Chinese "Greatswords" are... Different. (LK Chen Sword Review)

are you ready for some big swords and i mean like almost fantasy level big well here you go overkill what's that i don't know what you're talking about can i even fit this in the frame i think just about right one hell of a chopper isn't it this is a jan madol i checked the pronunciation on google translate but my western tongue can't quite get the nuances so um yeah anyway this behemoth of a sword is from a song dynasty 960 to 1279 the name apparently translates to horse chopping saber as you can guess based on that it's an anti-cavalry weapon after the collapse of the tang dynasty the song emperors had lost access to some of the best horse pastures to the liao empire in the north east so they were dealing with a shortage of horses but had to face liao cavalry and this was the answer equipped infantry with fearsome large chopping blades that could oppose the cavalry and attack either the horses or the rider they're certainly long enough to reach up there this would be sort of the counterpart this reproduction is made by lk chen just like the other one they call this the twin peaks liao dao that's from the liao dynasty 916 to 1125 so contemporary and this would be said used by the liao empire which would be the antagonist interestingly when you pick these two up they seem like the same sort of concept they're relatively similar length the twin peaks is a bit shorter but they both have an exceptionally long handle they're both powerful cutting blades obviously they both seem like they could be used against cavalry however lk chin suspects that this might actually be a cavalry weapon going by the balance the balance is very close to the guard almost on it so even though it's a fairly hefty sword due to the size you can use it in one hand if you wanted to so you could hold on to the reins with one hand and use this in the other it may seem counterintuitive to use a sword with such a long handle on horseback but at the same time spears were also used in one hand on horseback and i could even imagine i have no idea if they did that but i could even imagine that it might have been couched at times it's a bit short for that but you do have enough handle to just about make that work and use it like this for more spec again no idea if they did that then of course you could also let go of the reins in certain situations and guide the horse using just your legs and then you would be able to swing this with two hands from horseback the curvature of the blade would assist in a slicing cot which of course as you gallop past somebody and use a rising cot would be even more pronounced all right back to the song horse chopper how large is this exactly well it's 138 centimeters long or about 54 inches and the weight is 2.53 kilograms or 5 pounds 9 ounces so it has a certain amount of heft but not really for the size and the balance on this one is also pretty close to the guard a little bit further away than the twin peaks as you can see is about here and so depending on how you hold this you can either emphasize speed or power basically if you wanted to deliver the most powerful possible cut you would slide the main hand down and now you have more leverage to work with this would be you know take more effort to stop and redirect but you would hit way harder and if you have the hands far apart now it's actually pretty fast so this is in fact deceptively fast also notice this very strong distal taper like it thins out quite a bit toward the point which again makes it easier to handle just shifts the balance further back so even though it's a large sword with a good amount of mass you are able to perform surprisingly quick cuts you know by using a push-pull motion you can cut forward like this again speed over power in this case but you are able to stop it redirect it you know change sides and uh overall can use this with a lot of agility the footage from the test cutting i did shows that i didn't really have a good feel for it at that point threw that off often put too much power into it and swung further than i needed to it's really not necessary to do this big massive swing to generate a good amount of power and end up exposing yourself you can absolutely by putting the bodywood into it perform a powerful cut that still stops mostly in front of you the blade doesn't have much of a point but i would imagine this still being fairly effective in the thrust depending on the kind of opponent that they would have to deal with against armor medium armor i think this would actually be a good choice because this is not likely to break off or bend you have a good amount of mass and if you put the body behind it you can generate a lot of force so i do think this would be useful for thrusting just not quite the same way as the twin peaks which has a much more pronounced point but you know obviously chopping is emphasized here that's what it's mainly designed for and good at the blade is made of gb60si m a spring steel which has the same carbon content as 5160 spring steel it also anneals and hardens the same way and is tempered at a similar temperature so overall it should be reasonably similar and comparable in performance and the hardness is 56 to 58 hrc which is quite hard for a sore blade so shouldn't have to worry about it bending also from the testing i've done i haven't done anything super crazy like i didn't do abusive testing simply because i didn't really find it necessary i mean if you just look at the size of it you know both the width and the thickness of the blade it would be pretty difficult to damage this the most you could do is maybe chip the edge but that also seems unlikely because of the geometry it's basically a full flat grind from the spine to the edge and it's a nice robust but still high performance cutting edge there's no visible secondary bevel all you can see just about is a micro bevel which of course you always have and cutting performance i can't complain about although interestingly i was expecting this to be the better cutter between the two and i was proven wrong in fact the twin peaks did better you'll see that more later i mean against soaked tatami mats and leather wrap water bottles things like this you of course have to keep in mind against a target with more mass and more resistance this is going to do better so you know like a fully armored human body this is where this shines the other one wouldn't do quite as well against armor the impact force of this will be quite a bit greater handling is great i very much like the shape of this handle it's wrapped in hemp cord which is mentioned in historical source and it feels excellent in the hand you have a good amount of traction and it's not it doesn't feel abrasive in any way um you can feel the edge alignment quite well and said it is surprisingly agile for such a large store in particular so very pleased with that in terms of looks it's utilitarian you know there are no decorations or anything the the guard and ring pommel here at the end are blackened