HISTORIC BLADES
HOLLOW-HANDLE
SURVIVAL KNIVES FROM TOP-OF-THELINE MODELS TO CHEAP KNOCKOFFS, THESE WERE ONCE POPULAR STORY BY JIM COBB
I
was barely a teenager the first time I saw “First Blood,” my dad having brought the VHS home from a rental store. Like so many people at the time, I was immediately drawn to Rambo’s knife. It had dramatic lines and came complete with survival gear stored in the hollow handle. I’d never seen anything like it before. Shortly after seeing that movie, I learned it was Jimmy Lile who had designed and produced the Rambo knife. That took a little research, given that this was years before the internet would become commonplace. It took even more time and effort to track down a telephone number for him, but I managed that as well. (Sadly, I chickened out when calling him, something I regret to this day.)
Some of Newt Martin’s survival knives bear obvious inspiration from the “First Blood” models. Ed Martin photo.
While hollow-handle survival knives had been around for a while, it wasn’t until Stallone’s fateful turn as the pushed-too-far former Green Beret John Rambo that they became well known. It wasn’t long before countless different models hit the market, many of dubious quality.
RANDALL MODEL 18 The Randall Model 18 predates the Rambo knife a bit, having gone into production in the early 1960s. It became popular with troops sent to Vietnam. Originally, it was made with a smooth handle that was wrapped with cordage. Later models offered a checkered handle, which could still be wrapped if the user desired.
64 KNIVES ILLUSTRATED • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022
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