A larp helmet has a harder job than a display piece. It has to fit over whatever you wear on your head, stay put when you move, survive a weekend outdoors, and not have anything on it that will catch or cut. That points at riveted steel with a padded liner and a chin strap rather than at anything moulded or glued.
What to wear
Steel is mild steel at 16 or 18 gauge. Eighteen gauge is the lighter of the two and covers most of what is here, which matters when you are wearing it for eight hours. The Norse shapes are three spectacle helmets with riveted eye guards, brass brow bands, Elder Futhark runes on one and a padded leather liner or liner ring on each, plus a nasal helm with a riveted dome and an Elder Futhark brow band, a rounded nasal helm with a knotwork browband, a pointed conical nasal helm with brass rivets and a valknut engraving, and a spangenhelm with a riveted brow band, leather liner and chin strap. The medieval end brings a visored helmet with a perforated bevor and a padded leather liner, and a 16 gauge great helm with a brass cross reinforce and a knotwork engraved band, which is the heaviest thing on the page and the one to try on before committing. Two kabuto with laced neck guards sit alongside them, and a blackened horned helmet for anyone whose character calls for it. Every one is riveted rather than pressed, which is what keeps a bowl in shape after it has been hit. Prices run from 289 dollars to 429 dollars.
Fit and the layer underneath
Measure your head over the padding you actually wear, because a liner eats an inch and a helmet that spins is worse than no helmet. Our notes on buying a helmet cover sizing and gauge. Most people need something under it and over the shoulders, and that is in brigandine and gambeson or in leather armour. The later European shapes have their own shelf in medieval helmets.
Ransack Viking is a US company based in North Babylon, New York. These pieces are handmade in the Czech Republic, then imported, inspected and shipped from New York.
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.
