By Luke Causey

I’ve been goofing off in the woods for long enough that I’ve heard the “big knives are dumb” mantra enough times to predict when it’s coming. Some dudes just smack talk about what they’re uncomfortable with, and others are just so set in their ways they never branch out. 

For knife nuts in the woods, the spice of life is the variety. So let’s branch out, have some fun, and play with the big Wallace Bowie from APOC Survival Tools.  

When the guys at APOC Survival Tools sent the Wallace Bowie to my world headquarters, I had already done some research on its specs. I was expecting it to be big. Opening the box confirmed that. The Wallace Bowie is a beast. Designed by Mike Wallace, formerly of Cold Steel and now working with the Apoc crew, the Wallace Bowie is…formidable. It rocks a full-tang 9 5/8-inch blade, 9 inches of sharpened edge, made of D2 steel with a smooth titanium coating.  

Overall length is 15 1/8 inches. In its Kydex sheath, it’s 15¾ inches. If you have a 16-inch or more pack height, it’ll fit inside just fine. The sheath comes equipped with a clip that opens easily to attach to a belt, pack strap, or perhaps, horse tack. After all, the Wallace Bowie weighs in at 1lb 5oz. The blade is 6.5mm thick, which in Freedom Units is a smidge over a ¼ inch. It’s thicker than a Snickers. I only briefly carried it on my belt. Most of the time it lived clipped to a compression strap on my pack.

The sheath is on-par with any quality Kydex out there. It’s well built and retention is excellent. The specs list it as ‘MOLLE compatible’, but if you’re going to mount it to MOLLE webbing, you’ll either need to source your own mounting hardware or just lace it on with 550 cord. 

You might be classier than me, but the 550 option works extremely well through the mounting holes on the sheath.  

The Wallace Bowie has bolted-on G10 scales that are very well contoured. I found the handle comfortable, even without gloves. It also has the best finger choil design I’ve ever experienced in a big knife. About half the choil is inset into the handle scale area, and about half into the ricasso of the blade, with the choils edges rounded smooth. This makes it functional and comfortable, which seems to be a rarity with choils on big blades. This choil really jellies my doughnut.  

The Wallace Bowie excels at hard-use, turning big chunks of wood into smaller chunks. I put it to work on aspen, pine, and juniper. I’d compare its chopping ability to a light tomahawk. 

Batoning pieces into firewood was simple and uneventful. It sailed through making a ‘one stick fire’ with some downed pinon pine. It’ll make feathersticks and shavings just fine, but this probably isn’t going to get your feathersticks all the likes on the ‘gram. The full flat grind and sharp edge cut well, but you gotta understand the limitations with the blade thickness. This is a bruiser, not a detail carver.  

I brought it along on several fishing trips, and it did everything from cutting line to de-heading and gutting trout. I even used the back of it, along with a big rock as an anvil, to smash closed a sinker. I re-sheathed it several times covered in fish blood and dirt, and the sheath was easy to clean under the kitchen sink. In a month of use, I haven’t seen any discoloration develop on the steel.  

I did a few things with the Wallace Bowie just for the sake of experimenting. I made several tent stakes and used the flat of the blade as a hammer to drive them in. I even took the opportunity to do another test that completely lacks practical application; I drove it in a stump and stood on it. 

That took a fair amount of balancing and a bit of luck with the camera delay, but the Wallace Bowie didn’t seem to care or even know I was up there. I had to beat it back and forth to get it out, and besides the scuffs on the finish, there was no damage at all. Who says science isn’t fun?  

What makes this tomfoolery palatable is that the Wallace Bowie’s MSRP is $117. A quick search turned up several online retailers pricing it just over the hundred-dollar mark. 

For a well-built big blade at that price, it’s a heckuva lot of fun. If you’re in the market for a big blade to knock around, give the Wallace Bowie from APOC Survival Tools a look.  

Specifications: APOC Survival Tolls Wallace Bowie

Overall: 15 1/8"
Blade Length: 9"
Handle Length: 5 3/4"
Weight: 1 lb 5 oz
Thickness at Guard: 6.5mm
Thickness at Tip: 1mm
Blade Steel: D2
Handle Material: G10

MSRP:  $117 (about $107 retail)