Sword Weights - Napoleonic Era Swords

Hey folks, Matt Easton here, scholar gladiatoria of course, and this is a video with a difference. Because I'm on the floor at your feet, I'm here to weigh some swords. Why am I doing that? Well first of all, several reasons. I thought it'd be interesting, number one. It's something I've been meaning to do for a little bit of time. I have done weighing things videos in the past, but in recent months I've noticed that there are a few websites online that are, I won't say spreading false information, but I think that they're misleading. And so some people are getting the impression that some swords are lighter and in some cases heavier than they actually are. So what I was going to do, because obviously I own a fair number of swords, I've got 12 here, all of these 12 swords, every single one of them is Napoleonic era. So what I thought I would do is do like with like. So this is the Napoleonic sword weighing, it's the weigh up basically, the weigh session. Now I don't have everything from the Napoleonic era obviously. These are all British swords, okay. So these are British Napoleonic swords and there's a few quite well known models, patterns that I don't have here at the moment, okay. So one example is the 1796 Spadroon, which I do actually have one of, but I just haven't laid it out here. So maybe I'll do that another time. But I've got two small swords and a hanger and then I've got a bunch of sabers and basically most of the rest of the sabers are cavalry sabers, but I do actually have three infantry officers sabers as well. For weighing, I'm using a crappy old set of scales, but you know what, they're quite reliable. I've actually, I actually bought some digital scales and they're, for some reason they do not handle swords very well. I think I need to buy some of those scales that are used for weighing fish, but if you use normal kitchen scales, for some reason the digital ones don't handle swords very well. They give different readings depending on where you put them and that kind of stuff. So I'm using the reliable old plastic weighing scales. I'll there we go, it's zeroed now. So what we're going to start off with, I'll move along the line. So the first sword we're going to look at is a colichemard small sword. I've got videos on these if you're wondering what the hell is a colichemard small sword. Well, I have done these before. So look up small sword in search in my videos for small sword and you'll find stuff about this. So essentially they're slightly beefier than a normal small sword. It's got a broader section at the base of the blade. So let's have a little look at the weight of this. Obviously you have to weigh them around the point of balance. That is pretty light, so that is 480 grams. Okay, so it's just under 500 grams. There we go, that's the weight that it is. That's about the weight of a modern sport fencing sabre. So 480 grams, make sure it goes back to zero, it does. So the colichemard small sword, 480 grams. This small sword is rather unusual. It doesn't have a colichemard blade but it has an unusually substantial hilt and I know it's Napoleonic because it's got a GR, George Rex, gilt and crown decoration on the blade, which means it's an officer's small sword. It's a military small sword rather than just a civilian small sword. Again, find the point of balance for that, which is a few centimetres up from the cross. This is lighter. This one is pretty much bang on 400 grams, perhaps a shade under, so let's call it about 395 grams. Okay, and it goes back to zero again afterwards. So that's a lighter small sword. As we'd expect, colichemard small swords with the broader base tend to be heavier. Good, next up is the hanger. Well, as you'd expect, hangers are short sabres essentially. They're probably a hangover or an evolution of the earlier langwesser and falchion and indeed hanger. They used to be known as in 15th century England. So it's probably not a new weapon. It's probably a weapon that's been around for a very long time but it's just taken on a detailed shape. The actual detailed shape of it is that of the late 18th century. And again, this has military engraving on the blade, so I know this is a military one. It's got GR on it and it's probably a naval officer's hanger, although it could be infantry. Right, so the point of balance is a bit further up on that one. Obviously you would expect this, you would expect hangers and cutlasses, cutlasses maybe not because they've got large guards, but you expect hangers to be somewhat lighter. So I'll just move that so that's more into shot for you. There we go. You'd expect them to be lighter than a cavalry saber because there's less metal in them. They're shorter, aren't they? And that is 700 grams, pretty much spot on. Yep, spot on 700 grams. So there we go. So it's definitely heavier than the small swords, the small swords being 480 and about 395. And this one, this one is up there now to bang on 700. Yeah, 700 grams. So I think that that should be interesting to some of you because I noticed particularly people who are doing Italian styles of saber argue that the swords, the gymnasium sabers that we use for British military saber are too heavy for them. I can't argue with that. They did have Italian gymnasium sabers that were definitely lighter than