ATrim Munition Grade 1562 Longsword review
Apr 12, 2010 21:41:15 GMT
Post by Tom K. (ianflaer) on Apr 12, 2010 21:41:15 GMT
Angus Trim Munition Grade 1562
A review by Tom Kinder
A little while ago I was contacted by Gus who wanted to know if I’d be interested in reviewing a new sword line for him. Ummm heck, yes! The plan got slowed down by the fact I had to move to a new home and getting settled but before long things were rolling and Gus started telling me about the swords he wanted to send me. So it is my pleasure and privilege to introduce a not-so-new, new line of ATrim swords.
As most European sword fans know, Gus and Christian Fletcher have stepped up the quality on the Maker’s Mark line with better finish, better fittings, Permanent hilt assembly, and design improvements that yield better performance. With the new Chimera line hitting the streets, and Christian’s Prestige line still fairly new, Gus has been making more swords faster than in a long time. With this higher output and increased quality standard there are, inevitably, some swords that come out just fine but for one reason or another cannot be sold as Maker’s Mark, Prestige, or Chimera line swords. Thus the birth of the Munition Grade line. While Gus has not yet made a sword specifically to be a munition grade sword, he does have plans to do so if the early offerings are well received.
I was shipped three swords that represent various possibilities for Munition line swords. This Third one had a pretty serious accident before heat treat. Something went wrong and the machine decided to gouge out a trench on one edge bevel where it didn’t belong.
Fortunately, the flaw wasn’t in a part of the blade that does a lot of cutting and Gus thought he’d send it to heat treat and see how it cleaned up. In the end the sword proved to be functional and was used as a shop cutter at least once. Gus put this sword together out of parts that he had floating around the shop, so even though it isn’t a Chimera Line sword it is a sort of chimera all the same. The gouge is about 9 inches long and as deep as maybe 1/3 the thickness of a dime, perhaps a bit less. Its cross guard also has the escutcheon accidentally ground off on one side. Even with these pretty obvious flaws this sword has a lot of things going for it. Obviously, this sword would not stand up to being sold as a standard ATrim but does it still move and cut like an ATrim and if so, is still a good sword? Is it worth the low to mid $300-$350 range it is likely to ask for? We’ll see.
First Impressions:
My thoughts upon seeing this sword for the first time went something like this, “Oh, cool long sword, look at that sweet blackened fuller. Wow, it really looks a lot like a 304s from Valiant A (then I flipped it over). . . WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED THERE? I was pretty shocked by that scar the first time I saw it and I was instantly turned off by it. After I had played with and handled the other two I came back to this sword and picked it up. It felt light and springy. It felt like it wanted to go where I wanted it to go. I gave it a swing and forgot about the scar for a minute. It felt good, it moved great, I started to like it. It took several days for the weather to clear enough that I could go out and cut, in that time I really got to like how this sword moved, and I love that black fuller. I affectionately started calling it “The Ugly Duckling” and figured there was a swan inside it.
Historical Overview:
Type XIIa longswords or great swords seem to be developed out of the standard XII supposedly in an attempt to bring more power to the fight and be able to better defeat the improving armor of the times. As with the type XII there is a lot of variety in this sword type. This particular sword is one of the lighter variety of its type and may have been more intended for unarmored fighting and civil self-defense.
Vital stats:
Weight: 2 pounds 11 ounces.
Over-all length: 47.25 inches
Blade Length: 37.25 inches
Blade Width @ Cross: 1.75 inches
Fuller length: 28 inches
Grip length: 8 inches
Cross Guard length: 8.5 inches
COP ~about 25” but it is several inches long as will be shown in video
Point of balance: 5.75"
The Blade:
The blade of this sword is decently polished.
It is better than the polish on the XII.2 arming sword but certainly not as good as on the Austrian War Sword Prototype.
It is long, slender, and flexible. The tip shows a decent amount of point but this is no thrusting sword.
One thing I absolutely LOVE about this sword is the fuller.
Gus left the blackened fire scale from heat treat in it. I think it looks great and it costs Gus less to leave it than polish it, so leaving the fullers black from heat treat is something we will likely see from Munition Grade swords in the future.
