Nattvarn Hand Forged 51CrV4 Blunt Longsword Trainer with Twin Low Fullers & Blackened Furniture | About 48 Inches Overall | Black Cord Grip and Rolled Tip | Sparring Gift | RK-3016

A blunt longsword is a different tool from a feder and this Nattvarn is honest about which one it is. The blade keeps the profile of a real hand and a half sword rather than the narrow flexing bar of a purpose built feder, so the bind behaves the way a sword behaves. That makes it a drilling and club sparring sword rather than a tournament entry, and the difference matters.

The furniture is blackened. A straight cross and a faceted barrel pommel both finished dark against a satin blade, which reads well in a hall and hides the handling marks that every loan sword collects. Twin fullers run low through the strong of the blade, which is where the steel is thickest and where taking a little mass out costs you nothing in the bind. The grip is wrapped in black cord over a shaped core, long enough to take the second hand properly rather than hanging half of it off the pommel.

Everything about the blade is built for contact. 51CrV4 spring steel at 49 to 52 HRC, a flat blunt land on both edges and a rolled, flared tip. If you are new to this, what is HEMA and blunt versus sharp training swords will save you a wasted purchase, and the rest of the HEMA longswords sit alongside this one.

Specifications

Where the hand and a half sits between one hand and two

The hand and a half is the sword the German tradition is written around. Long enough in the grip that both hands work together through a zornhau, short enough that you can drop the left hand off the pommel and reach with one. Liechtenauer verse and the fencing books that gloss it, Ringeck, Danzig, the Nuremberg group, all assume a sword of roughly this size in roughly this balance. The five master strikes come out of it cleanly. The zornhau cuts down across the line and takes the bind on the way, the krumphau goes out over the hands, the zwerchhau turns the sword flat and covers overhead as it travels, the schielhau threads a short edge over an oberhau, the scheitelhau drops straight down at the opening above.

Then there is the part of the art that a narrow feder is poor at showing you. Winden at the sword, where you stay in the bind and turn the point around your opponent as you feel whether he is hard or soft, wants a blade with the stiffness of a real sword behind it. So does mezza spada, the half sword, where the left hand leaves the grip and takes the middle of the blade for a thrust into a gap. This one will do that work. It is the sword to learn the bind on, and it shows a beginner the difference between a strong crossing and a weak one more honestly than a soft trainer will.

Twin fullers, blackened furniture and how this blade is tuned

51CrV4 hardened to 49 to 52 HRC is the whole reason this piece survives being used. Our cutting swords run 1095 at 54 to 58 HRC because a sharp wants hardness to hold an edge. A sparring blade wants the opposite. Take a hard blade into a heavy bind and it either sets, so it stays bent and the sword is done, or it lets go at a stress riser and breaks. Spring steel bends and comes back. That is the only reason to build a trainer out of it and it is the reason every blunt we sell is built that way.

The twin fullers run low rather than the full length, which is a tuning decision rather than a decorative one. Taking metal out of the strong lightens the part of the blade you are least likely to be cutting with, moves the balance back towards the hand a touch and leaves the middle and the weak of the blade with their section intact for the bind. The blunt edge land is left at about 3 mm, which is the sort of land a longsword trainer is expected to carry, and the tip is rolled and flared to about 15 mm. Now the plain part. Many longsword tournaments will not accept a blunt longsword at all and allow only purpose built feders or sword shaped feders, so do not buy this expecting to fence an open with it. Read your event rules, and if a feder is what you actually need, look at what is a feder before you spend.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the grip. Club names, a founding year, a line from the source you train out of, all of it works.

Engraving is done in the United States after the piece lands in North Babylon, so nothing is cut until you have told us what you want. Text and runes are $19, a symbol is $39 and a family crest is $49. If you would rather have your own design than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us where it goes. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. More on the engraving page.