the British gymnasium sabers. But in terms of the weight of the actual military swords, well there you've got a hanger that weighs 700 grams. That's just a hanger, okay. And in Italian saber lots of people are only using 650 gram sabers. So that is very light to put that into context. Right, this is not something I've actually, I don't think, oh I've not done a specific, I have shown this on video before but I've not done an actual video just about it. It's a 1788 pattern officer's version of the cavalry saber. So this is what came before the 1796. There's a 1796 there, okay. The 1788, I've got to say the 1796 gets all of the fame and all of the glory and all of the attention but I really like the 1788. It's longer and it's proportionately lighter than the 1796. I like the extra reach that you get on it and I just really like the design of it. It's a bit, it's not as curved as the 1796. Yeah it's not as broad up here so it probably doesn't cut with as much authority but as an actual weapon to use as a weapon I really really like it. Anyway let's see how much it weighs. Let's find the balance point. Balance point, often with cavalry sabers the balance point is further up as you can see. It's a good few inches, probably about eight inches up from the point. And this is the 1788 pattern officer's version and it weighs 840, maybe a shade under, 830 grams. Okay so check it goes back to zero, it does. So we're going up in weight. I'm not saying that that's going to continue all the way up the line, I shouldn't think it will do. So that hanger was 700 grams and I've just forgotten what it was now, 800 and, oh that's right, 830. Yeah that's right. So the 1788 pattern, I've got no reason to think that that's either a particularly heavy or a particularly light example, 830 grams. To put that into context, a lot of the gymnasium sabers that we use for fencing practice that you'll see in videos on my channel and other channels are around 850 grams. So this is pretty close to that, it's actually slightly lighter but remember this has a simple knuckle bow guard. A lot of the weight, a lot of the weight really, like hundreds of grams of the weight in gymnasium sabers and later period sabers is in the guard. As soon as you have a simpler knuckle bow guard like this it makes the entire sword lighter. Okay right now let's go on to the 1796. Now before I do, I'm aware that there is a website somewhere online that states that the weight of a 1796 saber is 570 grams. That is complete rubbish. Okay I have never ever, and I have probably owned in the region of 20 or 30 1796 light cavalry sabers, I have never experienced one anyone even even close to 570 grams. They usually weigh around 800 grams. Okay let's see how much this one weighs. Again finding the balance point, it's quite far up with the 1796 although interestingly it's not further up than the 1788 but the 1788 is a longer blade. Well there we go folks, 570 grams that website claims. This one is 980. Okay so there's a 1796. I'm not saying that this is necessarily a light one or a heavy one or anything else. I would say it's perhaps slightly heavier than average but that is 980 grams. Okay wet again, it's gone back to zero. Yeah I mean it's just just under one kilogram. Yeah 980 grams. Okay so there we go the 1796, at least this one, and this is an officer's one incidentally but it's not an ornate officer's one, it's a basic officer's one. This weighs 980 grams which is you know 150 grams heavier than this 1788 pattern despite the fact that as you can see the 1788 pattern is slightly longer although admittedly the 1796 is broader. Okay right for comparison I have another 1796 here but this 1796 is a trooper's sword not an officer's sword and it's not actually a Napoleonic era one. I've included it here as a almost like a test and this is actually, these were specifically made in the mid-19th century by a company called Moll, Robert Moll and Sons of Birmingham, and they were made to equip Indian cavalry but they were made to the same patterns and the same statistics as the earlier Napoleonic ones. So it's marked on the back Robert Moll and it's sharp incidentally and I know that this is a Victorian one rather than a Georgian one however it should be the same as an earlier Georgian one more or less. I would say the only slight difference is they tend to have slightly straighter grips but anyway. There we go, again try and find the balance point, about there, there we go, it wants to twist this one on the, there we go, right let's see what that is. So this is lighter than that officer's one, this one is 900 grams, okay so there we go, we've got two 1790 and it's spot on 900 grams. We've got two 1796s there, bear in mind one was 980 grams and one was 900 grams okay and the 1788 was much lighter at 830 grams. So there we go, this exactly tallies with the weight of the gymnasium sabres that we're using, so the Reginier ones are I think 900 grams, thereabouts, sometimes over but generally speaking all of the gymnasium sabres that we're using are between 850 and 950 grams which corresponds with these swords. Now you might say oh but they're cavalry swords, well as we'll see in a minute cavalry swords aren't necessarily heavier than infantry officers swords. There seems to have been an optimal operating weight at least in the British military