He didn't make fighters then Ron. He made what was in his catalog, field knives, carvers, and handled Case, Henckles, and Northampton factory blades which amounted to over half of his total production through his first three years in 'business". Fighting knives weren't even on the radar yet.

Quoting Gaddis:

"During the last half of 1942 and into the first couple of months of 1943 Bo experimented with a few combat knife designs beside the Zacharias-Randall style. At fist some men had him modify his catalog 6 and 7 hunters for combat duty. This consisted of sharpening the blade on the top edge and using a double hilt. The handles were of stag but usually not crowns. He adopted the term "Commando" to denote this earliest of his double -hilted combat knives.

The Randall Commando knife went on to become a distinct design style, which had a very limited popularity thorough out 1943. This WW II knife can best be described as having an upward -curved blade, similar to the modern Model 4 Big Game and Skinner, went the back of the blade being sharpened over halfway to the double hilt. It was great for slashing but no good at thrusting or for general-purpose duties.

Bo's Journal also contains a couple of other styles from this early WWII period. These short-lived designs are now seen as being part of the transition from the original Zacharias-Randall to the Fighter of WWII and later. The were made in very limited numbers and had been phased out by the end of February 1943. The majority of this design experimentation happened in the last quarter of 1942, commencing shortly after Bo's release fro CAP duties. From this time on, the fabrication of combat-type knives accounted for at least 95 percent of the efforts expended at Randall Made Knives."



The description of a modified catalog hunter blade in the first paragraph sounds eerily like Brian's knife. I believe what is said in the passage above puts this issue to rest.