Mangudai brought this up in the karambit thread, specifically about the WWI allied Trench Knives. Here in the US at least- you can own knuckle dusters with minimal fuss (and they are easy enough to fabricate) but CARRYING them is a big no-no. A no-no that can land you in prison for a year in most areas. State and local ordances are long standing and updated in many cases (plastic knuckles specifically forbidden).

Legality aside- we'll reside entirely in the hypothetical here and nothing posted is to be taken as encouragement to break the law- what are your impressions and speculations of these weapons? 

I printed some bear claws for pulling pork.

They'd be nasty duckle nusters !

---

C_A, are you trying to steal Timpa's thunder?

The problem with knucks and karambits is someone with a long stick can beat you to death without you being able to land a blow.

A karambit was a self defense weapon, not much good for offense unless jump on the guy to grapple.  And for offense, there are lots better weapons out there. 

Sorta same for knucks, which makes them pretty good for mugging somebody, they are good for getting in close, sticking your hand in your pocket and coming out with those for a surprise punch.  And you can't cut a seat belt or clothing with knucks, so it doesn't make them a very good EMT tool.

no but they are fun - and I could make some really nice plastic ones :whistle:
If you ever get in  a situation where you absolutely have to hit someone up close. And i haven't managed it yet.
Then electrified knuckle dusters would be great :-)
Seen them on telly at some point.

May I quote E. André, who wrote "L'art de la défence dans la rue" (1900)

"A good boxer has no need for a knuckleduster. The bones of the hand are sufficient for such blows and they can already strike vulnerable areas with the force and precision required. But it is obvious that a man who only knows how to punch poorly or fairly badly will find it a useful additional impetus to his attack when he uses one."

BUT also note, from a recent post on Victorian Martial Arts, the bartitsu specialist J. Marwood saying: "The problem with brass knuckles is not their weight or effectiveness (They are very effective) but how easily they can be accessed. It is very hard to get your hand in a pocket, put on the knuckles and bring them to bear when in a fight. If you're looking to pre-empt then they're usable, but if you're able to pre-empt you don't need a weapon. If you're not then you need something more easily accessed, IMO."

Any weapon should be as seamless of an extension of your body as possible. The more ergonomic, the better.  A sand cast brass hunk designed for mass production does not do this well.  I have tried on many a pair and found them constrictive awkward, and even promoted poor fist position. They encourage you to lead with your middle and ring finger instead of your index and middle finger, which IMHO makes your wrist more susceptible to injury.  I find it fitting that most vendors sell them as paper weights.

Curious Aardvark wrote on Jan 8^th, 2015 at 12:02pm:

They'd be nasty duckle nusters !

I have not thought that the rest of the world, as in Finland is the "words turn". :)

Arcane is right- most of them aren't made well.
I've seen a couple nice pairs with some heft to them and they are fearsome.
I've also been hit by fists with large rings and still have scars 10 years later..... I can imagine my face would be broken if it had been knuckles instead

I tend to slightly disagree with your quote theoros- about the bones of the hand. There's a reason we don't do bare knuckle boxing anymore. With good technique you can easily get a "Boxer's break". The gloves aren't there to protect the face- they're there to keep your hands protected.

The other quote makes some sense. Still I think that there would be real advantages to well made knuckles. It would protect knuckles, keep you from mixing blood,  could be used for pain compliance techniques, and scales the force continuum very neatly- all the way from "soft" techniques to potentially lethal force depending on where and how hard you hit. Also punching is fairly instinctive (though certainly benefits from training). Also darn near impossible to have it taken away from you.

Over at Bladeforums, there are a number of collectors.  We get a lot of inquiries about actually using them and I always point out that they are generally illegal to carry.
Much like "switchblades" and certain other weapons, these became associated with thugs and gangsters.
The sort of thing you'd use to "tool up" the store owner who wouldnt' "pay the vig".

The legality is interesting, especially because there is near national prohibition against carrying knucks of any sort- but all those laws are at the municipal, county, and state level. Getting that sort of agreement nationally at local levels is impressive. I agree with you Bikewer it's because they were associated with lower classes and gangs. Particularly in NYC they were used in the real gang warfare back in the 1800's. My understanding is they were also associated with drifters and sailors.

So today any discussion is academic (as I noted at the beginning of the thread) but I am slightly saddened by those laws because I could see these tools being very useful for self defense purposes. I can't (and don't) carry them because of legalities but these seem more aimed at groups of people rather than the merits of the object.

What Thearos quoted was state of the art for the time it was printed.  Real boxers had knobby knuckles and weird looking ears.   

We have learned a lot since boxing became a sport.