and I would say French definitely as well that was around this range regardless of whether it was infantry or cavalry. Yes there's a slight tendency for cavalry swords to be slightly heavier on average than the infantry ones but we're really talking about an average difference of maybe only between 30 and 80 grams okay we're not talking about 100 grams or more. Right so this I don't think I've ever shown this before so this is an officer's version of the heavy cavalry, so the 1796 pattern heavy cavalry officer's sword and you'll see it's got a large guard there, the so-called ladder hilt or early version of squirrel hilt and because it's symmetrical and it's large you would expect there to be more weight in this and it's a longer blade it's a 35 inch blade in this case straight and also in this case with the clipped back point okay a bit like a bowie knife to make it better for thrusting. It's marked GR so we know it's Georgian we know it's Napoleonic era and it has been service sharpened. Right and service sharpening would indeed reduce a bit of weight but not very much and it is slightly over 900 grams it's about 910 grams. Okay so there we go despite the fact it's longer and despite the fact it's got a larger hilt it actually weighs in the same range as these 1796 light cavalry sabres okay so the heavy cavalry one in this case 910 grams and certainly the trooper's ones tend to be heavier than the officer's ones in the case of the heavy cavalry swords based on my experience. Right next up we're getting into um we've got three non-regulation swords coming up okay first of all is a non-regulation and this is from the very end of the Napoleonic era so this could be from sort of battle of Waterloo 1815 period right the way through to about 1820. You'll notice it's got this is the one that's normally on my wall behind me when I'm talking it's got a beak nose pommel fully enclosed which dates it to between 1815 and 1820 ish and it's a pipe back blade it's one of the early pipe backs blades but you'll see that the overall shape of it is clearly inspired by the 1796 light cavalry saber. Now this is a fairly big sword it's a 35 inch blade and I can tell you it's not light and the point of balance is quite far up the blade it also has etched false um woods on on the blade. Right I can see already that's quite heavy it's over a kilogram okay so that is one point what is it so it's not um I think it's about 1020 yeah so 1020 it's 1020 grams okay so it's very slightly over one kilogram so that is a you know over one kilogram sword and yes it is a fairly big sword and this is probably getting to the upper end of the spectrum for what Napoleonic cavalry swords reach both in terms of size and in terms of weight but remember it's only got a simple knuckle bow if that had a three bar hilt or if it had a you know like a later victorian style more enclosed half basket it would be even heavier than this okay so that's over a kilogram interesting isn't it that these two swords they don't look so different in size and yet this one was just over 900 grams and this one's just over 1000 grams right now this sword you have all seen before I hope this is my woots bladed so this is very non-regulation and very unusual I've really only included it in here because it does historically fit within the same context as these as these other swords yes it's an Indo-Persian blade possibly Persian rather than Indian but it is a 1796 style hilt so this was in use in the same period as these other swords and it is a heavy sword and it does have a point of balance far from the hand very far from the hand there we go I did weigh this before but I can't remember what it was wow okay I'm going to check that that's it's actually drifted slightly from zero so I'm just going to recalibrate slightly I didn't remember it being this heavy when I weighed it before so this is 1200 grams there we go 1200 grams for for rough comparison my rapier which has a 40 inch blade on it is 1300 grams and that's modelled on accurately modelled on one from the Wallace collection which weighs the same so don't think rapiers are light rapiers aren't small swords small swords and rapiers are very different things and rapiers are large and can be heavy swords they're not always but they can be because they can be really quite large so this is 1200 grams this is almost certainly going to be the heaviest sword here but again those people who say that oh a 1796 should be 570 grams where show me a 570 gram 1796 this one which is a woots blade on a 1796 hilt is 1200 grams is it a bit of a beast to wave around yes it is but can I use it yeah I can okay right now we're going to move on to three swords that are infantry officers swords now okay as we have to admit the the hanger is an infantry officer's sword as well so first up is this just make sure it's all in shot there we go now this is a lovely sword I've I will make a video about but I haven't done it yet and this is specifically for an officer of rifle volunteers okay so we know it's a rifle's sword and it's relatively a rifle's officer's sword it's relatively shorter it's under a 30 inch blade I think it's about 28 inches so it's kind of between hanger length and saber length okay and it feels relatively light quite responsive the point of balance feels closer to the hand and