Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How many people have actually been killed by a thrown knife?

I know my personal count is less than a hundered.

Not to brag but I once nailed a running rat with a thrown 12" wooden concrete form stake. End over end knife throw style.

Got him good with the pointy end and it knocked him down. Wasn't fatal and it got away.

When I was a kid/early teens I used to practice throwing knives a lot, mostly this one bayonet my father brought back from Europe.

You have to be just the right distance away for the spinning blade to hit point first, which you have to learn pretty much by trial and error. If it doesn't you will bend the blade or break it, or possibly shatter the handle if it's wood. A regular hunting type knife often isn't balanced around its center of form, you can choke up on the blade or give it a little English on release to modify its rate of spin but it's still going to rotate around its center of gravity. If you're not really, really careful you can slice the absolute sh*t out of your hand.

If you get all of that right you still have to hit the target. Got where I could hit a dartboard hung on a tree pretty much every time from maybe 10-15 yards. Use a different knife and you have to learn its characteristics all over.

There's a reason throwing knives are balanced like they are.


Oh, and I never killed anyone by throwing a knife, or any other way for that matter.

I've stuck playing cards with knives, cut them with tomahawks, but never kilt anyone yet. I used to throw quite a bit during my rendezvous days.........

As to Hollywood knife throwing, saw a show on TV a long time ago where they explained those prefect throws.

They used a knife gun. Seriously, off camera they had a rifle of some sort, spring loaded IIRC, that would shoot the blade point first with enough velocity to stick into wood or the stuntman's knife proof vest. The stunt knife itself was balanced with weight forward to fly straight, like a spear. They'd get as close as possible while still staying off camera to decrease the chance of a miss.

Nowadays I'd imagine they're as likely to use CGI.

This. Absolutely and without exception. Cowboys take lots of gunshots to the guts and lung and are fine once they "stop the bleeding" or, better yet, "get the bullet out".
BUT, once when a guy gets out the knife for a quick toss, somebody gonna' die! Right now and without a sound.

Edited: OK, one exception. Sam Sharpnose drilled the fat guy in the gut, only to have him retaliate with his machete. Even Big Jake couldn't save him then.

You need a bigger knife 😁

Beat me to it! I was going to mention Pahoo, having recently gone through the entire Yancey Derringer series. Those were the days, very rare episode in which Yancey and Pahoo didn’t kill somebody, usually 2 or 3 somebodies. When you saw Pahoo reach back over his shoulder you knew some pig was gonna get stuck and, as mentioned, hit the deck deader than a door nail. Can you see that series being aired today?
Ole Pahoo was pretty handy with that sawed off shotgun, too.

You mean : Alan Bourdillion Traherne

Big difference in throwing a knife at plywood standing where you put it, and throwing a knife at somebody who wants a lot of things more than being hit by a thrown blade.

Guys who throw knives don’t kill people. Guys who hang onto them and get close enough kill people very well. 7 yards is generally not far enough if the slasher is dedicated. I have lost a friend to a knife attack, and have two more that survived one. The two that survived were mad dog mean on demand and had been in a lot of fights over the years. The one who died was struggling with a crazy person who had already killed his coworker and got his throat slashed for his trouble. He was a nice guy, a family man. If a man is after you with a blade, and means it, you better be a damn fast runner, or know how to handle yourself. Running away is the better option. Don’t take much bad luck to die from a knife attack.

Never fool around with a woman whose brothers have knife scars

It's always amazing how many instant knife kills there are in movies, usually silent. Nobody ever screams when they're stabbed or cut.

There was a good knife thrower in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I think it was Lurch. The Rifleman had a few throwers also.

I'm pretty good at a set distance throwing at a target. Anything else would be pure luck. I'm always impressed at how quickly those movie guys succumb to one stab. I figure there is a lot more screaming and squirming around in real life

Better yet throwing stars

I haven’t seen any in person.

The James Coburn knife scene in The Magnificent Seven was always pretty impressive.

Alan Boardillion Trehearne

Pussy

Robert Mitchum did it in , Gung Ho!