Cold Steel/Windlass Persian Shamshir Cutting & Review
Oct 19, 2021 19:07:54 GMT
Post by Kane Shen on Oct 19, 2021 19:07:54 GMT
I did some test cutting with a Cold Steel Persian shamshir, which is believed to be made by Windlass Steelcraft--the same maker behind the Indian Tulwar that I reviewed last year. I'm sorry to report that although the shamshir cuts rather well, it did not meet my expectation as a reasonable representation of historical Persian sword. The same maker did an excellent job implementing a concave distal taper (8mm at the base, 4mm at 1/3 of the blade, 3.6mm at midpoint, 2.9mm at 2" near the tip) on the tulwar from their own culture resulting in a lively feeling sword, but obviously neglected working on any meaningful distal tapering (4.5mm throughout) until the last quarter of the blade. As a result, although the shamshir's weight and balance falls in the historical range (2lbs 0.6oz, PoB at 6.75" from the guard), it handles like a steel rod instead of the nimble weapon Persian swords are.
The profile and its progressive change in the curvature have been captured correctly. However, the flat ground bevel terminates to a thick blunt edge that has been hastily sharpened with a shallow secondary bevel with obtuse angle. It's durable but sometimes causes the cuts to be less clean, and left too much steel on the blade. Coupled with the sorely lacked distal taper, the sword is way too top heavy, even though it's not exactly overweight as the blade is relatively narrow (width is tapered from 27.8mm to 21mm).
The fit & finish screams Windlass, and not among their best work. It's not overly shoddy but everywhere you look, epoxy is filling the gaps. This is the typical quality Windlass supplies for their contractee companies. I'm not thrilled by that, but consider the price, you don't have much of a choice in finding competitive offers. Interestingly, even the shamshir made by Universal Swords--a company known for selling swords for reenactment purposes, has demonstrate a far better distal tapering and a much lighter weight. All in all I find it not necessarily a rip-off, but a missed opportunity to replicate the success of their Indian tulwar. Windlass needs to take their contracts seriously and respect blade cultures other than their own.
The profile and its progressive change in the curvature have been captured correctly. However, the flat ground bevel terminates to a thick blunt edge that has been hastily sharpened with a shallow secondary bevel with obtuse angle. It's durable but sometimes causes the cuts to be less clean, and left too much steel on the blade. Coupled with the sorely lacked distal taper, the sword is way too top heavy, even though it's not exactly overweight as the blade is relatively narrow (width is tapered from 27.8mm to 21mm).
The fit & finish screams Windlass, and not among their best work. It's not overly shoddy but everywhere you look, epoxy is filling the gaps. This is the typical quality Windlass supplies for their contractee companies. I'm not thrilled by that, but consider the price, you don't have much of a choice in finding competitive offers. Interestingly, even the shamshir made by Universal Swords--a company known for selling swords for reenactment purposes, has demonstrate a far better distal tapering and a much lighter weight. All in all I find it not necessarily a rip-off, but a missed opportunity to replicate the success of their Indian tulwar. Windlass needs to take their contracts seriously and respect blade cultures other than their own.