When Cheap
Battle Ready Swords Go Bad...

Deepeeka are well known for their cheap battle ready swords. But not all of their swords are marketed correctly. Some are intended as display items only, yet the line between battle ready and decorative is purposefully blurred by some vendors, with sometimes disastrous results.

In this review we take a look at one such sword. Lumped in with other cheap battle ready swords, this sword is nothing of the sort. And while SBG concentrates on separating the jewels in the junk in the sub US$300 sword market, some of them are far beyond salvation...

Deepeeka Charlemagne Sword Review

Review by Dan Dacombe., Manitoba, CANADA

This was my very first sword purchase. Having spent little to no time researching, I sent away for the first sword that caught my eye. All I knew was that they were 'cheap Battle Ready swords', which apparently meant that they was 'real'.

The moment I got it out of the box, I was struck by how heavy it was. Having never handled a 'real' sword before, I assumed that I was a wimp and continued to examine it.

Like everything from Kult of Athena it came promptly and wrapped in brown paper. To this day the smell of brown paper gives me a bit of a thrill, because I associate it with the arrival of something I've waited for eagerly.

I held the sword in my hands, turning it over a few times, trying to get a feel for it. Even without knowing much my first thought was that it was poorly balanced. And I was right. Weighing in at 5 pounds, approximately a pound and a half heavier than the same sword shown at MyArmory.

"I remember thinking, 'Geez, Charlemange must have been strong like a freak to be able to use this thing.'"

This thing looked and felt like a beast.

Stats

Length: 40"
Blade length: 32 3/4"

Hilt width: 8"
Weight: 5lbs!!

Design, Fit and Finish

The Blade

The original was probably a bit lighter, with a thinner blade - this one has a thick, meaty blade that is closer to a Falchion than a longsword.

The research I've done would suggest that the original (currently residing in Louvre Museum in Paris, France) would have had the same length but less weight and durability - appropriate for a sword that belonged to an Emperor.

The blade had nice polish, and the fuller was pronounced and even.

As these cheap battle ready swords come un-sharpened, I later would have it sharpened - with some interesting results.

The Grip

Not that I was expecting anything else, but the original Charlemange Sword - Joyeuse - had a golden handle, as opposed to mine which has cast brass.

Just thought I'd point that out. The handle is the same cast brass as the hilt, and uncomfortable to hold - especially as your hand becomes sweaty with use.

It also leave you smelling like you've been counting pennies all day.

The Pommel

"After one practice swing I nearly dropped the sword as the hard edge of the pommel dug into my wrist. Serious pain!"

Ouch, my wrist!

Adjusting my grip on the sword did little to alleviate this problem - there was nowhere else for my hand to go. I was able to take a 2-handed grip by squeezing the pommel in my off hand, which helped with the horrid balance and pommel problems - but the pommel was so large that this was an equally uncomfortable arrangement.

The Guard

The level of detail on the brass guard is very beautiful. I would say that this is the best feature of the sword, even though there was a slight gap between the blade and guard. Because it is one piece with the grip and pommel I assumed that this meant more strength... but what followed proved me very, very wrong.

The Scabbard

One problem was that sword didn't fit in the scabbard - 4 inches of blade were visible above the top of the scabbard when the sword could go no farther in. This issue has been remedied with some wiggling and working at it, but the brass fitting at the throat of the sheath was improperly affixed and fell off when the sword was taken out.

Get in! Get in! Argh...

Oops, how was that attached again?

Cutting Test..

Handling: This cheap battle ready swords balance made it feel like the handle should be another 6 inches long. And that wasn't the only problem - add that to the fact that it was very overweight, and this thing gets a 1/5 for Handling. Very disappointing.

Sharpening: After acquiring a few more swords and reviewing them, as well as learning more about the history and construction of swords from fellow sword owners, I decided to take this sword to SBG forum member Fatecaller's forge and have him put an edge on it. Like the savage he is, he readily agreed, and relished the chance to work with someone else's steel. Here's a few pics of our sharpening party - Fatecaller doing all the hard work, of course:

After a rough edge was placed on this sword, I took it to a coke bottle - it sliced clean through despite my poor form, proving that Fatecaller can put edges on swords with the best of them. However, as the video will show you, what happened next was completely unexpected.

VIDEO: Cutting Test (that goes wrong)

Two strikes your out...

"That's Bad" is right. "That's Stupidly Dangerous" would also be true. After the first hit it was noticeably loose, and after the second it basically fell out of the grip. Fatecaller stood pretty far away as he didn't want the blade he worked so hard to sharpen between his eyeballs. Here's some pics:

The Blade/Tang and Handle

"This fell out. I have no idea what the hell it is..."

It turned out that this cheap battle ready swords tang was held in by a washer and glue. That's right, glue. The crap that fell out of the handle was simply unimaginable.

The blade is still decent. With some elbow grease it could be re-worked into a fairly good arming sword. The temper appears to be good - but the poor construction drops the Structural Integrity scores to zero (at least). This, friends and neighbors, is a wallhanger. A Sword-Like Object. And it should have been advertised as such.

A few email exchanges with Deepeeka's customer service folks later, and they told me that the sword has never been listed as one of their cheap Battle Ready swords. I sent them a link to show that it is in fact listed as such at at least one vendor. They forwarded me a strongly worded email that they drafted to the vendor to cease labelling the sword in the cheap Battle ready sword section, and that's the last I heard of them.

This is my Deepeeka experience. I got a project blade out of it, so I'm not too disappointed. I hope that this unintentional destruction test was helpful to some of you.

Hmmm... Something is missing here, what could it be?

EDITORS NOTE

It should be noted that not all of Deepeeka's swords are wallhangers like this one. They do produce some very basic and very cheap battle ready swords, and their Ancient Greek and Roman style swords are considerably better.

The point of the review is to show what can go wrong with cheap battle ready swords as sadly, there are quite a few of them out there...

I hope this information on these so called 'Cheap Battle ready swords' has been helpful. To return to Affordable Replicas of Medieval Swords from When Cheap Battle Ready swords aren't all they are cracked up to be, click here