Yes, I've read some old-timey boxing and jiu-jitsu. Bare knuckle boxers do know about the risk of breaking their hands, but also don't like to block with their fists.

Any good recommendations Thearos? Particularly for bare knuckles training/boxing?

I'd heard that some MMA fighters were experimenting with the old fashioned boxing stance. Hands chest level, palms up, ahead of the main body, as it gave some advantages for fights not as constrained as rules ad boxing has become.

Back on topic- in manga/comic books periodically you'll see knucks that aren't gripped in the hand, but are attached to the forearm and extend past the knuckles. Either on the sides of the hand, or flipping over the back of the hand. I don't know if these are anything other than theoretical but as long as we're discussing the theoretical I thought I'd mention it ;D.

http://www.pugilism.org

(mostly for pay, but there are some free books, and some interesting articles)

(There are manuals online, such as the one below)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/60203458/The-Art-and-Practice-of-Boxing-by-the-Celebrated-Pugilist#scribd

   Such weapons are brutally effective but as Bill stated you have to be very close to your opponent to use them.  If I can't have a gun my weapon of choice is a staff.  Of course a set of brass knuckles wouldn't be a bad back up in case someone got inside of my guard with the staff.  Of course we're talking hypothetically.

If I were to use any melee weapon other than a knife, I would probably choose a tactical pen or keychain kubotan. I have fingers like plantains and it makes anything with fingerholes pretty useless.  Of course, when your hands are like two bunches of small bananas...most weapons are kinda useless.

Back in the day ... in a time and a land far, far away ...
A set of welded black iron pipe rings .... pretty crude.
:-[
I was more likely to carry a roll of pennies as a fist load.

yeah, hell if I'm that close I might as well just pick the bugger up and throw him somewhere :-)

Or failing that a rabbit punch to the throat will finish most fights, with or without knuckle dusters.

I am a full time municipal law enforcement officer here in the US, the reason I'm tossing that out is that I've seen plenty of purpose built and improvised variations on knuckles over the years first hand.  I've also seen the after effects of them, and on one unlucky occasion felt them as well.

In short a well constructed pair of knuckles convert the fists into lethal weapons easily capable of breaking bones with little risk of injury or damage to the user.  Additionally on glancing blows or those thrown purposely at less then full power, they will cause cuts down to to the bone on thin skinned areas.  An involved party received a punch the mouth, which they mostly swayed with.  A bare fist would have caused maybe just minor swelling, due to the knuckels, he had a split that showed teeth.  Contact to the common locations on the face that are struck, almost always result in split/cut flesh and a cracked or shattered bone (this includes  very sturdy targets like the forehead). 

Less well built or improvised versions, don't tend to produce the cutting effect.  Depending on the weight they add to the fist, and the contact area, they can still produce significant breaks and cracks to bones. 

The fist load is a decent option in a pinch, but it relies on the hand to provide the contact surface, and to be able to endure the impact as well.  I've seen a few guys break knuckles trying this technique. 

In reference to actually getting hit with a pair of knuckles, a suspect attempted to rabbit punch me in the floating ribs with a set on his left hand.  Due to my ballistic vest it really just felt like a pretty solid punch.  Without it, I probably would have sustained a broken rib or two. 

-Jenrick

That's very interesting. My impression was that these weapons were fairly rarely used/carried in the US. How common are they compared to other weapons in your experience? If you don't mind my asking.

Purpose made, well fitted knuckles are not common.  Much more often found are the novelty kind that don't fit right, they will still do a lot of damage however.  The counterpoint to the novelty kind is that the user risks damage to their own hands if their own hands.  Compared to common clubs or knives, knuckles are a distinct minority.  Improvised knuckles or fist loads are reasonably common, but usually more as an item of convenience then purposefully selected for use.

-Jenrick

Back in my childhood (ok... adolescence) we happened to fight using bottles and clubs, only two of us had knuckledusters but none of them ever managed to use them...
Greetings,
Mauro.

I think the idea of using the bear claws to shred meat is genius! What a great kitchen tool. Have you ever considered marketing it?

I inherited my grandfather's old knuckle dusters. Back before WWII he was the largest pinball, slot machine, and punchboard runner in the state of Illinois that was not associated with the mob. When the mob started putting pressure on him, he joined a bigger family: The U.S. Army. But I still have them, complete with some interesting rust stains (interesting because they look like stainless steel). :-?

While I have them, I think in a self defense situation it would take too long to get them on, and since I've studied martial arts since I was 15 (many moons ago)...

