[Johannes Zenker]

I finally got my 1796 LC repro by Windlass Steelcrafts in India and wanted to share my initial impressions.



Stats:

Weight: 819g (Sword) 822g (Scabbard)
OAL: 98cm (with scabbard) 95cm (sword only) 85cm (scabbard only)
Blade length: 83cm
Length of false edge: 30cm
Point of Balance: 19.5cm
Distal Taper: 8.45mm (base, in front of leather washer), 4.6mm (at PoB), 2.75mm (start of the false edge), 2.6mm (end of fuller), 2.25mm (start of hatchet tip), 2.05mm (2cm behind the point), 1.6mm (right behind the point)



Disclaimer: I do not own an original, never held an original. This is the only steel incarnation of a 1796 LC I've ever held. My knowledge of the original LC and its breadth of spectrum comes largely from videos by Matt Easton and Nick Thomas.

Buying and getting the sword into Germany.

I ordered the Windlass 1796 LC from The Knight Shop in the UK as soon as I got notified of their impending restock and it was shipped soon after that arrived. It unfortunately stayed in customs limbo for five weeks (probably due to it being sharpened without proof of age for the recipient being provided, and its status as new production being in doubt) before being passed on to my local customs office, where I picked it up personally without any further extraordinary issues. The Knight Shop responded fairly quickly to my messages about the package being stuck and started an inquiry when I prompted them after four weeks. This may have resulted in the package being released and moving on after week five.

The sword is 233 GBP on their website before tax, which is more than 200 GBP less than Cold Steel's 1796 replica. With shipping, customs and German VAT (to be paid upon import) I ended up paying just over 350€ for the sabre. That's less than I would have paid for the same product buying from Atlanta Cutlery Co. in the US before customs and taxes.

When I received the sword it was still heavily greased and there was no rust or other corrosion on the sword or the outside of the scabbard.

Impressions on the sword:

The hilt is solidly assembled, the end cap and the ears are well peened and smoothed afterwards. The ward iron seems well shaped and straight, with the caveat that one of the langets has a tiny "cut" perpendicular to the blade that goes about 1.5mm in.



As with the example that Kane Shen reviewed on Youtube, the back strap isn't perfectly centered, instead being slightly offset to the left. I don't see this as an ergonomic issue, especially as a right handed person it's better like this than the other way around. I do not know if this is a feature of originals, but it would not surprise me on a mass manufactured, state bought, trooper's weapon of war.

The leather, while not the highest quality, is well executed, firm on the grip and still nice and supple. There's a small ledge on the top between the front ferrule and the back strap, but since Roworth's manual at the time did not recommend the thumb grip (and the 1796 LC's hilt kinda is too small for this anyway), I don't see this as an issue either.



The blade is overall well shaped, with a few caveats.

1) From what I can tell, it starts relatively thin by the standards of the originals (which sometimes are over 9mm) and remains relatively thick in the foible (where originals often dip below 2mm at the end of the fuller). Thus it's a bit more forward-leaning than a some other LCs (both Windlass and originals), but also that it's a bit more rigid and less floppy. Since it's overall quite light, it does not at all feel cumbersome to me, which may partly be due to me training with the Blackfencer synthetic 1796LC beforehand, which is quite a brutish instrument.

2) There are a few spots where the edge's radius isn't perfect and flattens out for a section. I would consider this a relatively minor gripe and also something that could easily happen when swords were service sharpened.

3) There are scratches perpendicular to the blade that mar almost mirror polish. These likely happened either during sharpening or came from the scabbard. While not really something you'd want on an original sword, it's not something that detracts from it as a replica for me. I do like small artifacts in my swords. I likewise also do not mind the ripples and slightly wavy lines the blade's geometry and polish have.



4) It has a false edge. It shouldn't have a false edge, though I appreciate it having a false edge for the potential utility it provides.



The leather washer that came with the sword, as the review by Alientude, also on Youtube mentioned, was poor quality leather and not fitted to the blade. I tossed it and made my own from 2mm leather I had lying around.

The pronounced secondary edge bevel it came with is not particularly well done. It is a bit steep and, aside from the section at the hatchet tip, not particularly refined. It had also been substantially dulled from the scabbard, but more on that later.
Despite that it handled a large carton juice box with ease and also went through plastic bottles adequately. Didn't have any more targets available so far.

Impressions on the Scabbard:

The scabbard is externally quite nice. It has a satin finish, which indeed does attract fingerprints quite readily. The chape as well as the reinforcements for the attachment rings are brazed on with gold-colored solder. The throat insert is relatively tight in the scabbard and affixed with screws, as per the originals, though one of those apparently has already eaten its threads and came with the head slightly mangled.



