Why Reproduction Sabres SUCK

Most reproduction sabres and related military type sword reproductions suck. It's not usually build quality or aesthetics that are their main problem. This is a look at why they are so bad.
Here is where I am starting to collate data on antique swords that I own -
www.flickr.com...

[@Theduckwebcomics]

I've compared my Cold Steel 1796 to my originals. It's around the correct weight and has good distal taper. Going from about 8mm to 2mm The problem is that the real 1796s have a complex distal taper! They start very thick, quickly slim down, then gradually slim toward the foible and then slim down a lot more to 1mm in the flat foible. The Cold Steel version just has a simple, linear distal taper, and that's the real problem. It's not lack of distal taper in that particular case, its lack of a complex taper that makes the difference.

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

That indeed is another problem. But most reproduction makers haven't even got to a level where that is a concern. Below is the complete picture of distal taper on one infantry officers sabre. It shows the complex distal taper you are talking about. It would be great to see this on reproduction swords, but you're not going to, except for the high end of the market sadly. www.flickr.com/photos/155366595@N06/37629704562/in/album-72157687926344863/

[@Theduckwebcomics]

@@Battker it's enlightening when you notice it. I wondered why the Cold Steel didn't handle as nicely or feel as good in the hand as a sabre with the same weight, same blade shape, the same balance point, and it even had a noticeable distal taper... But then you notice the complexity of the taper on the originals. It makes all the difference. I've thought about reprofiling the blade, but I worry that I'll mess up the temper.

[@JDahl-sj5lk]

Drunkduck I've noticed the same on several sharps I have, and it's especially bad on Sabres. The idea I've toyed with is grinding away metal to make that distal taper. While I know I'm not skilled enough to do it like the originals, I'm thinking that it must be possible to at least improve em a little without ruining the blade (or its durability) completely. Bad idea or extremely bad idea?

[@erichusayn]

Mine handles like a crowbar and came dull...

[@charleswillis5925]

Have a look at the center of gravity. How many centimeters out from the hilt? On the old sabres, is it forward or back? I'm guessing the old sabres have it back slightly, but I have never seen where it was measured.

[@dimitrizaitsew1988]

Dear Nick, my friend! You forget that many people in India or China have never seen or held a REAL 1796 LCS The makers probably don't know how to make a sword just right. The work of people like you is definitely going to help. Keep up your work, spread the word about sabres and we'll have good reproductions eventually.

[@lovegck1]

Any reproduction sabres you would recommend for handling?

[@nikolassevy1406]

Thr basically all out of stock but Dynasty Forge

[@levifontaine8186]

That hanger is beautiful

[@ivymike2691]

www.armourclass.co.uk/Data/Pages/17Century_8.htm Still on the market. 150 GBP for a blunt

[@midshipman8654]

Artillery only.

[@frostaegis8653]

can the spadroon be saved? I personally love the aesthetic of a straight bladed, jack of all trades gentlemen's sword, but it pains me to hear that a spadroon is rubbish. Perhaps if the blade were a single millimeter wider and the fuller stopped somewhere 3/4 the way to the tip. Or rather, make it an anemic looking broadsword without the basket?

[@xiezicong]

Check out his Facebook page.

[@brianc9374]

US Army NCO sword has a straight blade. It was used in war with Mexico and Civil War

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

There are in fact plenty of good spadroons. The spadroon was a popular sword in Britain from the late 17th century, and admired for its qualities. Similar swords were popular on the continent too. The problem is not spadroons on the whole, but the 1796 pattern, which is the most famous of them. It's blade is too light and flexible, and hilt too heavy for that blade. Early to mid 18th century examples were usually double edged, stiffer, heavier and really very good swords. They were around 200-300 grams heavier. Giving a better cut, better thrust, and a gooo all rounder. They were exactly as you describe

[@thatchannel195]

Nice profile pic

[@manchagojohnsonmanchago6367]

older early 1700s spodroons are... ok. but they have wider more effective blades

[@adamdeforest495]

Hey Nick, I just recently got a saber that I'm having trouble identifying. I know its German or Prussian due to the makers mark, but beyond that I haven't been able to find another example of the exact saber I have. If you wouldn't mind having a look at some pictures and maybe helping me identify it I would greatly appreciate it.

[@MrEdium]

THIS IS AN EXCEPTIONAL VIDEO BUT MANY OF US CAN BARELY AFFORD THE REPRODUCTION & CANNOT EVEN THINK OF SPENDING THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FOR A SWORD. THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR WISDOM.