More old-timey bare-knuckle manuals:

http://www.sirwilliamhope.org/Library/Fewtrell/Fewtrell.php

Mendoza's lessons:

http://www.sirwilliamhope.org/Library/Mendoza/#Lessons

And Jack Dempsey's classic "Championship fighting", by a great old-timey boxer, which is in fact not about match boxing but about fist-fighting, and has absorbed a lot of the culture of American old-timey "scrapping"

http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/107333/Vzryvnoii_udar_i_aktivnaya_oborona.pdf

If you practised this and old-timey jiu-jitsu for grapplling, you'd be able to fight like a 1920s policeman. Which is not to say bad.

An older relative of mine told me a story of one of my long dead relatives who was a ticket collector on a train. Apparently the train was being held up and one of the robbers came up to him and demanded all the money he had. He put his hand in his pouch to give him what he asked for and came out with a swing from his knuckle dusters. According to my relative it took off a good portion of the robbers face.

A hook (shovelling hook in Dempsey's vigorous terminology) rather than a swing ?

Kjev wrote on Apr 19^th, 2015 at 8:30am:

I think the idea of using the bear claws to shred meat is genius! What a great kitchen tool. Have you ever considered marketing it? I inherited my grandfather's old knuckle dusters. Back before WWII he was the largest pinball, slot machine, and punchboard runner in the state of Illinois that was not associated with the mob. When the mob started putting pressure on him, he joined a bigger family: The U.S. Army. But I still have them, complete with some interesting rust stains (interesting because they look like stainless steel). :-? While I have them, I think in a self defense situation it would take too long to get them on, and since I've studied martial arts since I was 15 (many moons ago)...

Bear claws/paws can be bought most places that sell bbq equipment in the states.
I have some commercial ones that I do use for pulling pork.
http://www.amazon.com/Bear-Paw-Products-Inc-11001/dp/B003IWI66W/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1433155932&sr=8-2&keywords=bear+claws

That's interesting info jenrick.
Particularly on the damage they cause.
I guess you'd need to be a professional thug to have the good ones.

More like professional muscle. 

Most thugs are spur of the moment types who, thankfully, rarely plan things out and often act on impulse. 

professional muscle carrying a set of knuckles - is a professional thug :-)

While we continue on this topic, here's another manual on bare knuckle boxing (low guard, etc)-- and a recommendation of hte incomparable Dempsey (1950) manual I mentioned earlier

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6YmufhkuWBsSWM4MUFRT1hzME0/view

I made a duplicate knuckle duster affair for a fellow from India a few months ago out of mild steel. The original pattern was made from elephant bone. The entire design screamed meat-eater as across each finger, instead of it being rounded and blunt, there was a short triangular blade affair ground to a knife edge. I've never had reason to use anything of the sort, but it appears this design may make a rather severe wound when employed as a slashing weapon. Still yet, the problem of accessibility in a pocket would be a major hurdle to overcome if one was in a hurry.

Personally, I'm more of a koppo stick or yawara fan. They get the job done, (assuming you can get them out of your pocket in time) and they don't bear the same criminal/thug association
:p


perpetualstudent wrote on Jan 11^th, 2015 at 5:03pm:

Any good recommendations Thearos? Particularly for bare knuckles training/boxing? I'd heard that some MMA fighters were experimenting with the old fashioned boxing stance. Hands chest level, palms up, ahead of the main body, as it gave some advantages for fights not as constrained as rules ad boxing has become. Back on topic- in manga/comic books periodically you'll see knucks that aren't gripped in the hand, but are attached to the forearm and extend past the knuckles. Either on the sides of the hand, or flipping over the back of the hand. I don't know if these are anything other than theoretical but as long as we're discussing the theoretical I thought I'd mention it ;D.

What's interesting about that extended pugilist stance with the narrow foot placement is that it tends to be rather nice for dominating the centerline.
Depending on the era, Pugilism was based heavily on the art of the smallsword, with some sources even referring to it as "fencing with fists."
Grappling and throws were allowed, so that extended, upright stance was used on occasion by distance fighters who were wary of getting too close. Some pugilists, like Daniel Mendoza, preferred a more generic boxing/JKD-looking of stance, and everything between.

As for the "knobby fists" mentioned elsewhere, they didn't [usually] have screwed-up hands, like an old-school Karateka. According to my research, pugilists conditioned their fists, but only to the point where they would be able to tolerate human anatomy. Assuming one trains responsibly and correctly, you only start to get into thrashed-up hands territory if your training goes far beyond that--with stuff like punching through bricks and flagstone slabs on a regular basis.
Another thing I found interesting while researching the topic is that pugilists even went as far as treating their fists with toughening agents as well as soothing linaments after practice, in a manner not all that different from the sort of methods employed by Iron-Hand practitioners. :)