Battle ready swords

I’m saving up to buy a sword. Not a cheap knock-off from India with a threaded tang, but a full on real sword, hot-peened and ready to start slashing through blocks of wood and jugs of water. I’ve found some excellent guides, read some reviews, and the general consensus seems to be… you get what you pay for. While I’d love to drop $1600 on a Damascus steel Elite series blade from Darksword Armory, I’m pretty sure my wife would use it on me once she saw the bill. And I won’t be buying anything until early next year, after I’ve amassed some Christmas and Birthday funds.

So what I’m doing right now is research. I’m learning all I can about swords, their construction, how to properly wield them, how to care for them (something I should have learned 15 years ago when I got my first and only sword as a Christmas gift from my cousin - it’s poorly constructed, but it IS carbon steel and a real sword capable of holding an edge, and it deserves better than the rust I discovered along the tang, now that I know what the fuck a tang is and figured out I can take my sword apart), and that sort of thing.

Is this a hobby anyone here is into at all? I’ve gotten some tips from a fellow on YouTube (Skallagrim) and I have found at least one sword I’m quite interested in but I’ve got plenty of time so if anyone has any thoughts (or suggestions) on the matter, or just wants to talk about swords and the amazing processes for creating them, let’s get this party started.

Just go to Cold Steel.

http://www.coldsteel.com

I’ve actually heard terrible things about their products.

For instance, the Kult’s damaged pieces blow-out page is almost entirely composed of defective Cold Steel weapons. I do like the product photos on their site though, and was adding a few to my “wish list” but then I read more on them and it turned pretty pear-shaped pretty quick on me.

Some time ago I was in to collecting replica swords and stuff like that; they’re still hanging on the wall in my basement office. I rapidly found myself priced out of continuing to collect, because as you say, you get what you pay for.

Back then, and this was twenty years ago mind you, Museum Replicas outside of Atlanta, GA had some suppliers from Italy and later India that turned out pretty solid battle-ready replicas, generally in the $200-400 range. Not as good as the $1000 pieces from some other places, and some were more hand made than others, to say the least, but they had a good variety and they swords were usually well built. Mine are still in good shape, though I did very little actual whacking of things with them. In later years, the company seemed to offer less and less interesting or well-built stuff, but I really haven’t checked in a long time.

It certainly seems like the most desirable stuff is the hand-forged, custom ordered work from places that require deposits and are going to charge you thousands, but that’s so far out of my reach that I haven’t really looked much.

Where did you see those complaints? I’ve been eyeing a Colichemarde.

Places I found by doing Google searches, like ‘Sword buyers guide’ or ‘sword-forum’ forums, etc.

Someone pointed me to this helpful Sword buying guide video on YouTube and the guy here ranted/warned against Cold Steel enough that I took their things off my list.

For the specific blade you are eying, it’s actually gotten good reviews from the various places I dug up on the webs (such as this one http://swordnation.proboards.com/thread/1906) but nothing specific. From my research, a sword that costs that little (relatively, of course) is probably just threaded into the pommel and may not be very durable in actual use - which of course may be fine if you have no intention of doing anything other than admiring the heft and hanging it on a wall (which is in my opinion a perfectly viable and safe way to enjoy a sword, incidentally).

I am not into swords (more than any other guy who used to play D&D, anyway), but I do have a good buddy who is big in the “historical fencing” scene… meaning that rather than going further with the Olympic-style fencing, he took a left turn and started to learn how to fight with a broadsword, katana, gladius, etc.

His (verbal) advice to you when I posed the question was to put off purchasing a sword until you actually know which type you enjoy using.

His example was the Japanese katana – everybody thinks these things are cool because we’ve heard how awesome their construction is with the whole “folded 100 times” stuff and the whole Bushido code of honor stuff and Wolverine uses them sometimes and ninjas are involved somehow. Well, it turns out that actually using a katana in the Japanese style (as opposed to the Japanese Anime style) is really far from what most people expect: it involves a lot of holding the sword aloft and chopping down, a great deal of shuffling footwork, and very little parrying. Of course there is strategy, speed, feints, counter-feints and whatnot and lots of people really get into it - please don’t take this as a condemnation of the sword, the fighting style or its practitioners.

My buddy’s point is that people have a concept of how they THINK a particular sword will be used and they spend a lot of money getting a realistic replica… only to find that actually using it is not a lot of fun. For his part, he bought a really nice and expensive longsword, assuming he was going to enjoy German-style fighting because he loved the whole Holy Roman Empire witch-hunter vibe. As it turns out, he liked it fine but found he enjoyed other styles more, so now it sort of sits on a bookcase, sheathed. To his surprise, he eventually gravitated to naval cutlasses - last time I saw him in the flesh his arms were covered in bruises from a tournament the day before where he was exercising his inner Errol Flynn.

