Everyone has seen the Crocodile Dundee movies, right?

You know that big knife he carries ("That's not a knife... THIS is a knife!")... He carries it in a sheath/scabbard thing, but with the handle hanging down. Is this really possible? What holds it in place, where he can just pull it down to use it?

I've wondered about that for years...

Or is it just Hollywood's version of reality again?

Sue

In this modern age of thermoplastics and alloyed metals, it is becoming a regular practice to build into some sheath designs a compression point that either grips the blade hard enough via friction to hold it in place in almost any configuration, or to have a detent of sorts that either a bump or a depression (it can go one way or the other) would engage, kinda like a sear pin, if you can picture that. You could do that with old sheaths by engineering a latch mechanism, usually with a pin transversing the sheath with some spring mechanism behind it.

More appropriately, most standard leather sheaths would have a retaining loop that would snap or toggle or otherwise secure into place once the knife is inserted and designed so it would catch the choil or the guard. This is more my style anyways, and there are pluses and minuses either way. I don't reckon I would care for carrying a big knife inverted at all, seems kinda awkward and inappropriate to me. Even with a retainer of some sort, I would still worry about it falling out under rugged transport, and at most likely the most undesirable moment.

As Benjamin is saying, it seems there are endless methods for friction fitting the knife to sheath... but a knife that size, realistically, would not be carried in a friction fit sheath. Mick is stumbling around in the bush, jumping over this and that, stabbing crocodiles and such, and that big bowie-style blade just wouldn;t stay in there by friction alone....at least not as much as you'd want to trust it.

I wear a small Benchmade around my neck in a Kydex sheath. It stays put just fine, but the knife only weighs about 2.5 ounces. Even though I haven;t seen the movie in awhile, Crocodile Dundee's knife probably weighed from 3/4 to 1-1/4 pounds. He'd need a retaining strap or a beefy roller pin/spring setup like Benjamin was describing.

HOWEVER! A leather vertical-carry belt sheath would do just fine even with some jumping around and a few croc stabbings... as long as the leather was molded to fit the knife just right.

As the previous two responded, friction is the key. If you notice most firearm holsters do just that, but some also have a retention strap. Ideally when planning to carry a knife inverted, it should have a retention strap.

I sometimes carry a "Bud Nealy Escort" by Boker Knives. The knife is held in place with magnets. Its not as big a Dundee's knife and is firmly held in place until ready to extract from the sheath. Heres a shot from one of the online knife stores.

Bud Nealy Escort Knife by Boker

You asked whether it was "true or movie fiction". It doesn;t seem practical to me for anyone to carry a knife in the wilderness inverted like that. A belt sheath, or rather a conventional carry sheath is practical.

To their detriment, they didn't consult with me before filming that movie. Had they done so, in addition to recommending a traditional carry sheath, I would also have recommended to the producers that he shave with a Gillette disposable razor, and that they leave the bowie blade for chopping "stuff" up.

There is a thong that keeps the knife from slipping out (1 system of several), The thong is positioned so that you can unsnap it as you wrap your hand around the handle as you release it and pull it out.

I have used this system without problems many times in many places.

I met Paul and wife Linda once while working for their SAAB mechanic. I got the answer from Mick's mouth himself. While filming it was secured much like Linda's bathing suit- tape and glue. If anyone has the opportunity to meet them ( lovely couple) please don't hold up a blade and repeat his famous line. Poor man grimaces with a forced smile everytime. Actually, at one time the most popular bushblades were kabars with the upper tang cut off, the handle sanded to an oval grip and a lanyard hole drilled into the pommel. There are some neat knives being produced in OZ today in spite of restrictions.

Okay! So the movie was fiction: they just tacked it in place with glue or tape, shot the scene with him pulling it out, then glued it back in place for the next big-knife-pull-out scene.

And thank you, Knife Guys, for all the other responses from and for real life. I kind of thought there were ways to do it, but I don't depend on Hollywood for truth, since they can't even spell the word.

One more "I wonder how..." laid to rest.

Sue