[@bloodypine22]

You can get antique sabres for a 100€ at the lowest. They are often cheaper than reproductions.

[@crazyd4ve875]

@@bloodypine22 Can you send me a link to a winged hussars sabre (functional) for $200 USD? Or a place to buy one? I need to know where you're buying these antiques lol

[@bloodypine22]

@@crazyd4ve875 You, uh, won't find anything that old or prized for that cheap my guy. Those are 7k at the least if you can find one at auction.

[@philipshearer5286]

I've been thinking about purchasing a Cold Steel Talwar, what do you think?

[@dracon501]

Does modern steel quality effect how thick a blade needs to be for strength?

[@xiezicong]

Ish? Not really. Early modern steel wasn't terrible and heat treat and weight-toughness-hardness factors are far more important than the exact type of steel.

[@helenodetroyo7035]

MY $29.99 (dollar) CHINESE REPRODUCTION NINJA SWORD IS THE BEST OF THE BEST!

[@jimbobpwns]

I've probably learned more about swords from you guys than anywhere else.

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

Great to hear it.

[@thatchannel195]

@@AcademyofHistoricalFencing opinions on the Dynasty Forge sabres?

[@thatchannel195]

Would be nice if Albion branched out and produced some later period swords.

[@jasonjohnson6938]

Seconded

[@MrOsiric]

Sir very grateful for this, now I know what to buy next.... a f***ing grinder.. hahaha

[@thelonerider5644]

There aren't any high end repros of these swords! I bet if you had an arms and armour or albion level sabre, it'd push even lower tier models to improve...

[@jordanreeseyre]

I suspect another issue with sabres is the relatively small market for high end replicas. With so many surviving 19th century originals there has historically not been that much demand among collectors for a realistically handling reproduction.

[@edi9892]

You have no idea how hard it would be to get decent Austrian blade replicas... Bauernwehr; sabres... I haven't seen a single decent reproduction let alone any non-custom reproduction. Austria was a F-ing empire and yet no-one seems to know anything about their arms and armour (which diffed quite a bit from German one despite being neighbours and culturally close)

[@nikolassevy1406]

@@edi9892 yeah id love to have a British 1796 or the Austrian sword it was based on

[@formam1022]

Deepeka (and I hate to say this) 1840 is pretty decent, handles like my 1840 antique, and truly weighs .05 more

[@sf90001]

Could you talk about the methods smiths would use to mass produce these swords during their time? Is it simply of matter of having lots of Smiths or are there certain things they could do then that we can’t do now?

[@xiezicong]

They hammered out a hunk of metal into shape as opposed to removing layers from a bar.

[@tsinaropouloschristos593]

Not much changed in Smithing in the past 150 years. Electricity replaced steam power thats all. They still used power hammers and presses.

[@manchagojohnsonmanchago6367]

@@tsinaropouloschristos593 huge changes in the 1840s.. most english made swords were formed in a die roller afew seconds for an almost complete blade ... nolonger hammered.. producing a blade of perfect dimensions and a much stronger structure in the steel, this period was the golden period of sword strength and sword metallic quality.. swords now use inferior much lower carbon and poorer steels,. english sword of the period had over 1‰ carbon for example... modern ones about .4 or .45 % on average (dont be a nonce and actuially beleive when they say otherwise.. the standard even for military blades is about that, sames teel as mower blades) poorer heat treatment methods too, they are also softer by many rockwell points 46 or 47 vs 56 or 57.. (you can see the wilkinson tests on striking a steel rod for example.. modern products will fail this test) and and are dimensionally less consistant due to hand forging.. in 2021 it is as if we are in the dark ages and the 1850s was the height of the romanswhen if comes to sword production.... now the blade and sword ergonomocs and cutting/killing capacity and designs of the swords in that peripd was horrid and got worse with time.. as they made swords for strength and repariability and service life.. not function so much.. so they were dull poorly balanced weapons.. sheathed in steel sheaths.. blades unsharpened by troops who couldnt sharpen them.. ect.. but that all was about the militaries of the day making sure they had durable weapons not sharp or ergonomic or logical ones.... many people in the us civil war were rather beat todeath with the sword than slashed in twain.... ..a medieval knight would be disgusted by 18th and 19th century swords.. but an accountant or a storeman would absplutpy love them.. in all honesty it is only the japanese who retained this skill of decerning the sharpness required for an item into the 20th century in europe its compleatly dead.. and infact in most places.. except japan.. but even there mass prodiced japanese militarys words were totally blunt and unsharpenable.. i have one sabre that is nothing more than a strip of lowcarbon steel.. a metal whip basically.. utterly disgusting.. the recruits will never break its edge on a rock though.. .

