WIL WILLIS: Gentlemen, your (inaudible) spears look deadly.
So let's find out if they really are in our weapons test.
Up first-- the kill test.
Doug?
DOUG MARCAIDA: Bladesmiths, I will take your Zande spear
and deliver killing blows on this ballistics stomach.
Drew, you're up first.
You ready?
Let's make those intestines out-testines.
All right, let's do that.
I like that.
DREW (VOICEOVER): Right now, I'm about to hear Doug say,
it will kill.
And that's the only thing I'm here for.
To help me out today, please welcome back RJ Marcaida.
He will have the pleasure of wielding your Zande spear.
All right, Drew.
It feels very good in the hand.
It lacerates deep when we thrust into the chest cavity,
into the heart.
On its way out, not only does it take some skin with it,
but it also took out some ribs.
Your tines right here from the side entry--
the spear went all the way through, and on its way out,
it took everything that was in its path.
But there is one issue.
As you can see, your tip right here broke off.
But other than that, this is a weapon that is deadly.
And it will kill.
Thank you.
DOUG MARCAIDA: All right, Jason, your turn.
You ready? - I know it'll cut.
It bit me four times making it.
I'm thinking it's going to wreck this thing's day.
DOUG MARCAIDA: All right, Jason.
The balance of your weapon feels good.
When it penetrated into the chest cavity, it hit a rib
and broke it in half.
Got into the heart, and there was no edge damage on your tip.
All these hooks right here did what
it's supposed to do-- into the abdomen, ripped everything up.
Even the barb.
And the beautiful thing about this is it will kill.
That's what I wanted to hear.
Say hello to my little friend here.
Today, we're going to test the overall strength
and construction of your Zande spears by--
well, we're going to fire 'em out of this cannon
into this wood block wall.
Now, I'm not concerned about what
your spears do to the wall.
I want to see how well your spears survive the wall.
Drew, you're up first. You ready?
No.
Well, we're gonna do it anyway.
Let's do it.
I don't even know what to think.
This thing is gonna be launched.
I'm scared.
That worked really well, Drew.
Despite the fact that you did lose a little bit of your tip
in the kill test, didn't have any effect
going into that block wall.
Matter of fact, you sunk all the way down here.
Very impressive.
Your shaft is fine.
Nothing loosened up, nothing cracked.
Your spear head is still solid.
Overall, survived.
Very good.
Thank you.
So Jason, what you thinking?
Thinking, let's make splinters.
I'm a little bit worried they're gonna shoot this thing
at a wall, and it could break. We don't want that.
J NEILSON: That's a problem.
Oh god, no.
I'm seeing it hang up I'm bit on the barrel, and my heart
just absolutely sinks.
Jason, we've got a big problem here.
The parameters that we set for these weapons
are for testing purposes.
Because your blade didn't meet the inch and a half parameter
with a circular cross-section, we cannot fit
the shaft of your weapon down the barrel
of our testing apparatus here.
And because we can't test it evenly and fairly
with Drew's blade, I have to ask you to please leave the forge.
This was absolutely worst-case scenario.
Neither Drew nor I wanted to see either of us going
out on something like this.
I was over those dimensions 100 times,
and apparently somewhere in there, there was
one little spot that I missed.