An excellent option for the price is the newer smaller size of the old Ka-Bar Marine knife.
Instead of the original 7 inch blade, these are the same knife only with a 5 inch blade.
For the price these are just impossible to beat.
The Fairbairn-Sykes knife was specifically designed for stabbing German sentries in Europe.
As such it was not a fighting knife and had some major deficiencies for a fighting knife.
It was essentially an assassination implement.
Since the First Special Services unit was heavily influenced by the British Commandos, the Case V-42 knife was much like it.. a pure stabbing implement with a blade even thinner then the F-S knife.
Like the F-S knife it had a far too narrow and weak blade that often got broken off and couldn't be used to slash.
It was better then the F-S knife because it had a thicker oval shaped handle but it would still tend to turn in the hand.
The "skull cracker" pointed pommel was ridiculous from the start. Far more Force men where hurt by their own knife when the needle sharp pommel stuck them.
Both the F-S and V-42 blades were pure stabbers that were more like an ice pick that would easily pierce, but caused little internal damage.
Since it was designed to stab into major arteries, as long as the target was hit it worked well. Miss and things didn't work out so well.
Both were very fragile, easily breaking off at the tip, (which is why many WWII knives are shortened) or worse, snapping off at the guard.
The F-S and V-42 blades could not take or hold a very sharp edge, so they couldn't be used to slash, which is necessary in a fighter.
Because of this, and the stabbing design the F-S and V-42 knifes were a one trick pony.
The cross guard on the F-S was barely adequate to keep the hand from slipping forward and offered little hold to pull the blade back out.
It offered no rest position for the thumb.
The worst feature was the handle shape which was a very thin, perfectly round "coke bottle" shape.
The round shape gave no tactile feel for where the edges were when the knife was quickly grasped. The user had to feel the guard to position the blade edges to the proper orientation.
The thin handle offered a very poor grip, made much worse when the original deeply checkered brass handle was changed to the later pot metal ringed design.
Due to the round shape, the knife easily turns in the hand.
Due to the thin handle shape it offered a poor grip to pull a stuck blade out, and if the hand was bloody a stuck knife could be very difficult to remove, which often led to broken tips or blades snapped off at the hilt.
Due to the specialized design the knife made a poor combat knife, which needs to be both a weapon and a tool to do all the other functions a soldier needed to do.
It was using the F-S knife as a combat knife/tool to open boxes etc. that often lead to broken blades.
Due to these deficiencies Rex Applegate designed a new knife to correct the deficiencies of the F-S knife.
Had the war gone on into 1946, British Commandos, American Rangers, and OSS agents would have been issued the new standard Applegate knife but the war ended and the Applegate knife was dropped.
When Applegate set out to develop a new knife, Bruce Fairbairn had only limited input before leaving to train personnel elsewhere but he's still given credit for the design.
Among the research Applegate did was to do extensive interviews with a Scandinavian resistance fighter who was famous for killing something like 100 Germans with a knife.
His thoughts on what a knife had to be led to much of the Applegate design features like a 6 inch blade that was long enough to reach all internal organs, but no so long as to be unwieldy and slow in use.
The Apple gate knife has a blade that's both thicker and wider than the F-S or V-42 and maintains the thickness almost all the way to the point.
This stronger blade is far less likely to break at the tip or especially at the hilt.
Unlike the F-S and V-44 punching blades, the Applegate blade is a cutter designed to cut into internal organs and cause massive internal bleeding.
Due to the blade shape it takes and holds a razor edge that is an excellent slashing blade so it works well as a fighting knife,
Due to the strength and sharpness of the blade, it also makes an excellent general combat knife.
The cross guard on the Applegate is near perfect in both size and shape.
It's large enough to prevent the hand from slipping forward, allows a good grip when pulling the blade back out, and gives a perfect thumb rest against the back.
The Applegate handle is as good a design as ever done for a knife of this type.
It has a "coke bottle" shape, but it's much wider and thicker and has a perfect oval shape that prevents the knife from turning in the hand.
The deep grooves on the front and back and notches on the sides offer an excellent grip under all conditions, even when bloody.
The handles are bolted on and can be removed for cleaning.
Inside, the handles have recesses in which steel or lead weights are positioned.
These can be moved to change the balance to suit the user.
Unlike most of todays fighting knives the Applegate is deceptively simple looking and doesn't have the often exaggerated design of many knives.
I used to collect American military knives, (along with any knife that caught my eye) and I always wanted an Applegate, but just never got around to it.
Earlier this year I was looking through Amazon and came on a very interesting new Boker Applegate model.
When Applegate came home from the war a number of people wanted an Applegate knife, so he ordered batches of his knives from various custom knife makers.
He was never really satisfied with the quality until he found William Harsey who made a number of Applegate knives, including his own improved version.
This Boker German made knife is made to Bill Harsey's improved design.
It features an even wider blade that's 5 1/2 inches long instead of the standard Applegate 6 inches. Harsey thought the shorter blade was "handier" and the slight extra width improved the edge quality.
The cross guard is stainless instead of the standard brass, and the handle is CNC machined green canvas Micarta.
It has a stainless bolt and lanyard hole liner, and unlike standard Applegate's, the handle is a full tang, with an exposed glass breaker/skull crusher.
Unlike the standard Applegate knives this version does not have removable handles and there are no internal weights.
The scabbard is a Spec Ops that's somewhat overly complicated. It's set up so that it can be carried in just about any way you could imagine but there's so many ways it all gets difficult to work with.
It includes a hard plastic liner to prevent the blade from cutting it's way out.
The scabbard was supposed to be a Boker exclusive Foliage Green, but they were temporarily out of those so it was shipped with a black scabbard.
William Harsey improved blade.
One side has etched Rex Applegate and William Fairbairn. The other side is etched William Harsey, Maker, Caswell, Oregon.
There's a serial number on the cross guard.
Green canvas Micarta full tang handle.
Spec Ops scabbard. Really complicated but can be carried an conceivable way.