[@ROMANTIKILLER2]

Weight and distribution is also something that I could immediately notice also in my limited experience, having held also a couple of 18th and 19th century originals. Many of the affordable reproductions look like original swords, but do not feel like them when you're handling them. I had not paid attention though that is was in large part because of the distal taper.

[@ryszardkoprowski1414]

Another problem is with rapier reproductions. A vast of them are without proper distal taper of course, but they wobble! You probably can not buy any rapier below 1000 USD with stiff, light, live blade. All of them are tip heavy with dramatic weight distribution and with tooo much flex. Is it really so complicated to reproduce a proper rapier blade?

[@thatchannel195]

I heard the Christus Imperat rapier is ok but idk

[@alexxu3004]

7:00 just want to add historically 18century onwards sabers are essentially stamped by big rollers, and the blade profile basically done in seconds. this makes sense to invest in if you are making thousands of swords to fullfill a military contract, not so much for modern reproduction shops

[@curranegan5512]

Great overview! I've got a Universal Swords 1796 HCS which I cut with, and as you say it handles like a crowbar (although it does hit like a truck, which is kinda fun) which means that my cuts feel quite sluggish and recovering to a guard afterward is quite tiring. On top of the inadequate distal taper, I also noticed while sharpening it that the distal taper is not smooth over the length of the sword, but occurs in three noticeable "steps," each of which is about a third the length of the blade. These abrupt changes in width have made it very difficult to get a smooth consistent edge along the entire length of the blade.

[@bimbobaggypants4820]

I also have one and it is sluggish.

[@stevemackelprang8472]

Thank you for this, information in depth is hard to come by ..

[@BRASSKNUCKLE22]

It seems the general idea for reproduction swords is they're over built for heavy use which helps a bit, that probably leaves you some room to grind the profile you want especially if it's tempered properly if your up to the task

[@barefoofDr]

Does anyone have any information about sword or blade rolling mills?

[@nikolassevy1406]

Well they definitely should be remade. Originals aren't getting any more cheaper or common. Its not a sabre but id love to get a proper 1796 hcs reproduced.

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

Absolutely. We just need the companies making them to do a better job, or for new companies to rise. The problem is the demand isn't there yet, simply because the originals are still so affordable. Look at what Albion swords have done for medieval era sharps for example. Exceptional reproductions. But most antique sabres are still cheaper than those Albion swords.

[@eroktartonga4032]

Yes. This is a very good video pointing out how the serial production ruins the beauty of original.

Problem with reenactment blunts is: 1) safety reasons everything needs to be rounded up, tapering to 1,5 is no go. I think minimum allowed was 2,5. 2) lets face it, reenactors love to abuse they beating sticks. And when it takes heavy damage or breaks, they go "Boo-ho-ho, maker You did a shitty sword, give me my money back!". So they are built up bulky to survive reenactors, not because blade maker is lazy.

[@edi9892]

Why would it be that difficult or expensive to hammer or roll an iron bar thin so that it has some decent tapering before you start grinding it into shape? Especially with modern rolls it should be pretty easy to do it fast and reproducibly.

[@xiezicong]

Factory productions don't use rolls, they use bars. But yeah, the smith I know use rolls and hammer then flat. He cares deeply about distal taper and swears that any blade without isn't a sword.

[@marksteven6116]

get the grinder out and take down the back, dagger point

[@cheapknight1293]

Great arguments, I feel the frustration there..

[@carloparisi9945]

Hi Nick, your point makes a lot of sense. Now, if we wanted to have a realistic distal taper on (say) nylon sabres, would it be more appropriate to have a 9mm difference between "ricasso" (I just mean the point close to the hilt here) and point or a 10 to 1 ratio? I think the latter would be, by far, the most difficult to have, but one could try to come close to it.

[@erichusayn]

Excellent video. You probably saved me lots of cash. Better to just save the extra for an antique one. Thanks.

[@erichusayn]

@Colin Cleveland sadly, I'm in the USA, but have a few leads on antique saber in Britain as of now.

[@adamradon8202]

Steel sabres by Damian Tylko that you've used in some of your sparring videos, are they any good?

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

in short, they are decent and useable, but with a couple of caveats. Better than pretty much all of their type for now. I'll be sure to review soon.

[@adamradon8202]

@@AcademyofHistoricalFencing thanks for answering! What about the one from Balefire Blades, they're quoting your very enthusiastic opinion on their Facebook?

