite having been centerpunched by a .44 Magnum round, Dunlap drew his service weapon and killed Taylor in the subsequent exchange of fire. The only reason Jeffrey Dunlap, a distinguished 13-year veteran of the Highway Patrol, got to go home to his family that evening was that he was wearing superb state-of-the-art soft body armor.
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) reports that the lives of more than 3,000 Law Enforcement officers have been saved since the first issue of soft body armor began in the 1970s. That’s thousands of kids who got to keep their parents thanks to this extraordinary contrivance. Have you ever wondered where all that began?
Origin Story
who could have guessed that this sweet little girl would grow up to save thousands of lives?
Stephanie Louise Kwolek was born to Polish parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1923. She was one of two children. Her father was a naturalist, and her mother was a seamstress. Though she was extremely close to her father, he tragically died when she was ten.
Young Stephanie and her dad spent countless hours roaming the Pennsylvania forests. Along the way, Stephanie developed a deep and abiding love for nature. Out of that grew a passion for science. Stephanie outpaced her classmates in school and resolved at a young age to become a physician.
Stephanie Kwolek was always an exceptionally serious student.
Then, in 1946, Stephanie graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BS in Chemistry. This seemed a decent path to medical school. However, she took a temporary job in a chemistry lab to make money for her medical training. While there, she met Dr. William Charch who worked at DuPont Chemical. Charch is the guy who invented waterproof cellophane.
Catching Attention
Dr. Charch was impressed with the young woman’s drive and intellect and arranged for her to interview at DuPont for a position as a chemist. She got the job but never intended to stay. Throughout her early time at DuPont, Stephanie really just wanted to use her position as a springboard into medical school.
The late 1940’s was an interesting time in America. Sixteen million American men had recently served in World War 2. One in every thirty-eight died. Many large companies struggled to fill their vacancies amidst the massive economic boom that blossomed out of the war. Stephanie’s project at DuPont involved researching radical new chemical technologies. DuPont had introduced nylon recently, and their research in exotic polymers was cutting edge.
Stephanie Kwolek was blessed with a superb mind. She got into polymer research at the perfect time.
In short order, Stephanie discovered that she actually had a very real gift for chemistry and shelved her plans for medical school. WW2 had served as an engine to expand the body of scientific knowledge at an unprecedented rate. With technology exploding in the Space Age, Kwolek found herself uniquely positioned to lead that charge. Over the course of the next four decades working at DuPont, Stephanie Kwolek made some truly earth-shaking discoveries.
A Visionary
This is the Nylon Rope Trick. It is actually pretty cool, at least by chemistry lab standards.
First off, the Nylon Rope Trick is a staple of modern academic chemistry research labs. I’ve done it myself a couple of times. Stephanie Kwolek first defined it. The experiment involves combining an aliphatic diamine with a solution containing aliphatic diacid chloride that is not miscible in water.
The result is a synthetic diamide that propagates as a soft film on the surface of the solution. This process is called interfacial polymerization.
By gently grasping the film and pulling it off of the solution, the resulting Nylon 66 will form a strand that can be wrapped around a stick or similar object. As the film is removed this allows the reaction between the two reagents to propagate further, creating yet more nylon. Lastly, by gently wrapping these fibers around a stick, raw nylon can be harvested.
Kwolek’s work in the 1950s and ’60s orbited around unconventional applications for exotic synthetic materials. Most of these were aramids, short for “aromatic polyamides.” The resulting fibers, in addition to being extremely tough, could be formed into a wide variety of exotic materials.
Kevlar starts out looking something like this.
Kwolek Makes Kevlar
Kwolek’s mandate was to develop a new, tough, synthetic material that could be used in lieu of steel in reinforcing automobile tires. One of the materials she discovered was a low-viscosity, turbid, stir-opalescent liquid that looked very similar to buttermilk. This solution of poly-p-phenylene terephthalate and polybenzamide formed a liquid crystal and was typically considered a waste product.
On a whim, Kwolek persuaded Charles Smullen, the technician responsible for the spinneret machine in the DuPont lab where she worked, to let her try to extract uniform fibers from this literal garbage. Smullen, for his part, was concerned this new chemical compound would clog up his delicate machine.
