Del Tin 16th Century German Hand and a Half Sword – Brown Grip

This 16th Century sword by Del Tin has a blade of well-tempered Chrome-Vanadium high carbon steel tempered to a hardness of 50 HRC. The blade is hexagonal in cross-section and it has a weight-reducing fuller extending from its base to about a third way up the blade.

The pommel and complex ring guard are cast from steel and finished with a darkened, antiqued finish. The grip is carved from hardwood and wrapped in tight brown leather with a spiralled riser beneath the leather for an enhanced grip.

This 16th century sword with its long, tapered blade that lends itself to the thrust. Piercing wounds are usually nowhere near as dramatic as grand cuts and hacks, but they are subtly deadly – a piercing wound is more likely to affect essential internal organs and they create a large amount of internal bleeding. These are wounds that are very difficult to treat, even with penetration of a mere handful of inches.

The deadliness of such weapons was well known, of course, in the late Medieval and Renaissance period, but the fact that many bladed weapons of the time were largely intended as thrusting weapons has much to do with the armor of the time. A man in plate armor will not be efficiently subdued by battering at him with a cutting or hacking sword, it will instead be a thinner blade fitted through the weaker points of his harness that will end the fight.

Despite its thrusting optimization, the sword retains enough meat at the tip and cutting portion to allow it to deliver substantial cuts. Its complex hilt of four rings not only gives excellent protection to the hands and forearms of the wielder, but they allow him to use the fingering technique of hooking a finger over the guard for better blade control without any fear or losing that finger in a bind.

The long grip of the sword gives the wielder plenty of leverage to counter and control the blade. Due to the tapered profile of the blade and the form of the grip, this sword is an agile and lively responder and much more dexterous than its size suggests.