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.