Kwolek got her way and was thrilled to find that the resulting fibers were five times stronger than steel at a substantially lighter weight. She discovered that this radical new material could be made even stronger via heat treatment. Kwolek and her colleagues christened this amazing new material Kevlar.
But What Could You Actually Do With Kevlar?
The astronomical casualty numbers that came out of World War 2 showed a desperate need for lightweight body armor that would still leave a soldier sufficiently mobile to accomplish his mission. By weaving Kevlar fibers into sheets, Kwolek found that the resulting material was durable in ways that bordered on the supernatural. Eventually, somebody tried shooting it, and the whole world moved just a little bit.
By weaving Kevlar fibers into tight sheets, engineers can produce amazingly tough materials.
The Kevlar sheets used in bullet-resistant vests are tightly woven and must be protected from the sun. Like most synthetic polymers, Kevlar degrades in direct sunlight. Stopping bullets is a function of efficient energy dissipation. In essence, when struck by a bullet Kevlar fibers will stretch without breaking.
So long as the projectile is not unduly powerful and the material is properly oriented, Kevlar did indeed reliably stop bullets, at least the handgun sort. That observation really got the juices flowing.
It is extraordinary the kinds of things are made out of Kevlar these days.
Ropes, cables, cell phone cases, race cars, parachute shroud lines, boats, aircraft, and space vehicles all incorporate Kevlar nowadays. The stuff is legit everywhere. By the time Kwolek died at age ninety in 2014, more than one million Kevlar vests had been produced for issue to Law Enforcement personnel.
A Vested Interest in Survival…
The state-of-the-art in soft body armor marches on even today.
Modern soft body armor is divided into several frankly confusing categories. Level IIA and IIIA are expected to stop most handgun rounds such as 9mm Para, .357 Magnum, and .44 Magnum. In the case of the larger calibers, the bullet will not penetrate, but the violence implicit in surviving such a hit can still cause soft tissue injury.
All the cool kids go to war in body armor these days. Those codpieces, while critically important, always look just a wee bit comical.
Level III and IV body armor is rated to stop large-bore, high-velocity projectiles from long guns. As the degree of protection increases, however, the vests typically get heavier and bulkier. When the threat simply becomes too threatening, most soldiers in the Armies of advanced nations as well as tactical teams will use plate armor that is made from either alloyed steel or advanced ceramic materials. Plate armor will reliably stop all but the nastiest armor-piercing rifle rounds.
The Rest of the Kevlar Story
Um, yeah…in addition to bulletproof vests, Stephanie Kwolek brought us Spandex workout clothes as well.
At the time of her death, Stephanie Kwolek held 28 patents. In addition to Kevlar, she was also instrumental in the development of both Nomex and Spandex.
In so doing, Kwolek likely did more to extinguish flaming aviators and support sagging body parts than any scientist before or since. Kwolek’s exotic new materials have become commonplace around the globe.
Because she worked for DuPont, Kwolek relinquished the rights to materials discovered on company time to her employer. As a result, despite the fact that the resulting monetization of her ideas brought in literally billions of dollars, Kwolek herself benefitted minimally from her groundbreaking discoveries. According to Google, her net worth was around $5 million at the time of her death.
By all accounts, Stephanie Kwolek was a truly great American.
Things End Well For Kwolek
Despite her relatively modest financial success, Kwolek was honored with a wide variety of personal and professional awards. She was ultimately granted a further three honorary degrees as well. By all accounts, she led an exceptionally satisfying life. Here are a few quotes—
“I guess that’s just the life of an inventor: what people do with your ideas takes you totally by surprise.”
“I hope I’m saving lives. There are very few people in their careers that have the opportunity to do something to benefit mankind.”
“Not long ago, I got to meet some troopers whose lives had been saved. They came with their wives, their children, and their parents. It was a very moving occasion.”
This sweet-looking grandmother figure went on to save literally thousands of lives.
The extraordinary female inventor Stephanie Kwolek clearly found ample satisfaction with her life’s work. Whether it was flame-retardant clothing for military aviators, bullet-resistant vests that have ultimately saved countless cops, or push-up brassieres and bikini swimsuits, Kwolek’s inventions have legitimately changed the world.
It was obviously a pretty great thing that she never followed through on her plans for medical school.
