Norvakt Hand Forged 51CrV4 Rondel Dagger Trainer with Two Discs & Riveted Blunting Plate | About 18 Inches Overall | Fluted Walnut Grip and Capped Point | Training Gift | RK-3021

This is a blunt training dagger, not a sharp one. The edge is not sharpened and the point is capped with a riveted steel plate. Photographs of a trainer can sometimes look like a sharp blade and buyers have asked us about this, so to be clear, this piece will not cut or stab. The exact edge and tip details are listed in the specifications table further down the page.

A rondel dagger is the sidearm of a man in full harness, and it is built around one job. Get inside, get a grip, and put a stiff point into a gap where the plate does not cover. The Norvakt is the training version of that piece: the same two discs, the same narrow stiff blade, the same fluted grip, with one important difference at the far end.

The point is capped. There is a steel blunting plate riveted through the end of the blade, which we would rather state at the top of the page than bury in a specification table. That plate is what makes it possible to drill the daga material against a partner at anything like realistic speed. It is not a rounded off point and it is not a dulled point. It is a plate, riveted, sitting over where the point would be.

Everything else is honest to the type. 51CrV4 spring steel at 49 to 52 HRC, a stiff narrow blade blunted on all sides, a disc at the hand, a disc at the butt and walnut fluted between them. If daggers are new to you, types of daggers sets out the family and what is HEMA explains the art it belongs to. It is listed with the rest of the dagger knives.

Specifications

The rondel dagger in Fiore and the armoured combat sources

Fiore dei Liberi opens the Flower of Battle, finished in 1409, with wrestling and then with the dagger, and he treats the two as one subject. The daga plays start from a grip or a seizure, not from a fencing measure. Someone comes at you with a dagger held over hand, sopra mano, or under hand, sotto mano, and the answer runs through the arm: the cover, the presa that takes the wrist or the elbow, the disarm, the counter to the counter, the throw. Fiore lays out nine masters of the dagger and the whole progression assumes a stiff blade and very close distance.

The German armoured sources point the same way. Harnischfechten, fighting in harness, ends at the dagger once the spear and the half sword have done their work, and the whole aim of the wrestling is to get a man onto the ground or onto one knee where his armour no longer answers for him. Then the point goes into the gaps that plate cannot close: under the arm, into the visor, behind the knee, at the throat above the gorget. A rondel has no edge worth speaking of because it does not need one. It has a disc at the hand so your grip does not slip forward under load, and a disc at the butt so you can drive the pommel with the palm of your other hand and put your body weight behind the thrust. Every feature is the answer to a specific problem.

The riveted blunting plate, the discs and where this is allowed

Say it plainly. The point of this dagger is capped with a steel blunting plate that is riveted through the blade. That is a fitting added over the end, not a point that has simply been ground round, and it is what takes the concentrated force out of a thrust and spreads it across a broad flat face. It is the right engineering for a piece whose entire tradition is about thrusting into somebody. The plate is a fitting, so it is covered by the lifetime warranty like every other fitting we make.

Now the part that a lot of sellers leave out. Rondel daggers are banned in the dagger event at London HEMA Open. That is a real rule at a real event, and it means nobody should sell you this as tournament legal without naming the ruleset that allows it. We are not going to name one, because the rules differ from event to event and change from year to year, and the only honest position is that you must read the gear requirements of the competition you intend to enter before you turn up with a rondel in your bag. What this dagger is good for is club drill, the Fiore daga plays, armoured combat practice and solo work, which is what most rondel training actually is. More on the wider picture in HEMA tournament gear rules.

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 Chicago, 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 balance point is published for this dagger. We have not measured it and a figure copied from elsewhere would help nobody. In the hand it is dense and short, with the mass sitting between the two discs rather than out at the point, which is what lets you hold it in an ice pick grip without the wrist arguing. The disc at the hand gives a hard stop so your fingers never ride onto the blade under pressure, and the disc at the butt gives your other palm a flat face to push against. The walnut is fluted rather than smooth, which sounds decorative and is not, since it keeps the dagger indexed in the hand when you cannot look at it. Switching between sopra mano and sotto mano is quick because the grip is symmetrical front to back.

Care

Short blades get neglected because they live in the bottom of a kit bag, and that is exactly where rust starts. Wipe the blade after every session and keep a thin film of oil on it. Check around the rivet at the blunting plate when you clean, since that is a fitting under repeated load and it wants an eye kept on it. Walnut is happier with an occasional wax than with oil soaking into it, and neither wood nor steel enjoys being sealed damp into a closed case overnight. Take burrs off the edge land with a fine file and keep the land flat. Do not sharpen a trainer under any circumstances. The rest of the 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 Chicago, Illinois 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. Walnut grain and colour differ on every grip, the fluting is cut by hand, and the two discs are dished and filed individually so their exact diameter and dish will vary slightly. The steel, the hardness range, the blunt edge land and the riveted blunting plate over the point are constant, and those are the parts that make it safe to work with.

Frequently asked questions

Whether this dagger is sharp

No. Every side is blunted to a flat land and the point itself is capped by a riveted steel plate. It is a training dagger and nothing about it is intended to cut.

Whether it can be used in a tournament

Not without checking, and often not at all. Rondel daggers are banned in the dagger event at London HEMA Open, and other events set their own rules. We will not describe this as tournament legal without naming a ruleset that allows it, so read the gear requirements of your own competition first.

What the blunting plate actually is

A steel plate riveted through the end of the blade, sitting over where the point would otherwise be. It spreads the force of a thrust across a broad face instead of concentrating it, and it is a fitting covered by the lifetime warranty.

Why the blade is stiff rather than flexible

Because a rondel is a thrusting piece used at grappling distance and a flexible blade would teach you the wrong thing about pressure and control. The safety in this design comes from the capped point and from controlled training, not from a bending blade.

Whether a sheath is included

No. This ships as a dagger only and no sheath is offered for it, which is normal across the training range.

Who this rondel suits

Anyone drilling the Fiore dagger material, clubs that teach armoured combat or abrazare, and longsword fencers who want to understand what happens after the sword is abandoned. It is sold to adults aged 18 and over.

What is in the box

• The Norvakt rondel dagger trainer, blunt, blade about 13 inches with the point capped
• 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 riveted plate and the walnut grip
• Your engraving already cut into the piece, if you chose one at checkout

Explore the range

Plenty more to see. The dagger knives shelf holds the rest of the short blades, the HEMA swords hub covers every trainer we make, the HEMA longswords are what the armoured sources reach for before the dagger comes out, and the engraved and personalised section shows what we can cut into a piece. Reading is at the guides hub.

Close to this one

The nearest pieces by size and handling are Vardholt hand and a half, about 47 inches overall, Hallvarn sharp bauernwehr, about 24 inches overall, Myrkvald longsword, about 47 inches overall and Storvekk kriegsmesser, about 44 inches overall.

The rest of the group is across the HEMA sword hub, and the custom sword builder takes a custom order.