YALE, Mich. – A Yale resident won a competition on the Discovery Channel show “Master of Arms.”
Michael Morris, who owns Morris Knives, crafted the winning weapon, a replica of the U.S. Navy’s Elgin Cutlass Pistol, a bizarre 19th century hybrid sword and single-shot pistol.
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“Anytime you put your weapon that you’ve worked on under that kind of stress and duress you hope everything comes out OK,” he told the Times Herald .
The show episode featuring Morris aired this month on the Discovery Channel.
Viewers got to watch Morris and another craftsman build their versions of the weapon, which is a hybrid of a pistol and a large knife.
An expert tested the weapons by firing at a target, slashing a rope and slashing and stabbing a pig carcass.
“There was a little bit of nervous there,” Morris said. “I was confident but you never know what’s going to happen.”
His weapon passed all the tests, but his competitor’s weapon failed when the blade twisted off while being used to slash a pig carcass.
“As happy as I was, I felt bad for him because I knew how much work he had put into his piece,” Morris said.
Morris said he was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for eight days during the taping of the show. He won $10,000.
He said it was the coolest thing he has ever done and if he had the chance to do it again he would do so “in a heartbeat. Absolutely.”