I’m ok with that.
Yeah, sexy.
The blade did have a slight secondary bevel like is commonly found on Gus’ older models. Gus has mentioned that while secondary bevels on his other sword lines are gone for good, the Munition line may see them with regularity as not correcting them by hand, which is how Gus does it for the other lines, saves him a lot of labor hours and that means a savings of some serious money.
Hilt/Parts and pieces
The pommel is simple straight forward type G and is really nothing special and is secured by the standard ATrim hex nut
The leather and cord wrapped grip is pretty nice on this one and is pretty standard for ATrims
This is after cutting. The seam is splitting a little there but I’ve felt it and I don’t think it is likely to move much further soon even if this were my every-day cutter. I think the seam just had a spot with less glue and it settled out this way. Of course, eventually the loose edge would probably get pulled up but I don’t think this would be a major concern right away.
The cross guard looks to me like a thinned out bow-tie type 5
This guard also has a recessed area for the blade to fit in but it is obvious this guard was not made for this blade.
Still, the blade sits securely in the guard and they don’t rattle on each other. I think it is a testament to Gus’ ability to make stuff fit together that these very different parts made at different time still come together to fit snugly and not rattle or vibrate. In fact this sword sings and rings almost as well as the others.
The tang on this sword is very healthy as is expected from one of Gus’ swords.
Like many of his swords the tang ends in a reduced section that has been threaded.
This sword is very similar to my beloved VA 304s so I think it is only right to do a little side by side comparison.
This sword has a longer blade by one inch, a longer grip by one inch, is slightly wider in the blade and weighs about 4 ounces more than my 304s but it moves just as fast and responds just as quickly. I find this pretty amazing, especially since my 304 is lighter and faster than most of its type.
Handling and Cutting:
This sword is very easy to move and turn. It floats and zips through the air with no effort. The Ugly Duckling preformed the best of all three swords on water bottles but when it came to tatami I had a lot of trouble with it. There’s a rattle in the bottom half of the grip and after examination, I think the grip doesn’t fit the tang well. I have discussed this with Gus and when I send it back to him he is going to put a new grip on it. Gus thinks he must have accidentally put the wrong size grip on by mistake after hearing my description of how it rattles. The gap is pretty small and it could be corrected with a little card stock or a light coat of epoxy or something but I’m glad Gus is going to address this specifically. Really, the handle being a little loose is what ultimately killed this sword for me. When I was cutting inside the sweet spot I had no trouble at all and it cut great but when I went outside the sweet spot I would feel a rattle in the grip and unless my edge alignment was perfect I had a real hard time with the cut.
IN CONCLUSION:
Pros: Superb handling, easy maintenance and customizing thanks to the take-down hilt, great for light target cutting and once the grip fits properly I’m convinced it will perform as would be expected of an ATrim, PRICE!
Cons: as of right now Munition grade swords are not being made on purpose so availability is limited and catch-as-catch-can, some people still hate the hex nut, they aren’t perfect and will have known flaws, they come with no scabbard and no options: take it “as is” or leave it.
The Bottom line:
I love this line of ATrims and I think it will bring ATrim swords into hands that have never held a sword of this quality before and that’s a good thing. This sword is easily the worst looking sword of the batch but once the grip fits right I can tell it’s going to cut great. So even though it needs a little fix up this is still one very nice sword. It’s not the sword you show off to friends unless you put it in their hands, that is what will impress them. The bottom line here is that Gus makes mistakes just like every other human but he will fix the ones that need fixing. This sword will end up on someone’s cutting rack and it will be a top performer in the end, of that I am sure, if I had been able to afford it I would have bought it too but the other two came first in priority and I didn’t have the funds for this last one so I’m letting it go back in the pond for someone else to snag. We’ll see what happens.
UPDATE: Gus told me how to fix the rattling handle and it was easy to do.
the problem was the hex nut was bottoming out. the nut had too few threads to go far enough down the tang to tighten the sword properly. all I had to do was grind the last two threads of the tang off and all was fixed. YAY! I did manage to strip the hex nut a little but I'm sure it will come off one more time at least and I am sure I can get another one from Gus, so the next time I talk to him I'll ask for one.