it's not a big sword but nevertheless you see the shape of it is very much like a 1796 like cavalry saber and if I just grab the 1796 is very clearly inspired by it it's just scaled down it's just a bit smaller okay small so let's stick this on the in the weir on the scales ah well it's not really light it's um 880 grams okay so 880 grams despite the fact that this is a relatively small and it feels light to me anyway um probably because the weight's distributed over a shorter lever shorter length but this feels like a very light and responsive but also with a fair amount of power in the chop sword and yet that's 880 grams okay again where's this 570 gram light light cavalry saber I certainly don't know one so this is 880 grams even though it's smaller than a cavalry saber and it's for an officer fighting on foot as an officer of rifles okay let's move along to we have two 1803 patterns so Nick Thomas of AHF will like this bit hopefully he probably liked the rifles one as well I hope so these are both blue and gilt both very high quality 1803 pattern infantry officers swords very very lovely swords this one with an ivory hilt and this one with a horn hilt or horn grip rather very very nice things again you can see that these are modeled on the 1796 light cavalry saber or inspired by certainly in terms of the blade and the hilts were brought in in 1803 based on what some regiments were unofficially allowing their officers to wear and this is an alternative these were brought in as an alternative to the spadroon because as we all know spadroons are a bit rubbish and these sabers are quite good so officers were quite happy to switch from spadroons to these right let's do the ivory hilted one first which I think should be the lighter one okay so you can see it's got about a 30 inch blade blue and gilt brass hilt ivory grip point of balance about six inches from the guard right so this is over 900 it is 950 pretty much slap in the middle between 900 and 1000 just check it goes back to zero it does yeah say 940 950 so that's about that's quite surprising to me actually because it feels lighter than that that is between 940 and 950 grams that's the ivory gripped one okay let's put that to one side now let's have a look at this one which I believe to be the heavier one but I might be wrong it this has got a broader blade on it and it's slightly longer as well this is a 32 inch blade which is quite unusually long actually for an 1803 pattern again balance point about six inches from the guard and it is heavier but not a lot it's about 980 grams okay so 980 grams that's surprising it's only just under a kilogram so actually what we found is in this bizarre case it seems like the infantry officer's swords are actually heavier than some of the cavalry officer's swords it's almost the reverse of what you'd expect I will put these stats below this video so you don't have to obviously do watch the video back and make sure the adverts play and watch it lots of times and share it with all your friends if you found this interesting do subscribe if you're not subscribed please share the video everywhere hopefully this will function as a document to I suppose counter some of the bizarre weight distributions I've seen published on the internet as you can see these are 12 genuine antique swords from my collection they're not they're not specially picked I don't own a lot of Napoleonic swords I mostly own Victorian period swords so they're not specially picked because they're light or I have literally just taken the only 12 Napoleonic period swords I had easily to hand and I have weighed them in front of you obviously you can't see the scale so you're gonna have to trust me on this but I have no reason to lie all of these swords with the exception of the I mean the hanger starts at 700 doesn't it but with the exception of that sorry with the exception of the small swords and the hanger all of these full size should we say sabers regardless of whether they're for cavalry or for infantry are basically all over 800 grams and they're up to 12 up to 1,200 grams now I accept that the 1,200 gram the the woots one here that is definitely an outlier okay but if we just look at all of the other swords which I would say are all fairly average they might not necessarily be average quality but they are all they're not especially heavy they're not especially light they're just examples typical examples of what they are they all weigh between 800 grams and 1,000 grams okay so I think that's interesting it also confirms what I've been saying for years but some people have contradicted me and gone oh Matt I know I know a saber that weighs 600 grams I know a saber that weighs 500 grams I'm not saying that they don't exist somewhere but I haven't seen one and I haven't owned one and I've owned hundreds and hundreds of swords now I buy and sell all the time a lot of swords go through my hands and the fact is that typical weights for British 19th century and I would go not just British for most European and North American 19th century swords or should we say sabers and broad swords is between 800 grams and a thousand grams cheers folks for watching and please share the video and give us a like thanks a lot thanks for watching please subscribe we have extra videos on patreon and you can follow us on facebook