ValiantCo Survival Golok XXL
May 7, 2010 17:31:50 GMT
Post by Deleted on May 7, 2010 17:31:50 GMT
ValiantCo Survival Golok XXL review
review by Sébastien Bilodeau, Montréal, Qc
Hello all
THis is my complete review of ValiantCo's Survival Golok XXL, hope you will enjoy it, here goes !
Introduction
I have been curious about non-japanese-non-chinese-asian blades for a long time. I was attracted to these lesser-known weapons. Katanas are almost universally-known and anyone can recognise an european longsword (although most people know little besides the more-or-less shapes of these two types of swords), but swords and daggers from Indonesia, the Phillipines and other countries in this part of Asia are almost completely unknown. Which is a bit unfortunate, considering these weapons saw lots of use and are still used today. Also, many of these types of weapons have a very rich story and are parts of these countries cultures.
Also, most pictures I saw of blades from Indonesia* showed weapons with mixed utilitary and combat use in their shape. Most would be called machetes by the uninformed and most look like mean but easy to use chopping and stabbing tools of work, whatever if your work is tending a field or waging war ...
*By Indonesia, I mean Indonesia, Borneo, Malaysia, Phillipines, ect ...
So, I wanted replicas from these types of weapons, and found only two sellers on the internet ; www.traditionnalfilipinoweapons.com (based in the U.S. of A.) and www.valiantco.com (based in Australia). I liked both websites and their respective products. In the end, I decided to buy from Valiantco first (I will certainly buy from TFW in the future, too), after exchanging a few private messages with other forumnites who bought blades from this seller (but didn't write reviews of these blades ! tsssk tssssk !).
I ordered my two blades in the last days of october 2009, and received them about 20 days later, in mid november (not bad, considering the blades had to travel from Australia to Canada ...). Shipping wasn't very costly, it was almost the same amount of money I pay for shipping to/from my southern neighbors in the U.S.A., customer service was very quick and courteous. The blades came nicely packed in brown paper and white plastic-like nuggets (which have the tendency to make my cats go completely nuts ...). Overall, thumbs up to ValiantCo for shipping and customer service.
Statistics
Overall lenght : 26 '' (28 '' with the scabbard)
Blade lenght : 19 3/4 ''
Grip lenght : 6 1/2 ''
Blade thickness : 1/4 '' near the grip
Weight : 650 g (about 1 lbs and a few oz ...) ; measure from ValiantCo's website.
These measures are nearly identical to the ones shown on ValiantCo website.
Components
The blade of this thing is a beast, it is one mean, thick, super-heavy slab of steel. It is almost square-shaped, with a slight curve. The back of the blade is quite thick and doesn't get slimmer until its last few millimeters. It has no tip to speak of, the blade just stops, making jabs impossible (which isn't a problem, considering this is a chopping tool/weapon). The edge is almost paper-shaving sharp. Although it couldn't easily cut paper right out of the box, it was simply devastating against all bottles and almost killed my friend's improvised cutting stand (an hard plastic garbage can). Valiantco website claims it is made from ''hand-forged-to-shape Spring Steel, tapered, sharpened & hardened''. Beeing so efficient, I would say this steel is japanese, but I won't because I don't want He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Who-Sells/Sold-Japanese-Steel-Katanas-Made-In-China to sue me.
The handle is made of a slick almost-black material, it is buffalo horn, quite exotic. It has a few white streaks, who seem to be small imperfections in the grain. IMO, it is very good-looking. The grip is curved and ends with a large knob/pommel. Overall, it is an decent, ergonomic design, that helps handling this monstrosity, more on that later ...
The blade has no handguard. Like you would want to make jabs with this thing anyway ...
The scabbard is made of a light brown wood. It is bound by dark brown and black cord-like things. It looks good, but is of little use besides short-term storage. It doesn't hold the blade at all, tipping the scabbard or putting it upside-down will make the Golok go right out of it.
Handling
You are probably expecting what I am about to write, because of how I described this weapon's blade... Well, there it is ; it feels top-heavy and would probably hard to use without its ergonomic handle. Luckily, the curved handle and the large pommel make this blade quite ''wieldable'', but its handling allows only large sweeping cutting and chopping strikes. Handling this weapon as its shares of good and bad sides. The bad one is its complete lack of finess and slow hit recovery, which makes handling less joyful. On the bright side, this combination of a large heavy blade, ergonomic handle and sharp edge makes this weapon's swings incredebly destructive.
I have to add two very important points about this weapon's handling ;
1) I have no training in the type of technique associated with this type of blade, which may explain how I feel when I handle it.
2) Goloks like this one were first designed and used as working tools, and were later used as improvised weapons. Also, common working goloks usually have 12'' long blades, or are even shorter. This may also explain this weapon's handling.
Test cutting
Now, the fun part ... I did two test cuttign sessions with this blade. I have cut only water bottles, of many different sizes (from small 341 mL bottles, to gallon-sized ones), all fell like flies. Even the improvised cutting stand took a fair number of miscuts (and because of that I now owe a new garbage can to my friend's family ...).
The blade didn't take any damage besides a few very small scratches on its sides. I made a small video ... Enjoy ...
Any comments are welcome, except ones about my face ...
Conclusion
Pros :
-Sturdy, sharp blade
-Exotic, sexy fittings
-Fun to use backyard cutter
-Low price (less than 100 $ when I bought it)
Cons :
-Almost useless scabbard
-Handling might not be your cup of tea
Overall, I am glad I took the plunge with ValiantCo, this product offers lots of fun for its price. Unfortunately, this product is currently sold out on ValiantCo's website, hope they will have more soon !