I may do another cutting session to confirm the performance of this sword is up to full par ATrim level.
A review by Tom Kinder
A little while ago I was contacted by Gus who wanted to know if I’d be interested in reviewing a new sword line for him. Ummm heck, yes! The plan got slowed down by the fact I had to move to a new home and getting settled but before long things were rolling and Gus started telling me about the swords he wanted to send me. So it is my pleasure and privilege to introduce a not-so-new, new line of ATrim swords.
As most European sword fans know, Gus and Christian Fletcher have stepped up the quality on the Maker’s Mark line with better finish, better fittings, Permanent hilt assembly, and design improvements that yield better performance. With the new Chimera line hitting the streets, and Christian’s Prestige line still fairly new, Gus has been making more swords faster than in a long time. With this higher output and increased quality standard there are, inevitably, some swords that come out just fine but for one reason or another cannot be sold as Maker’s Mark, Prestige, or Chimera line swords. Thus the birth of the Munition Grade line. While Gus has not yet made a sword specifically to be a munition grade sword, he does have plans to do so if the early offerings are well received.
I was shipped three swords that represent various possibilities for Munition line swords. This Third one had a pretty serious accident before heat treat. Something went wrong and the machine decided to gouge out a trench on one edge bevel where it didn’t belong.
Fortunately, the flaw wasn’t in a part of the blade that does a lot of cutting and Gus thought he’d send it to heat treat and see how it cleaned up. In the end the sword proved to be functional and was used as a shop cutter at least once. Gus put this sword together out of parts that he had floating around the shop, so even though it isn’t a Chimera Line sword it is a sort of chimera all the same. The gouge is about 9 inches long and as deep as maybe 1/3 the thickness of a dime, perhaps a bit less. Its cross guard also has the escutcheon accidentally ground off on one side. Even with these pretty obvious flaws this sword has a lot of things going for it. Obviously, this sword would not stand up to being sold as a standard ATrim but does it still move and cut like an ATrim and if so, is still a good sword? Is it worth the low to mid $300-$350 range it is likely to ask for? We’ll see.
First Impressions:
My thoughts upon seeing this sword for the first time went something like this, “Oh, cool long sword, look at that sweet blackened fuller. Wow, it really looks a lot like a 304s from Valiant A (then I flipped it over). . . WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED THERE? I was pretty shocked by that scar the first time I saw it and I was instantly turned off by it. After I had played with and handled the other two I came back to this sword and picked it up. It felt light and springy. It felt like it wanted to go where I wanted it to go. I gave it a swing and forgot about the scar for a minute. It felt good, it moved great, I started to like it. It took several days for the weather to clear enough that I could go out and cut, in that time I really got to like how this sword moved, and I love that black fuller. I affectionately started calling it “The Ugly Duckling” and figured there was a swan inside it.
Historical Overview:
Type XIIa longswords or great swords seem to be developed out of the standard XII supposedly in an attempt to bring more power to the fight and be able to better defeat the improving armor of the times. As with the type XII there is a lot of variety in this sword type. This particular sword is one of the lighter variety of its type and may have been more intended for unarmored fighting and civil self-defense.
Vital stats:
Weight: 2 pounds 11 ounces.
Over-all length: 47.25 inches
Blade Length: 37.25 inches
Blade Width @ Cross: 1.75 inches
Fuller length: 28 inches
Grip length: 8 inches
Cross Guard length: 8.5 inches
COP ~about 25” but it is several inches long as will be shown in video
Point of balance: 5.75"
The Blade:
The blade of this sword is decently polished.
It is better than the polish on the XII.2 arming sword but certainly not as good as on the Austrian War Sword Prototype.
It is long, slender, and flexible. The tip shows a decent amount of point but this is no thrusting sword.
One thing I absolutely LOVE about this sword is the fuller.
Gus left the blackened fire scale from heat treat in it. I think it looks great and it costs Gus less to leave it than polish it, so leaving the fullers black from heat treat is something we will likely see from Munition Grade swords in the future.
I’m ok with that.
Yeah, sexy.