[@xiezicong]

Thanks for the Flickr album! I've submitted some of my stats to Leonard at AMHE Paris and sseager, who's been collecting sabre stats too

[@SmigGames]

Very interesting

[@robertrobertson8575]

Could you take an overbuilt reproduction like the cold steel 1796 and simply have a distal taper ground into the blade? Obviously paying attention to Blade temperature temper Etc

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

Absolutely and I have known several people to do this. They usually just take it to a belt grinder and add more distal taper and then polish out. It will never have the complex distal taper and very thick shoulder of most originals, but it can be significantly improved to be a pretty good sword.

[@Lallander]

Is there a list of good reproductions somewhere? Finding good, relatively inexpensive blades is not easy these days.

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

Actual replicas of sabres, not really. Cold Steel if you are in the US are ok, mostly still overweight but better than most others and at least durable. There are now high quality steel training versions by companies like Black Fencer and Kvetun, but these are training swords, not exact replicas or cutters.

[@londiniumarmoury7037]

I'm in the middle of designing a modern reproduction of the British 1845 pattern infantry Officers Sabre. I have an Original antique made by Pillin that I got from Matt Easton, so it will be an exact replica in every way, I'll let you know when It's finished and the videos up.

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

Sounds good. An 1845 is at least a little easier to get right as its a narrower (in profile) blade than most Napoleonic era stuff, and yet still most smiths get it wrong. Having original swords to work from is invaluable. Are you making it as a sharp, a trainer or what? Nice swords the 1845, a good all rounder.

[@snakeoveer1046]

Does such a taper make the blade weak at the foible? How much abuse can these swords take?

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

The thinner it is the weaker it is of course, but providing the steel is of good quality and the heat treatment is good, they can take a lot. In fact, in historical accounts, it is far more common for these blades to break at the tang shoulder, where a tremendous amount of force is transmitted during striking and parrying.

[@Forndrome]

If distal taper is so important for swords not handling like 'iron bars', then why do katanas work? Afaik they are notable for having quite thick blades with very little distal taper compared to other swords.

[@LordSoulSicarious]

Not an expert, but I do know one important factor: Katanas are *really* short for a two-handed sword. Typically only a 70-75cm blade. Even these one-handed sabres typically fall in an 80-90cm range, and European two-handers can get positively enormous due to the use of distal taper.

[@crigby46]

Sean above me pretty much answered your question, but I'd add that as well as a short blade (for its weight at least), the katana also has a rather long grip. This means you've a nice long lever to help turn that blade around the point of balance. Another point worth mentioning of course is that the comments about blade handling in this video are geared somewhat more towards one-handed weapons; balance is still very important of course, but a two-handed grip will allow you to deal with blade-heaviness rather more easily. With a two handed grip you can give yourself a bigger lever by moving your hands apart; with a sabre really your only option to overcome the inertia of a heavy blade is to eat your spinach and have forearms like Popeye.

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

Some good replies above, so I'll keep this short. Firstly, a great many katana do have distal taper, but yes, not as extreme as some original European swords I showed. Also, many had a fair amount of profile taper to help further. Additionally, they're really short. The shorter the blade, the less a lack of distal taper is noticeable. Hence that little hanger I showed with zero distal taper, and it still handles ok. That has a blade length similar to some katana. Also, having a two handed grip makes a world of difference. The leverage of the extra hand completely changes the control over the blade.

[@xiezicong]

One further thing to add: katanas handle worse than a lot of longswords. Also, wielding a katana one handed is just not fun. I know because I cut with one.

[@matthewpham9525]

John Worse is...subjective. What exactly is worse about them in your opinion? I figured the lower overall weight of katanas would counter the far point of balance.

[@ikksksknsk4720]

👌

[@mr.holmes1810]

My two cents :), as a collector of antique arms I feel that reproductions have a place for people that want something to put on the wall . In addition they fill a void for those who are not in the market to buy originals. Having those flaws that you describe , make it easy to distinguish whats fake and what are originals. There are some good forgers out there . If they become too good then the market will be flooded with fakes that are being sold as originals.

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

Absolutely they have a place, sadly the costs of some antiques are rocketing up and that leave those than can afford them with no options of a reproduction that actually handles even close to the real thing. The concerns over forgeries that are so close to the originals is certainly a valid concern though.

[@alundavies8402]

@@AcademyofHistoricalFencing but surely if they sell them honestly that would no longer be a problem but how will you be able to get people to be honest? Ah ha that is the problem innit

[@jpf338]

love your channel man, most Hema related channels that I used to follow have suffered some change that I don't favor, I like how's yours is fairly straight to the subject. Cheers!