-Special thanks for Pepperskull, who kindly enlightened me about filipino and indonesian weapons !
review by Sébastien Bilodeau, Montréal, Qc
Hello all
THis is my complete review of ValiantCo's Survival Golok XXL, hope you will enjoy it, here goes !
Introduction
I have been curious about non-japanese-non-chinese-asian blades for a long time. I was attracted to these lesser-known weapons. Katanas are almost universally-known and anyone can recognise an european longsword (although most people know little besides the more-or-less shapes of these two types of swords), but swords and daggers from Indonesia, the Phillipines and other countries in this part of Asia are almost completely unknown. Which is a bit unfortunate, considering these weapons saw lots of use and are still used today. Also, many of these types of weapons have a very rich story and are parts of these countries cultures.
Also, most pictures I saw of blades from Indonesia* showed weapons with mixed utilitary and combat use in their shape. Most would be called machetes by the uninformed and most look like mean but easy to use chopping and stabbing tools of work, whatever if your work is tending a field or waging war ...
*By Indonesia, I mean Indonesia, Borneo, Malaysia, Phillipines, ect ...
So, I wanted replicas from these types of weapons, and found only two sellers on the internet ; www.traditionnalfilipinoweapons.com (based in the U.S. of A.) and www.valiantco.com (based in Australia). I liked both websites and their respective products. In the end, I decided to buy from Valiantco first (I will certainly buy from TFW in the future, too), after exchanging a few private messages with other forumnites who bought blades from this seller (but didn't write reviews of these blades ! tsssk tssssk !).
I ordered my two blades in the last days of october 2009, and received them about 20 days later, in mid november (not bad, considering the blades had to travel from Australia to Canada ...). Shipping wasn't very costly, it was almost the same amount of money I pay for shipping to/from my southern neighbors in the U.S.A., customer service was very quick and courteous. The blades came nicely packed in brown paper and white plastic-like nuggets (which have the tendency to make my cats go completely nuts ...). Overall, thumbs up to ValiantCo for shipping and customer service.
Statistics
Overall lenght : 26 '' (28 '' with the scabbard)
Blade lenght : 19 3/4 ''
Grip lenght : 6 1/2 ''
Blade thickness : 1/4 '' near the grip
Weight : 650 g (about 1 lbs and a few oz ...) ; measure from ValiantCo's website.
These measures are nearly identical to the ones shown on ValiantCo website.
Components
The blade of this thing is a beast, it is one mean, thick, super-heavy slab of steel. It is almost square-shaped, with a slight curve. The back of the blade is quite thick and doesn't get slimmer until its last few millimeters. It has no tip to speak of, the blade just stops, making jabs impossible (which isn't a problem, considering this is a chopping tool/weapon). The edge is almost paper-shaving sharp. Although it couldn't easily cut paper right out of the box, it was simply devastating against all bottles and almost killed my friend's improvised cutting stand (an hard plastic garbage can). Valiantco website claims it is made from ''hand-forged-to-shape Spring Steel, tapered, sharpened & hardened''. Beeing so efficient, I would say this steel is japanese, but I won't because I don't want He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Who-
The handle is made of a slick almost-black material, it is buffalo horn, quite exotic. It has a few white streaks, who seem to be small imperfections in the grain. IMO, it is very good-looking. The grip is curved and ends with a large knob/pommel. Overall, it is an decent, ergonomic design, that helps handling this monstrosity, more on that later ...
The blade has no handguard. Like you would want to make jabs with this thing anyway ...
The scabbard is made of a light brown wood. It is bound by dark brown and black cord-like things. It looks good, but is of little use besides short-term storage. It doesn't hold the blade at all, tipping the scabbard or putting it upside-down will make the Golok go right out of it.
Handling
You are probably expecting what I am about to write, because of how I described this weapon's blade... Well, there it is ; it feels top-heavy and would probably hard to use without its ergonomic handle. Luckily, the curved handle and the large pommel make this blade quite ''wieldable'', but its handling allows only large sweeping cutting and chopping strikes. Handling this weapon as its shares of good and bad sides. The bad one is its complete lack of finess and slow hit recovery, which makes handling less joyful. On the bright side, this combination of a large heavy blade, ergonomic handle and sharp edge makes this weapon's swings incredebly destructive.
I have to add two very important points about this weapon's handling ;
1) I have no training in the type of technique associated with this type of blade, which may explain how I feel when I handle it.
2) Goloks like this one were first designed and used as working tools, and were later used as improvised weapons. Also, common working goloks usually have 12'' long blades, or are even shorter. This may also explain this weapon's handling.
Test cutting
Now, the fun part ... I did two test cuttign sessions with this blade. I have cut only water bottles, of many different sizes (from small 341 mL bottles, to gallon-sized ones), all fell like flies. Even the improvised cutting stand took a fair number of miscuts (and because of that I now owe a new garbage can to my friend's family ...).
The blade didn't take any damage besides a few very small scratches on its sides. I made a small video ... Enjoy ...
Any comments are welcome, except ones about my face ...
Conclusion
Pros :
-Sturdy, sharp blade
-Exotic, sexy fittings
-Fun to use backyard cutter
-Low price (less than 100 $ when I bought it)
Cons :
-Almost useless scabbard
-Handling might not be your cup of tea
Overall, I am glad I took the plunge with ValiantCo, this product offers lots of fun for its price. Unfortunately, this product is currently sold out on ValiantCo's website, hope they will have more soon !
-Special thanks for Pepperskull, who kindly enlightened me about filipino and indonesian weapons !