1095 is a plain high carbon steel: roughly one percent carbon, no alloying tricks, nothing clever. It hardens deep, takes a fine edge, sharpens back with a stone rather than a diamond plate, and rusts the moment you put it away damp. That trade is the whole point, and it is why the phrase brings in people who would rather maintain a blade than replace one. Everything on this page is plain 1095 rather than the folded Damascus billet, heat treated to 54 to 58 HRC.
How wide the spread is
The same bar stock ends up in almost every shape in the catalogue. At the small end there is a tanto around 11 inches overall with buffalo horn scales, a bowie at 13 inches with a bone handle and a brass guard, a gut hook hunting knife with a stag antler handle, and two sets of three throwing knives, one with vegvisir etched blades and skeletonised handles, the other cord wrapped in a leather roll. There is a 14 inch tactical tomahawk with a 3.5 inch edge, a Viking hand axe on a 14 inch hickory handle, a blacksmith rounding hammer with a valknut engraved cheek on an American ash handle, and a set of six socketed spearheads from 5 to 9 inches in a canvas roll. The long blades run from Roman pugio daggers at 15 and 16 inches to Viking swords at 35 and 36 inches with Elder Futhark rows cut into the blade, arming swords at 37 and 38 inches with wheel and disc pommels, a katana at 40 inches, and a flame bladed longsword at about 42 inches. Prices run from 169 dollars to 529 dollars.
What to expect from it
A 1095 edge is tough and forgiving, which matters more on an axe or a chopper than a few extra points of hardness ever will. The cost is a surface that wants oil. Keep it dry, wipe it after handling, and do not store anything carbon steel in a damp leather sheath. Our page on steel and materials explains the heat treatment and what the hardness numbers mean in the hand, and the steel glossary is there for the terms that get thrown around loosely. To see the shapes rather than the alloy, the long blades are in Viking swords and the field knives are in hunting knives.
Ransack Viking is a US company based in Chicago, Illinois. These pieces are handmade in the Czech Republic, then imported, inspected and shipped from Chicago. Engraving is done in the US after arrival: text 19 dollars, symbol 39 dollars, family crest 49 dollars.
Free US shipping
On most pieces. Heavier and oversized ones carry a flat charge.
Hand Forged
Heated, hammered and ground by hand.
Engraving available
Names, dates or Norse runes on most pieces.