I'd love to say it's a nice scabbard, but unfortunately it is not and it is hard to fix it as well. I was prepared for it not being great from Alientude's video, but ended up negatively surprised regardless.

From what I understand original scabbards had a wooden core inside the steel casing. The Windlass reproduction does not.
All it has are two slats of thin (0.5mm), flexible plastic held in at two points per side with double sided sticky tape. They serve to prevent contact between the sword and the scabbard and, since the sticky tape is layered so tall that the insert slats essentially touch where the tape sits, prevent the sword from rattling about in the scabbard.
Unfortunately they do nothing at all to prevent the edge from rubbing along the front of the scabbard, which had substantially diminished the factory edge after drawing it a few times.

Removing the throat and the slats, with the aim of putting in wood and leather inserts to improve this, also revealed a tremendous degree of brown rust on the inside walls of the scabbard. I did what I could to scrub some of it away and put in Ballistol as to keep it from deteriorating further, but it's not in great shape to begin with.

I did proceed to make an insert from wood, leather, duct tape and a few choice cuts from the plastic slats to guide the blade between the wood, which so far seems to hold up well and successfully prevent contact between edge and scabbard.

Overall I'd say it's a very interesting replica which nicely showcases how something that looks so brutish can actually be surprisingly nice in the hand.
For the price I paid I'd consider it good value, with the only significant drawback being the scabbard's very disappointing inner workings.
It's a fun sword for backyard cutting even with a damaged factory edge and I expect it to be excellent in that regard after repairing and honing the edge some more on a slack belt.
Since it's apparently rather close to an original in terms of handling, it's doubly useful for me, as I am currently studying contemporary British military swordsmanship and generally have a penchant for more substantial and weighty blades.

[Ulf Lidsman]

At Outfit4events its 260 Euro including shipping to Germany and no VAT (I don't work at O4E, just a happy customer).

[Johannes Zenker]

[Jean Thibodeau]

I know that the Cold Steel versions are said to be too heavy and handle like wrist breakers, but this for the earlier production ones, I could be wrong but the one I bought a few years ago may not match the handling of an original 1796 but mine is of a later production run and it does have considerable distal taper versus the early production run ones that I've heard, and not seen or handled, had little to no distal taper !?

Now, I haven't handled this new version by Windlass so I can't make a sure comparison of handling, and I've never handled an original 1796 either !

Not sure if the Cold Steel version always comes sharpened like mine was ? It was sharp only on the last half or third of the blade near the tip, and butter knife dull on the forte ? This could be an advantage in preventing edge damage in edge to edge parrying ? So, I don't know if all examples of the Cold Steel 1796 are sharpened this way or sharpened on the whole blade ?

As to the steel scabbard that came with my 1796 I fixed the dulling issue of taking out the sword and putting it back into the scabbard dulling the edge by glueing a small strip of hardwood on the edge side of the scabbard opening where the edge could rub on: This worked because the blade is just a touch narrower than the width of the scabbard opening, so there was room to glue/epoxy in a sliver of wood ..... No more edge scraping on metal scabbard !

I also wonder if the Cold Steel supplied scabbard might be usable with the Windlass 1796 assuming that the curve of the blade and width would be compatible with the scabbard ?

Cold Steel also has an 1796 option of a leather scabbard that might work, be compatible, with the Windlass 1796 improved distal taper version ?

Hope that this is helpful.

EDITED/Additional: Re-reading the original post I can see that a scabbard fix was done, I assume with some work, but successfully.

I also weighed my Cold Steel version and came up with nearly the same weight on a food scale of 28 oz or 793 grams !

Doesn't Windlass also make many of the swords trademarked as Cold Steel ??? So,my later production version of the 1796 seems pretty close in total weight to the now Windlass branded version directly from Windlass ?

My scabbard seems to have the same foam inserts, but my solution of a small splinter of hardwood at the lip of the scabbard seemed easier to do ? As to a lot of rust inside the scabbard shell I can't really tell with a flashlight ? But, even if the scabbard has internal rust it doesn't seem to be having any bad effect of rusting the blade.

[Johannes Zenker]

Yes, I've also heard that the Cold Steel recreation has been improved considerably in recent years. If the CS one is also made by Windlass it would thus make sense that those are now basically on par in terms of handling accuracy. Truth be told, your CS would be extremely light at 793g, mine's already very light for a trooper's version at 820g, though neither weight is unheard of.

If Windlass is making both, it would be interesting to see if there are actually any differences between the products or if you are simply paying a silly markup for the Cold Steel brand name, considering how it's more than twice the price.