The short answer: not even close! But we had fun throwing them. You see, a few months ago my younger son convinced me to buy a set of these Smith & Wesson 8″ Stainless Steel Throwing Knives which, after reading various reviews of these and other knife sets, seemed to be one of the better options on Amazon because of their heavier weight, overall length, and price point.
We’ve had an opportunity to use them out behind our garage a dozen times or more and we had a lot of fun throwing them but, truth be told, we couldn’t get them to stick into the tree we were aiming at very often whatsoever. In fact, we missed most of the time; sometimes the handle hit first or they just didn’t even stick at all in the bark… those YouTube videos sure make it look easy (links to a tutorial by champion thrower). Clearly, our technique still needs some work.
Most of the time I just stood there and tried to get the knives to stick–which was difficult enough–but sometimes I tried to throw while on the move or to aim low at the ground as if I were aiming for a small woodland creature and that made things exponentially more difficult, so much so that if I really tried to rely on a set of throwing knives for self-defense of ANY sort or I tried to use them to hunt a squirrel, I wouldn’t have had a chance!
The good news is that these Smith & Wesson knives are relatively comfortable to throw, seemingly durable, and fairly well priced for being a set of six knives. Plus, they’re not actually sharp along the edges of the blade, only very pointy at the tip. And they come with a handy sheath.
Granted, we never bought the knives for survival purposes, only to have some fun with, but if anyone ever says they’re good for a survival situation they’re full of it! Use these throwing knives for what they’re intended for: a fun gift for the holidays.
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