specifically im thinking about the ones they have that are around the 50-70USD mark, worth noting im mostly having it for the odd backyard cutting session against bottles and newspaper rolls plus whatever dicking about i can come up with

just trying to see if anyones got experience with them so i know what im getting myself into especially things like sharpness.

They used to have a decent reputation as low cost cutters. The fittings will be pretty bad but the blades themselves seem alright. Obviously, it probably wont have super accurate geometry but good enough for some enthusiast backyard cutting.

I bought a few about 2 years ago. I thought they were pretty good for what I paid for them. I think they were $39 each. The only thing they didn't have was the fake hamon line. They came sharp enough to do light cutting with, and they held their edges fine against water bottles, but soaked newspaper rolls seemed to dull the edges really fast. Then I took to using one to hit bricks and there was some really bad edge damage (some half inch nicks). The hilt fittings are pretty bad, though the tsubas aren't too bad, and the handles split apart on me after some mild use.

I do think they're worth it for a cheap backyard cutter. You'll have to resharpen it after cutting with it enough, and you'll need to replace the handle if you want to use it more than a few times, but I think they're worth the money.

The Musashi company has kinda sorta stratified it's offerings. most of the ~$50-70 USD swords are now marked/marketed as Musha but are the same as they were 3-9 years ago. This thread has me mulling over picking up one of their blades in shirasaya for the lordly sum of $50. Another company going as Makoto makes a lot of similar swords at the same price points, but besides amazon revues being relatively positive who knows as to their quality. It could simply be a piggybacker selling pigiron or another/the same company selling swords from the same source forges.