which is nice it's not for fancy aristocrats at court to show off with this is to get work done on the battlefield so i can definitely appreciate that and quite like it the fit is great on this the guard has a remarkably tight fit and hasn't loosened up in any way in fact nothing has and i don't really expect it to so that's all good i don't know enough about chinese history to judge the historical accuracy but what i can say is that they were working often original and based on the pictures this seems quite close that's really all i can say and in terms of handling i would imagine it's probably also pretty close again without having tried the original i really can't think of anything negative to say about this normally i try to find at least nitpicks but it's it's pretty difficult it hasn't failed in any way it has performed well it looks good it handles well really the only thing is the sheath is a bit underwhelming it's made of synthetic leather and yeah it's a it's a sheath it's not a scabbard it doesn't have a wood core it's it's just about the simplest cover you can have like there's no belt attachment or anything this is really just to give it some protection as you're storing it that's it so it's better than nothing but that's about it all right so the twin peaks liao dao this one is a little bit shorter it's about 127 centimeters or 50 inches and the weight is 2.26 kilograms or right about 5 pounds the blade is made of the same steel obviously quite a different blade shape not only is it curved it's also a more complex shape you know the other one is just very simple straight this has these two peaks in the spine hence the name i imagine twin peaks the guard seems to be a little bit larger on this it has this large solid pommel not quite sure what to call this compared to what i'm used to this is quite odd it can get a little bit in the way if you hold it all the way down uh at least the uh the corners dig into your hand and on impact it can be rather unpleasant but of course you don't have to you can just place the hand just slightly further up there's plenty of handle to work with after all so that's not a problem this has a bit less traction than the john madow because it's not wrapped but the wood feels quite nice and again it's very well shaped you can see the ratio of widths to thickness this feels a bit more round or rather oval i suppose whereas the jammed dao has more of a rectangular cross-section and rounded rectangular which i normally prefer i actually had my doubts about how easy it would be to maintain edge alignment with this i wonder if i have trouble with edge alignment on this one because that's almost round but whoa okay i didn't need that much force clearly that was not the problem this cuts remarkably well in fact better than the genre wow that felt crazy smooth yeah there was nothing to it while looking at the footage of the testing again during editing i feel like i understated the difference it's significantly easier to cleanly cut tommy mats with the twin peaks that's mainly because the twin peaks blade is thinner in the upper third and lighter which makes it easier to generate high velocity and that's more effective against light less resistant targets i think against harder targets especially even just moderate armor the results will be reversed again less impact force basically but very clean cut and also blade geometry same thing flat grind well done nice and sharp but not overly so so you wouldn't have to worry about edge damage this one also cuts beautifully handles very well ah i've got sun in my eyes got an excuse right there it's aesthetically more appealing to me with the exception of the pommel i'm personally not a fan of that but hey aesthetics it's a personal thing you can't criticize that or debate in any way it is what it is and yeah this one also has a distal taper in fact you almost have a false edge here it's not ground far enough to be sharpenable sharpenable is that a word it is now if you wanted to put a false edge on this then you would have to grind it some more and basically i have pretty much the same opinion of it as of the other sword down to the sheath it's not fantastic i mean this one has an attachment but it is anything but historical obviously and it's it's really simple it's not impressive in any way uh this one also seems a little bit thinner than the other one not a fan of this i have to say this is again like barely acceptable for storage but you know then again a lot of swords you get without anything without scabbard or sheath or whatever so it's better than nothing that's that's about it but yeah again great handling also extremely agile this one even more so because it's a bit lighter and uh this one you can you can throw very quick cuts no problem so deflect counter pleasure to handle i think that's about it the only nitpick the fit could be better right here the other one is shaped a little bit better in my opinion the guard is just as tight on this if not more so even so no complaints there overall i think this is quite a great value for the price uh right disclaimer they sent both of these to me for free for reviews so you know potential for buyers and all that um yeah i definitely like them if you were to ask me which of these two i prefer that would be a tricky question i think i would most enjoy a hybrid probably i would want this handle here um probably just a wider version of this guard i like this additional fitting here if that was blackened that would be quite nice and i prefer the ring pommel i prefer very much the the curvature and the shape of the spine on this blade so if one could sort of amalgamate these two into one that would be pretty neat but i like them both so definitely have a positive impression of the quality overall and would recommend them the usual specifications and links and all that good stuff are below check that out and also check out other videos i'm going to link down below other reviews similar things you might like if you enjoyed this let me know if you did by the way and hope you found it helpful thanks for watching and have a good one folks no no maybe if i stake it high but like that would be high stakes though man high stakes nah it's not gonna work that'll work i mean okay maybe um we'll see how fast because now it won't be the yeah that'll be the speed how do i do speed with this well yeah except aim was off let me try this again it's still cut man surprisingly and i do believe that a lot of it has to do with that curve too with that sweep because when you're when you're going that trailing weight will center the blade right like you're pulling with the trailing weights [Music] you

Channel: Skallagrim

Views: 256,013

Keywords: Skall, Skallagrim, Chinese swords, zhanmadao, Zhan Ma Dao, nagamaki, sword, sword review, historical weapons, Chinese history, LK Chen, reproduction, chopper, polearm, anti-cavalry, weapon, saber, two-handed sword, history

Id: urz8vhJpcIY

Length: 17min 57sec (1077 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 23 2022