The blade did have a slight secondary bevel like is commonly found on Gus’ older models. Gus has mentioned that while secondary bevels on his other sword lines are gone for good, the Munition line may see them with regularity as not correcting them by hand, which is how Gus does it for the other lines, saves him a lot of labor hours and that means a savings of some serious money.
Hilt/Parts and pieces
The pommel is simple straight forward type G and is really nothing special and is secured by the standard ATrim hex nut
The leather and cord wrapped grip is pretty nice on this one and is pretty standard for ATrims
This is after cutting. The seam is splitting a little there but I’ve felt it and I don’t think it is likely to move much further soon even if this were my every-day cutter. I think the seam just had a spot with less glue and it settled out this way. Of course, eventually the loose edge would probably get pulled up but I don’t think this would be a major concern right away.
The cross guard looks to me like a thinned out bow-tie type 5
This guard also has a recessed area for the blade to fit in but it is obvious this guard was not made for this blade.
Still, the blade sits securely in the guard and they don’t rattle on each other. I think it is a testament to Gus’ ability to make stuff fit together that these very different parts made at different time still come together to fit snugly and not rattle or vibrate. In fact this sword sings and rings almost as well as the others.
The tang on this sword is very healthy as is expected from one of Gus’ swords.
Like many of his swords the tang ends in a reduced section that has been threaded.
This sword is very similar to my beloved VA 304s so I think it is only right to do a little side by side comparison.
This sword has a longer blade by one inch, a longer grip by one inch, is slightly wider in the blade and weighs about 4 ounces more than my 304s but it moves just as fast and responds just as quickly. I find this pretty amazing, especially since my 304 is lighter and faster than most of its type.
Handling and Cutting:
This sword is very easy to move and turn. It floats and zips through the air with no effort. The Ugly Duckling preformed the best of all three swords on water bottles but when it came to tatami I had a lot of trouble with it. There’s a rattle in the bottom half of the grip and after examination, I think the grip doesn’t fit the tang well. I have discussed this with Gus and when I send it back to him he is going to put a new grip on it. Gus thinks he must have accidentally put the wrong size grip on by mistake after hearing my description of how it rattles. The gap is pretty small and it could be corrected with a little card stock or a light coat of epoxy or something but I’m glad Gus is going to address this specifically. Really, the handle being a little loose is what ultimately killed this sword for me. When I was cutting inside the sweet spot I had no trouble at all and it cut great but when I went outside the sweet spot I would feel a rattle in the grip and unless my edge alignment was perfect I had a real hard time with the cut.
IN CONCLUSION:
Pros: Superb handling, easy maintenance and customizing thanks to the take-down hilt, great for light target cutting and once the grip fits properly I’m convinced it will perform as would be expected of an ATrim, PRICE!
Cons: as of right now Munition grade swords are not being made on purpose so availability is limited and catch-as-catch-can, some people still hate the hex nut, they aren’t perfect and will have known flaws, they come with no scabbard and no options: take it “as is” or leave it.
The Bottom line:
I love this line of ATrims and I think it will bring ATrim swords into hands that have never held a sword of this quality before and that’s a good thing. This sword is easily the worst looking sword of the batch but once the grip fits right I can tell it’s going to cut great. So even though it needs a little fix up this is still one very nice sword. It’s not the sword you show off to friends unless you put it in their hands, that is what will impress them. The bottom line here is that Gus makes mistakes just like every other human but he will fix the ones that need fixing. This sword will end up on someone’s cutting rack and it will be a top performer in the end, of that I am sure, if I had been able to afford it I would have bought it too but the other two came first in priority and I didn’t have the funds for this last one so I’m letting it go back in the pond for someone else to snag. We’ll see what happens.
UPDATE: Gus told me how to fix the rattling handle and it was easy to do.
the problem was the hex nut was bottoming out. the nut had too few threads to go far enough down the tang to tighten the sword properly. all I had to do was grind the last two threads of the tang off and all was fixed. YAY! I did manage to strip the hex nut a little but I'm sure it will come off one more time at least and I am sure I can get another one from Gus, so the next time I talk to him I'll ask for one.
I may do another cutting session to confirm the performance of this sword is up to full par ATrim level.