So anyway, he urges you to find your local historical sword-fighting club and show up for a couple free lessons in whatever you think you will like. The local folks will loan you some of their practice blades. Then you should sign up for some lessons in whichever one you like most. He suggests that a good practice sword would be your first purchase, followed perhaps a year later by a quality weapon.

Having a cool-looking sword on the wall is one thing; having one that you actually know how to repel a zombie attack with is something else entirely.

Same advice as Tin Wisdom. Viking broadsword? Greek Xiphos? Naval cutlass? Arabian scimitar? Rapier and main gauche? Japanese Katana? Small sword? Roman Gladius? Or just some medieval medley of European blades?

For just plain whacking stuff, I suppose a bastard sword for the option of one or two handed action. A full two handed is a lot to handle. I’d probably go broadsword for options of a shield or axe, or rapier with an assortment of off-hand options (but not sure you’d want to go around whacking a lot of inanimate objects with that).

Indiana Jones demonstrated why it is better to have a pistol than a sword.

This is a good point. I did some foil fencing in college, which is essentially rapier, though arguably epee is closer to what a “realistic” style for the weapon would be. I was fascinated by katanas, and I eventually bought a couple of low-quality katana replicas, but the more I learned about the fighting style the more I disliked it.

Those days are long behind me now. Swords are cool and stuff, but I’m spending my money on much more expensive toys, toys that I actually use regularly.

Go into your backyard. Discharge your pistol. Watch the police arrest you.

Go into your backyard. Hack the shit outta everything in sight. It’s legal.

Okay, maybe tell the neighbors first that you are just having fun and not working up to a suicidal rage.

I got a Wilkinson Sword bastard sword (made circa 1980) made using traditional techniques as outlined here:

http://antiqueswordsforsale.com/history-of-the-wilkinson-sword-company/

Sadly the sword making arm was sold to the german company (which kind of takes things full circle, as the very basis of foundation of the company started in a region where some German sword makers from the Solingen region had set up sword production), WKC:

http://www.military-swords.com/startweb.php

But yeah finding traditional hand forged (not cast) swords, with proper quality control (and tradition behind them, if that is important also?), is pretty hard these days. Maybe try looking around the internet for places associated with historical sword production, like that german link above? The Spanish, Arabian, and Japanese were also very famous for the quality of their blades? I got this link for a modern (1996 onwards) company that uses traditional methods of production, based in Canada it seems:

https://darksword-armory.com/bladesmiths/

And these guys (i forgot to add them earlier) are based in america and very serious about the whole thing, lots of info on their site and i’m sure they can recommend good places to buy quality from:

http://www.thearma.org/

What’s your budget?

If I had the money, I would buy from Albion, or a custom blade from someone like Odinblades or Jake Powning.

But those are way too expensive for me. You can find some decent stuff on Kult of Athena - I would just avoid stuff from Del Tin, Windlass, Deepeeka (all Indian manufacture) and probably Cold Steel as well. Some of the Hanwei stuff is decent, especially the stuff they made in conjunction with Christian Fletcher.

I would spend some time reading reviews on a site like myArmoury. You’ll find reviews of just about every non-custom made sword you’ll find online. Real swords, I mean, not stainless teel movie/TV tie in crap.

I got a Han-dysnasty replica chinese sword from Ryan Sword a couple years back for decoration. It’s a beautifully made, fully functional sword made by a chinese sword smith using a mix of old and new techniques. These can be had for relatively cheaply ($150-200). If I were going for a western sword, though, I’d save up and go with one of the above places. Those Albion pieces are not made in the traditional manner, but rather use a lot of industrial techniques and power hammers etc to recreate a product that is clearly beautiful and most likely far superior in terms of strength to what was in use during the Middle Ages. But there are a lot of small shops being run by people re-discovering the art of Blacksmithing and Swordsmithing that are turning out some amazing pieces.

I bought some swords online when I was 16.

This guy is my go to source for all things swords related. Be sure to check out his Katana vs Burglar Techniques video for some good home defense routines.

These guys have all sorts of interesting things. especially numerous Japanese blades.

http://www.thelanesarmoury.co.uk/shop.php

Mind you if i had the money for a katana I’d seriously consider the deactivated German 88mm AP shells they have in the shop.

I’d like to have a Bronze Sword in some ways, the closest i could ever come to owning a silly object for quasi-mystical properties. Steel is COLD man. Lifeless, dead, inert… inhuman.

http://www.bronze-age-swords.com/index.htm

Maybe.

But… you can trust steel. :)

make your own bronze age sword, courtesy of old timer games dev Chris Crawford:

http://www.erasmatazz.com/personal/weird-projects/the-blade.html

Don’t forget Chinese swords. As with all things Chinese, they produce acres of shit, but they also produce some of the best, having indeed the oldest traditions. Here’s a beautiful top-quality Chinese sword in the Han dynasty style (check out the linked detailed pictures of the damascus patterns, incredibly refined).

The guy who does that review has a cornucopia of swords and guns and Daoism stuff, quite an cheerfully whacky dude.