Just got back from the medieval festival in Oslo where Steel Mastery from Ukraine were selling their stuff. I have ordered some minor items from them a few times and have always been impressed by the quality. Yesterday I had the opportunity to handle their gambesons, brigandines and helmets and now I'm even more impressed. Their prices are very low and the quality is very good. I ended up buying a brigandine at a very fair price and was utterly annoyed by my limited budget.

I also now understand why communicating via email can be challenging, their english is about as good as my russian ;-)

I also have a steel mastery brigandine. I've been doing SCA fighting in it, and I have to say I'm very happy with the level of protection afforded by the brig and the robust construction. Looks great, too.

while i like there stuff, their brigs always make me wonder. i don't know if its cause tehy look more like coats of plates than true 15th century brigs or what it is.

I have a custom made Gambison from them that I love and fits perfect. Their quality and price are excellent.

From what I could see they offered both coat of plates (numerous horizontally curved steel plates, wrapping around the back and buckled at the back) and a few flavours of brigandines. The brigandines were all buckled at the front or the sides. The basic look of either product was more or less the same (black wool, 3 rivets per attachment point) however the functionality was very different. They also have a pop-riveted version that somehow is more expencive.

Edit: attached a pic of my brig. Sorry about the headless knight phone cam quality. Surely money can buy a better brigandine. But for the price these are more than adequate both for being fairly authentic, being very solid and being extremely mobile.

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As I am fairly ignorant about brigandine, what in your mind could improve the historical accuracy of theirs?

Three other questions:

1) I noticed they offered two thickness options for their Visby armour- which seems to be a coat-of-plates, rather than brigandine. Their options for the cold rolled steel are 1.0 mm thick and 1.5 mm thick. Which is more historically appropriate?

2) The exterior for their "brigandine" can be wool, leather, deerskin, velvet or silk. Which of these is most historically accurate?

3) How flexible, and how mobile, is their Visby armour? It seems like their Brigandine with fastening on the sides might be significantly better for motions, particularly when practicing with a sword.

Veering slightly off topic, I recently bought a coat of plates from Wintertree Crafts. It fits beautifully, and while I am sure there are some elements that are not 100% historical, its fir and general design are much closer. All of the plates overlap, and the side plates are curved to actually conform to the body where it wraps around.

The fit is hugely important though. When i first put it on, I can feel the weight on my shoulders, but as soon as it is tied and buckled on the back, the weight pulls in and then disappears. I can wear it comfortably for hours, and it hampers my movement less than my fencing jacket (although admittedly some of that is to do with the arms).

Additionally, I have worn it with a mail hauberk, and the coat of plates pulled the mail into my body and took up its weight as well. This was just a lightweight shark-mail hauberk, but the benefit was still immediately noticeable. I look forward to doing this with a heavier hauberk when I can get my hands on one.

Here's a video of me fighting in it:

http://www.youtube.com/user/OttawaSwordplay?f...nwsnEaY5Xk

I agree to many of the points above and they should be valid for a museum replica. However, they look far better in real life than on the pictures. Mine is very tight. It does not show in my picture but the waistline is well tailored and well defined. There is no restriction of movement whatsoever. I am fairly slim though, maybe the Ukrainan models actually are barrel shaped ;-)
Once strapped in I can not feel it's wheight at all.
All plates overlap, everywhere.

Anyways, at that price it can never be a museum replica so I'm going to ignore it's shortcomings. I don't do much reenacting but for my use it's a good compromize. It's inexpensive, it looks good (I think), it does not interfere with my mobility and it actually protects me when fencing. I have a background from history studies and I do agree that reenactment / living history have a responsibility for being authentic. For soft kits, no problem. However I feel for hardware (and proper padded garments) thats not very realistic. I can not afford to pay 10 times the price for a slightly better product and I do not have the skills or time to make my own armour. So in my case I'd rather see a army of 100 happy bashers in fairly good representations of medieval armour than 10 people in really expencive museum replicas standing around discussing the molecular structure of their armour (this actually happens ...).