Alright, here's another sword review. This is The Duelist by Dynasty Forge.
Quick disclaimer: this was sent to me as a free review sample, and,
you know, the usual stuff: I'll try to be as unbiased as possible, blah blah blah. If you've seen my previous review videos,
you know all of that already.
The sword is offered for 700 US dollars,
which puts it in the upper range as far as reproductions are concerned in price
and the blade is an Oakeshott type, XVa.
This type of blade was used mainly between the mid-14th and mid-16th centuries, an
anti-armor sword primarily.
It's not designed as a cutter. It's really primarily for thrusting in between the plates
and penetrate the mail underneath. The blade is hand-forged 1060 steel with a diamond cross section.
This shape with the central ridge helps stiffen the blade
along with the tempering with the hardness of about 55 to 57 HRC.
It has some
flexibility, of course, to avoid a shattering on impact, but overall it's a pretty
rigid blade compared to many others and, of course, that's what you want for a thrusting-oriented blade.
Not that there weren't some relatively flexible
thrusting blades as well,
but the stiffness helps. I definitely appreciate the blade geometry and the finish; it's
very evenly done, the secondary bevel is not very pronounced,
nice clean crisp lines,
the mirror polish of course looks nice.
Personally, I've had a hard time keeping it rust-free. In fact, it actually came with
two rust spots right out of the box, so, for future shipments,
I would suggest using more oil or maybe even grease, because it was relatively dry when it came and it's
really a shame to just
encounter rust spots right out of the box, especially with such a nice finish. This may very well have been a
one-time occurrence, but it's worth pointing out. But, other than that,
it's a very nice blade and stood up remarkably well to my tests. As mentioned,
this is not a cutting sword by any means. I tried it anyway just to see exactly how it performs
and it sure is very difficult to achieve a good cut with a blade like this. I did get one
fairly decent cut considering the blade shape, but overall I didn't have much luck, which is not surprising
and really shouldn't be expected for a sword like this, but thrusting, it does really well.
Was definitely impressed with that. That's exactly what it's supposed to do.
Half-swording thrusts also work nicely and generate a lot of power. The sword handles beautifully. Due to the light weight and the shape, it
has both a distal taper as well as a fairly pronounced profile paper.
Meaning that, towards the point, it gradually becomes thinner as well as narrower. That brings the balance relatively close to the guard and,
in fact, you could use this with one hand quite easily. Again,
it's not a cutter, but it flows effortlessly in the cut and I
suppose you could even
apply rapier techniques to this if you wanted to. It is, of course, not designed for that purpose.
The only thing I don't quite like about the handling is the pommel. Personally, I like to
grip the pommel on a longsword for additional leverage,
which is not very pleasant with this shape here. The twist looks beautiful,
but it just doesn't feel very good. Even when I have the hand further up on the grip and
striking something, this
becomes unpleasant, so
once again, not a major concern, because it is a thrusting sword as opposed to a cutting sword, but
yeah, would be nicer if it was smooth, but, then again, it wouldn't look quite as good I suppose,
so there's that. The grip, on the other hand, is pretty much perfect. I've got no complaints here at all. Very nice profile,
right kind of thickness, and the texture gives you very good traction.
Really, the only significant criticism I have is the guard.
Not the shape, it's unconventional
(Just as a side note, this is not
historically accurate for that time period.
This was
inspired more by side swords and earlier rapiers,
so they intended to make this
sword mainly fancy, which it is. It's very fancy looking and it looks quite elegant,
but it's not what you would have on a longsword during that actual time period).
It's a little limiting in that you can only grip it in one way.
Reversing it is just not a good idea. This does not work at all, so you're
restricted to one position, despite it being double-edged, but of course you could still do false-edge cuts
just fine, if you were to cut, but that's not the issue. The main issue is that it
came a little loose, which worried me.
I was wondering if this would, with use, loosen up more and more and then maybe the next thing that goes is the pommel,
but I
gave it some hard testing to figure out if that would be a problem
and no, it has not loosened up any more than this and it's really slight. I
don't know if you'll be able to hear this even.
There's not that much play and,
when you look at the the gap in the guard,
it's not very large. It could definitely be smaller and I was talking to
Derek at a Dynasty Forge about this
and he said he was going to discuss this with the blacksmith to see if they can
pressure fit these guards to make sure that they really stay on there,
just like they do with their katanas and yes,
that would be a very good idea. If they do that, there would be a major improvement.
The way it is,
it's a bit of an annoyance,
but the thing is you don't even feel it that much when handling it.
Only with certain movements you can tell, but
the important part is it didn't loosen up any more
and the grip didn't come loose in any way. The pommel is still rock-solid,
so that's the important part really. If that is
solved in the future, then
there's really nothing negative to say about this sword. It's just
really minor nitpicks like: if you don't like this kind of guard, and the pommel shape, and what I mentioned,
but, otherwise, this is great and, as far as the scabbard is concerned,
I'm mostly quite impressed by that. It's a very well-made scabbard. Looks great.
It's kind of a reddish-brown.
Very nice looking leather and
these
decorations here
look really good. It also fits the sword very nicely.
Maybe the only criticism is there's
no way to attach it to a belt. That would be nice to have something. You know, even if it's a simple belt loop.
Even better would of course be, you know, straps to hang from your belt, but I
understand that adds additional cost. It's definitely nice to get a scabbard with a lot of the higher-end
swords. Meaning, you know, starting at
$800 and up, you don't normally get a scabbard,
so it's definitely good to have and it's a very nice scabbard. And that should be everything I wanted to cover. As usual,
you'll find the specifications down below and the link to where to get it,
so, as you can probably tell, I'm certainly impressed by this sword.
It's definitely very well-made, well-designed. Looks great. One of the best-looking
swords that I've seen on the market. It's just, you know, it's fancy, it's shiny, it looks elegant.
It's just, you know, quite easy to appreciate something like this. I mean, for the price, it better be good right? And,
if you can afford it, I can, without hesitation, recommend it. Certainly well-made.
That's pretty much all I have, so thanks for watching.