Handling and balance

No weight and no point of balance are published for this sword, because we have not put this individual piece on a scale and a figure copied off a spec sheet is worth nothing to you. In the hand it feels like a sword rather than a fencing bar. The mass sits far enough forward to make an oberhau land with intent and the barrel pommel brings it back without dragging. Drop the left hand and reach with one and it is still controllable, which is the whole point of the hand and a half form. Under a hard bind you will feel the blade load and spring back rather than go dead, and that feedback is most of what a trainer is for.

Care

Blackened furniture is a finish, not armour plating, so treat it as something that will wear at the contact points over time. That is normal and most fencers like the way it goes. The blade is carbon steel and will rust if you let it, so wipe it down after training and keep a thin film of oil on it in the bag. Cord grips soak up sweat, so let the sword dry before it goes away rather than sealing it in a damp case. Check the pommel for movement every few weeks, since a peened hilt that has loosened under load is easy to catch early. Knock back any burrs on the edge land with a fine file and keep it flat. The full routine is in the blade care guide.

Made in the Czech Republic

Made by hand in the Czech Republic and imported by Ransack Viking. Nothing here is drop shipped out of an importer catalogue straight to a customer. Every one is checked for hilt tightness, pommel seating and blade straightness at our North Babylon, New York warehouse, and ships from there. Shipping in the United States is free, returns run for seven days, and the lifetime warranty against defects in the forging, the grind, the heat treat and the fittings has no end date and needs no receipt.

A note on handmade variation

This is hand forged. It is not machine made, not cast and not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph on this page. The depth of the fullers, the exact tone of the blackening and the tension of the cord wrap are all worked by hand and come out slightly differently on each sword. What does not vary is the steel, the hardness range, the blunt edge land and the rolled tip, and those are the parts that decide whether a blade is safe to fence with.

Frequently asked questions

Whether this longsword is sharp

No. Both edges carry a flat blunt land of about 3 mm and the tip is rolled and flared. It is a sparring and drilling sword and we do not sharpen it on request under any circumstances.

Whether it can be entered in a tournament

Assume not until your event says otherwise. Many longsword tournaments ban blunt longswords outright and accept only purpose built feders or sword shaped feders. We will not describe any piece as tournament legal without naming the ruleset that allows it, so read your own event gear rules first.

How this differs from a feder

A feder is narrow through the middle, carries a schilt above the ricasso and is engineered to flex on a thrust. A blunt longsword keeps the profile of the real sword, so it binds more truthfully and flexes less. This is the second of those.

What flex tier the blade sits in

Medium to strong, which is the band clubs tend to want for hard drill and controlled sparring. We describe flex as a tier rather than a number in pounds because we have not tested this individual blade on a rig.

Whether the blackening will rub off

The high points will brighten with use, particularly on the cross where blades meet it. That is wear rather than a fault and it is not covered as a defect. The forging, the grind, the heat treat and the fittings are covered for life.

Whether a scabbard is included

No. This ships as a sword only. Nothing in the HEMA range comes with a scabbard and we would rather say so here than let you find out on delivery.

What is in the box

• The Nattvarn blackened longsword trainer, blunt, blade about 38 inches
• A warranty card covering the forging, the grind, the heat treat and the fittings, with no end date
• Care notes for the spring steel blade, the blackened furniture and the cord grip
• Your engraving already cut into the piece, if you chose one at checkout

Explore the range

Keep looking before you commit. The rest of the HEMA longswords cover both blunt swords and lighter two handed pieces, the feders are what you want if your club fences tournament rules, the HEMA messers are the single handed side of the same German tradition, and the HEMA swords hub holds all of it together. The written background is at the guides hub.

Compare it with these

Worth setting next to this one: Draugmoor longsword, about 49 inches overall, Valkspire hand and a half, about 48 inches overall, Vernholt hand and a half, about 47 inches overall, Vulkbrand flame bladed greatsword, about 66 inches overall and Brimhalt feder, about 50 inches overall.

Look through the HEMA longsword category and the HEMA sword hub for the rest, then try the custom sword builder if you want something specific.