This Sword *Could* be Great, But... ARGH!

All right, let's look at the Sword of Mixed Feelings, which is better than the Sword of Disappointment, but still got some issues. So, this is a 13th century arming sword, angustrim design, by Kingston Arms. And I was interested in this because I wanted to do some cutting with an arming sword, which I really haven't done all that much. And unfortunately, that's exactly where this one disappoints. But let me start with the positive things. All right, so positive is I would say it captures a 13th century arming sword pretty well overall. It looks right. It feels right. It is very well balanced. It's light. The balance is right about here. So, that's a good middle ground between cutting power and balance. So, you're able to move this quite well, you know, disengage and thrust, or feint and cut to a different opening. Things like this, you can perform a number of cuts here quite easily. And nothing wrong with it at all. In fact, interestingly, I've got a practice arming sword, which is almost identical, even though it's a different maker. But you can see blade length is very close. Overall size and shape pretty close. And the handling is almost the same. So, I already know that you could fight with this no problem. I've used that other sword in sparring, and there's no problem with that. I like the guard. It's a nice slim guard. It's nothing too clunky. You really don't need any more than this to catch an opponent's blade. It doesn't need to be super beefy and whatnot. So, no problem there. The pommel is fine too. It's pretty simplistic overall, but there's nothing wrong with that. The fuller is nicely done. Not exceptional, but perfectly good. The shape of the point, no issue with that either. Let me do the scabbard first before I go to the negative. I have to apologize for the condition that this scabbard is in. I have no idea how all these scratches happened. Probably when I was in a hurry and had to transport a bunch of swords together to a location for cutting tests and just kind of threw them all together. And yeah, the leather was scratched up to hell and back. So, ignore that. But it's a very simple scabbard, as you can tell. Nothing wrong with that really. It works. It's a wood core. There's no rattle. I mean, there's always going to be rattle if you shake it side to side because the blade can flex a little bit. But in the direction of the edge, no problem. And yeah, nothing wrong with this. Again, it's simple, but that's really all you need. And many reproduction swords don't even come with a scabbard at all. Right, the handle wrap. This is also well done. So, you can see that this was wrapped in string after it was glued to make sure that it's all tight on there to compress it. Everything there is. The seam right here is done very well. This is basically Albion style and it's nice and even and I can't feel it. I mean, if I focus on it, of course, I can feel the end there, but it's not like a stitched seam that keeps rubbing on your hand. So, the handle here is flawless. No problem with it. I like the shape of it. You know, it tapers a little bit toward the pommel and yeah, it's nice and wide, not too thick. It's great. That's what you want for a sword. Okay, so lots of positive things, right? What's my problem with it? Why is it the Sword of Mixed Feelings? Well, check out the edge. This is one of the worst secondary bevels I've seen on a blade and in this price range, yikes. This is the kind of crudely done secondary bevel that I would expect to see on a $150 sword, maybe, like maybe $200, but yeah, this is rough in more ways than one. For one, the angle is really steep. I don't think just touching it up is really going to help. No, it would have to be re-ground. It's the geometry, it's not the sharpness. Yeah, and the grind is clearly extremely coarse. Now, there are some positive things you can say about a coarse grind. It's like a toothier edge that can saw a little bit better into some materials like fabric and all that, but the problem is that an edge like this is damaged more easily because, microscopically, you have a bunch of random micro serrations, essentially, so they're easier to break out, so to speak, so you can get notches more easily, which is, you know, not great, but it's just the thing does not cut at all. I tried. Repeatedly, I tried as well as I could until eventually I realized that this is hopeless, that this thing does not cut. Now, I want to compare. I'll just do the exact same cut. Yeah, I don't think it's me. You don't want this really hard shoulder transitioning into a steep bevel. It's just, it's not good, so you would have to re-grind the entire thing to put a different edge profile on, and it takes a while, and it shouldn't be necessary. The customer shouldn't be expected to do that. A lot of people wouldn't even know how to do that. If you want this for cutting, just no, don't. No. At first, I was going to wrap up the review here, but then I figured I should give it a second chance after sharpening. Not re-profiling, just sharpening, which Rick kindly offered to do in a shop with a belt grinder. Those bevels were at 45s, so I took them down a little bit, but yeah, you're right. I have to change the whole geometry to get it to, so yeah, those were kind of nasty. 45 degrees, that's insanity. Yeah. Now, you can do a 45 bevel, but the shoulders have to be smaller, and then just do the final little spot. It'll be more robust, but it won't have that big shoulder behind it. And also not on a sword like that. Yeah, exactly. You can do that on an axe or some other chopping blade, not this. That just doesn't have the mass. No, it doesn't. This needs like 25 or even less. I would go full convex to the edge, zero grind. Yeah. Okay, sharpened. Let's see if that works any better. It cut like halfway, which is better than before. It's gotta be possible to get a good tatami cut out of this. Nope. 45 degrees. Why? It'd be good for thrusting. Oh yeah, sure, no problem. A real shame, because it's a perfectly functional sword, and it's pretty affordable, you know, compared to like an Albion, or Lockwood, or who knows what high-end swords. The other issue I ran into is controversial, because I used this for a murder stroke test, and as a result, this one bent. Hopefully you can see that. The pommel is off-center. The good thing is nothing loosened up. The guard is still strong, so that's properly fitted, and it's peened well. So should this even be a criticism? Arguably no, especially considering that what they were able to make in medieval times was significantly softer than modern crucible steel, and there are plenty of original finds with bent tangs, twisted pommels, etc. Murder stroke with a sword? I mean, come on, right? I wanted to point it out, because it's just been part of the review process. But really, the main problem is the absolutely atrocious edge, and it's not something I want to see on a sword labeled battle-ready. Like, if they made a practice version of this, that would be fine. By the way, don't just grind the edge off and the tip and use this as a practice sword. This is not flexible enough, all right? It's a pretty stiff blade, which is what you want for a real sword and for cutting and everything, but for a practice blade, it needs to be flexible. Anyway, so now I'm left with the dilemma of whether or not to recommend this sword, and well, that's a big it depends, I suppose, because again, if you want to get a sword for cutting practice, or let alone cutting competitions, forget about it. Just no. Unless you're willing to spend a lot of time grinding and refining the edge, no. If you want something like a functional collector's item, you know, something that feels like a proper sword and looks like one without breaking the bank, sure, I can recommend it for that. In that regard, it's quite good. It's a shame that it's just ruined by this one thing, and you could argue, well, just cut it some slack. No, I can't. I can't cut anything with this, not even slack. But you might say, well, whatever, it's just the edge, you know, you can fix it, blah, blah, whatever. And if it wasn't quite as bad as it is, I would be willing to overlook it. But I said, this is one of the worst bevels I've ever seen. And I just, it offends me to my core. And the fact that it's so good otherwise is also exactly what offends me about it. Because it's really, it could be great. I could easily recommend this if it wasn't, if it didn't fail so hard in that regard. But hey, maybe we'll see a revised version with better edge in the future. Who knows? Maybe I was being too hard. Let me know what you think. I'm open to feedback and everything. Anyway, I hope you found the review helpful. Thanks for watching and have a good one, folks.