Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1086092
THE PAST It's hard to precisely define where the push daggers were born, but the idea of knife with blade located crosswise to the handle could be find in 15th century India where the katar (or katara) daggers were made. Their de- sign was different than in modern push daggers as the katar is characterized by its H-shaped horizontal hand grip which results in the blade sitting above the us- er's knuckles. Katar, in opposite to mod- ern push daggers, were not considered as covert or concealed weapon as sually the blades were 40 cm and longer and the katar in overall could measure up to 90 cm. In 19th century, the katars were abandoned as firearms became more popular in India. But the idea of the weapon migrated to the New World, where katar reborn in a changed form. First "American" push daggers had few different variants. One of them was so- called "gimlet knife" popular in New Orle- ans. It was short and similar in its shape to a hand drill and was usually carried hidden in the boot. There were so many murders with gimlet knives that city council decided to ban sales and ownership of them. Push daggers were also popular in the West Coast. Especially the variant from San Francisco, with t-shaped han- dle and extended blade, which later be- came an example for current style push daggers. In the second half of 19th century push daggers arrived to Europe, most proba- bly with American sailors. It was "ear- ly adopted" in Germany (where it was known Stoßdolch or Faustmesser) and in Great Britain. But again, the popular firearms quickly "pushed back" push dag- gers into history. During Great War, the dedicated trench-warfare push dagger was built by Robbin-Dudley company. It had a pis- tol-style shaped grip with knuckle-dust- er like guard from casted aluminum. The short blade was positioned above the grip. In World War Two, British soldiers, mostly Commandos and Marines also used push daggers but on limited basis After WW2, when weapons in civilian hands become publicly criticized, the push dag- gers went underground. Back in 1980's were again reborn, this time because of action movies and the military-themed gadgets. Viking Nordway „Cobra" Small, covert, assassin-style weapon built to kill the enemy. Seems like a necessary addition to my knives collec- tion, huh? For long time I've been looking for a knife which would convince my ego to buy it. But except few exclusive cus- tom-made knives I couldn't find any suit- able for me. Cheap or shoddy rubber or plastic grips, uber-thick and ultra-wide or short and triangle-shaped (more like arrow) blades were pain for my eyes. The wind blowing from the East bring me hope! Cobra was love at first sight! Viking Nordway is a Russian company with some shady background. Most of the product are China-made cheap and crappy knives only branded with VN logo, but there are some little gems designed www.fragoutmag.com